Meet the Co-op Leaders podcast

Taryn Lane’s remarkable journey has seen her experience the power of co-operation across the world. Working in indigenous women’s co-operatives in Mexico, Guatemala and Timor-Leste, she witnessed first-hand how solidarity and leadership were key elements of rebuilding in post-war cultures.

Harnessing this knowledge and experience has seen Taryn make a significant impact in her work at Victorian co-op Hepburn Energy, which is a pioneering organisation in the renewable energy sector. Discover how Taryn’s empowering approach to leadership has seen this small but mighty co-op consistently punch above its weight – not just in the provision of renewable energy, but in mobilising grassroots support and making itself heard in the political realm.

Listen above or via your favourite podcast platform.

Darlene Mattiske-Wood began her career in nursing, where she saw first-hand how high-quality care impacts people and their communities. After finding her home in mutual banking, Darlene rose through the ranks to become CEO of Australian Military Bank, where she has combined her heart for seeing communities thrive with her business and leadership acumen.

Darlene’s story is one of resilience and determination, and her journey demonstrates what a CEO can achieve when they are truly aligned to the core principles of the organisation they lead. In this episode of Meet the Co-op Leaders, Darlene shares the secrets to her success at Australian Military Bank and how she empowers her team members. Discover how she has learned to work to her strengths, to cultivate a culture of co-operation among team members, and to actively seek to meet the unique needs of the bank’s members.

Listen below or via your favourite podcast platform.

Heidi Lee, Director and former Chair of Common Equity Housing Ltd (CEHL) in Victoria, is on a mission to transform the housing sector through championing co-operative models of housing.

Part of what drives her as a leader is her own journey into co-operative housing, where she discovered a business model aligned to her personal values. Discover how this lived experience informs Heidi’s work to address some of the big housing challenges facing everyday Australians.

Listen above or via your favourite podcast platform.

Our second episode of this new podcast features Lynne McLennan, former CEO of UFS Dispensaries and stalwart of Australia’s Friendly Pharmacies movement.

During her long tenure as CEO, Lynne oversaw the expansion of UFS into new markets and opportunities, in particular the government contracting space. Lynne shares her wisdom surrounding the importance of data-driven decision making and the need to maintain a member-first approach to setting the culture of an organisation – a philosophy that enabled UFS to step up and care for its community during the pandemic. Discover why being mutually-minded meant UFS was able to act decisively and act in the best interest of the community during the recent healthcare crisis.

Listen above or via your favourite podcast platform.

Meet the Co-op Leaders is a chance to hear from innovative and inspiring leaders in the co-operative and mutual sector, and to hear the stories behind these remarkable organisations.

Our first episode features Paul Ranson, CEO of leading Tasmanian mutual bank, Bank of us, which has been going strong for over 150 years.

Paul talks about how to build a culture of modernity and innovation in the fast-changing, competitive world of banking, through courage, conviction and sticking to your original purpose, helping people into their own homes.

Listen above or via your favourite podcast platform.

Meet the Co-op Leaders is a chance to hear from innovative and inspiring leaders in the co-operative and mutual sector, and to hear the stories behind these remarkable organisations.

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Links and resources:

• Listen to all podcasts
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• Contact the Meet the Co-op Leaders Podcast team

Melina Morrison (MM): I’m Melina Morrison, CEO of the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals. Welcome to Meet the Co-op Leaders, the podcast series that features insightful conversations with the people leading our most innovative and inspiring co-op and mutual businesses. Co-ops and mutuals are the businesses owned by members rather than shareholders. They’re all around us, and they include some of our biggest brand names. In fact, 80% of us are a member of at least one co-operative or mutual but most of us don’t even know that. In an age of putting purpose before profits, it’s more important than ever to learn about the original people-centred business model. So we’re bringing the leaders to you to tell you in their own words what makes this a better way to do business. My co-pilot in this new series is co-operative developer Antony McMullen. Antony is the founder of Co-operative Bonds, a worker-owned business that was set up to help other people learn to form co-operatives. Over the next series, Antony and I will be bringing you a new conversation with a co-op leader every couple of weeks to lift the lid on this incredible business model.

Antony McMullen (AM): Good day, Melina, for this episode of Meet the Co-op Leaders. I was fortunate to talk to Taryn Lane, who I’ve spoken with previously. She’s a real inspiration. She manages Hepburn Energy. They’re doing really good things as a co-op, working the community-led solutions around climate change and transition.

(MM): It’s such an important subject. There’s a real urgency in working towards a just energy transition, and it’s wonderful to see the co-operative sector stepping up and taking a leading role in this space.

AM: Yes, the clock is ticking, unfortunately, and yes a very inspiring co-op, inspiring other co-operative projects across the country. The thing I love about Hepburn is that they’ve got such a strong sense of purpose. They have really strong relationships with everyone stakeholders, NGO partners, the government and of course their members, the core of what they’re on about in their community.

MM: Sounds fantastic, let’s have a listen, Antony.

AM: Well, I thought we could sort of kick things off, going back in time for you, Taryn. So you’re managing Hepburn Energy, which has a reasonably high profile, particularly in Victoria, but going back a bit, you started studying in international community development, sustainability, social change and you worked for many years now. I was surprised and really intrigued that you spent many years working with Indigenous communities in Guatemala, Mexico and Timor-Leste so my question is, what did all of this teach you about co-operation and co-ops?

Taryn Lane (TL): Yes, great, yes, it seems like a whole other lifetime ago. But yes, I did work with Indigenous women’s co-operatives for seven years in those countries that you mentioned, but also with an Australian-based research co-operative for five years during the same period. So, you know, I’ve now been in energy for going on 13 years and that was a couple of years overlap and I was doing international development while still studying. So I’ve very much been in the co-op sector internationally and locally for 20 years now. And overseas, I guess I really got to see the role of micro co-operatives and women’s empowerment. And then with the research organisation, I got to see the role of umbrella co-ops and how they can actually work to support a network of research groups and publications. And I guess these experiences just really shaped my worldview. I got to see in East Timor in particular that where I was primarily based, how co-ops could really facilitate that value of solidarity that you’re touching on earlier. I guess in post-war societies, which, you know, the Mexican communities, the Guatemalan and Timor-Leste communities, they were all post-war societies and solidarity really is like a premium value for women in those contexts. And the micro co-ops also facilitated a pathway for cultural revival for those communities through, you know, practices like natural dyeing and textile weaving and micro-credit so, you know, they could do agricultural practices.  I guess, you know, co-operatives can really mimic and formalise cultural practices that are collaborative in their nature. So you know how communities need to work together to make big change and how to keep the benefits locally in their communities. So yes, I really, I learnt a lot from that period for sure.

AM: So what does solidarity mean to you, out of that experience of working with those communities?

TL: In Timor-Leste, they actually have their own this community I worked in for seven years, they actually have their own, I guess, dialect version of that word, which is culturally and they used it a lot in I guess for guerrilla warfare when they were sort of, you know, fighting against the Indonesian occupation. This very far east area of East Timor was never fully taken. There’s a lot of genocide. A lot of the men in particular were killed but the women really survived in the forest for 24 years with this principle of fully die die, which means solidarity, but it’s probably got more depth than solidarity. It also means things like alternative economic systems and things like that. So I guess I learnt their version of solidarity, but also yes, got to see how solidarity works more broadly, being an international person, working in that sort of development context as well, where there’s this strong local leadership and how you can act in solidarity to support them, to reach their ambitions and local goals.

AM: Yes, wow going from Timor-Leste and that sort of grassroots survival solidarity, have these sorts of values that we’ve been talking about, inform actual sort of day-to-day coalface working in a co-op and mutual in the Australian context?

TL: Yes, sure, I guess for me the overarching principle is that I’m really passionate about appropriate community development and community-led development. So in our current context, in the Hepburn Energy context, it’s really about community-led climate transitions so that I guess that co-op principle of concern for community is really fundamental to how we shape our activities. We see our wind farm as a community asset. We make it accessible for the community and we are there to sort of support our community to transition to zero-net emissions, you know, things like our board, you know, as all boards are in the sector, they’re all members as well. So they really feel, you know, the challenges and successes alongside our members. You know, for me as an employee, I’m also a member. And yes, it’s exciting to be part of an organisation that values its staff and that kind of, I guess allows us to be innovative in how we prioritise our community and how we seek to achieve energy justice locally.

AM: We’ve touched on how Hepburn Energy works, so feel free to talk a little bit more about that but also where are you heading, you know, in your community in terms of community energy?

TL: Yes, sure, I’m so, I mean, maybe a little bit of background for people is we are distributive co-op with over 2,000 members. We’re located in Leonards Hill just south of Daylesford and we’ve been operating for over a decade so we provide clean, you know enough clean power to offset the local consumption of Daylesford, our main nearby town. And where I guess we’re unusual in that we’re a 100% community owned and operated and we are very proudly also an all-women run wind farm. And of course we work with a number of commercial service providers who deliver things like operations and maintenance for our turbines, our retailing services, and we have a benefit sharing model as well where we run at what we call an impact fund and do a range of programs and projects through that impact fund. And then I guess, you know, where are we going next? We launched a master plan and strategy and I guess collective network in our local government area called Hepburn said net in 2019, which is our community shared goal to reach zero-net emissions by 2030 and to be the first local government area in Australia to do so. So under that umbrella we run a bunch of projects and programs like bulk buys for solar batteries, electric vehicles, heat pump, hot water. We’re rolling out an electric vehicle-charging network in our shire. We’ve got a community battery program, energy audits and things like that and then on a very kind of site-based perspective so where the physical turbines are actually located at our farm, we are adding planning to add a solar and battery facility up there. So we’ve just recently secured our planning permit approval for that. So that’s also why we’re changing from Hepburn Wind to Hepburn Energy is to reflect this growth. And I guess probably for, you know, for the sector, for the community energy sector, everything that we do, we do under Creative Commons, intellectual property it is completely usable and transferable. We’re not there to sort of do it for every community, but we’re happy to kind of pilot things and then release all the IP around that. And we are a certified social enterprise under Social Traders and also a certified B-corp.

AM: Well, ticking all the boxes and making a huge contribution to the local community and to others in other parts of Australia, but also globally by sharing your IP. I mean that’s not often heard of in terms of regular mainstream businesses. In terms of this bigger picture around, you know, we’re all getting a bit freaked out by climate change, or at least I am with the bushfires and the floods and just seems to be getting worse. And there are a lot of political instability in the world. And it’s interesting you go back to your background where you were doing that international community development. I’m just wondering whether you have any sort of reflections or things to say around how co-operation can make a bit of a positive difference to the world.

TL: And I mean, I think that’s why I’m still, you know, working at Hepburn Energy, you know, after 12, 13 years as well. So, you know, I really protect my work with the grassroots because I can see what we’re able to achieve locally. And I think Kaleena Murray and I are all experiencing what a really small organisation can do politically through advocacy, community-wise through our support programs to reduce emissions. And then I think more broadly, what you’re touching on in regards to giving our community hope as well. You know, we have a plan to transition. We’ve got a whole bunch of programs that support that transition to occur in a socially just way and we want to retain and, you know, I guess grow the benefits of that locally as well. So yes, we are really seeing that in our experience and, you know, I think we’re also the product of all of our positive long-term relationships that we have with corporate partners that provide discounted services to us and really cooperate with us to ensure that, you know, services are bespoke for us because we are a little bit of an unusual operator in the space. And I believe that they really enjoy interacting with us as well as a different model. So yes generally our relationships are really long-term with different service providers as well.

AM: Well, I just really enjoyed that conversation.

MM: What a fascinating journey Taryn has had in leading her to this role.

AM:  Yes, look, she saw the power of co-operation very early on and, you know, each leader brings with them something special. And this sort of activist background that Taryn has has really served her well as she’s developed within the mutual movement and making a difference around energy. Such a huge concern for all of us in Australia and globally, but always working at the grassroots, at the community level, which is, it was really part of the early professional formation.

MM: Thanks, Antony. I’m excited to see where the future takes Hepburn Energy and the model they’ve developed. I’ll be catching you next time and I think you might be speaking to an old friend and colleague, Rowan Dowland of Bank Australia.

AM: Yes, Rowan of Bank Australia, for many years a leader in that organisation. It was recorded when he was still working with the bank. He’s since in retirement, so-called retirement, but he’s doing lots of interesting things within the co-operative and mutual movement, a little bit more of a global scale, but it was really important to have a discussion with him so he could reflect on his experience in the co-op movement and Bank Australia has got a really good story to tell. He’s played a huge part in the development of Bank Australia, such a high profile bank. A lot of people think, oh, ethical bank, oh yes, that’s Bank Australia. He’s played a really big part in that. So it was great to have a conversation with him.

MM: Right, can’t wait for the next episode. Thanks for listening to this episode of Meet The Co-op Leaders. To learn more about the purpose and incredible variety of co-operatives and mutuals, please visit our website bccm.coop that’s coop. As the original social business, co-operatives and mutuals offer genuine solutions to some of the most significant challenges in the world today. So if you’ve enjoyed today’s conversation, please share it with your friends and colleagues so that they can learn more about the co-operative difference. And remember, in a world of crisis and uncertainty, we will always be stronger together. I’m Melina Morrison and I look forward to seeing you next time on Meet the Co-op Leaders.

Melina Morrison (MM): I’m Melina Morrison, CEO of the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals. Welcome to Meet the Co-op Leaders, the podcast series that features insightful conversations with the people leading our most innovative and inspiring co-op and mutual businesses.

(MM): Co-ops and mutuals are the businesses owned by members rather than shareholders. They’re all around us and they include some of our biggest brand names. In fact, 80 per cent of us are a member of at least one co-operative or mutual, but most of us don’t even know that. In an age of putting purpose before profits, it’s more important than ever to learn about the original people-centred business model. So we’re bringing the leaders to you, to tell you in their own words what makes this a better way to do business.

MM: Hi Antony, it’s great to be here with you again for another episode of Meet the Co-op Leaders. Who have we got today?

AM: Darlene Mattiske-Wood, she’s the CEO of Australian Military Bank, and she’s going to be talking about her work. She’s a very strong, very focussed leader.

MM: Leadership is so important in setting the culture of an organisation. Good leadership is so valuable, isn’t it?

AM: Yep, Melina, and I really enjoyed hearing how she aligns her leadership with the principles of mutuality and co-operation, which is what this whole series of podcasts is about.

MM: Sounds great, Antony, let’s have a listen.

AM: Welcome Darlene.

AM: Darlene and I met online and we had a really great conversation, and I found out lots about Darlene. And it’s interesting when I’ve had these pre interviews, sometimes people are very much focused on their enterprise and sometimes you get a bit more of a view of the whole person and Darlene’s that that sort of person. So we’re going to start from a little bit of the personal to the professional, Darlene, with my first question.

AM: So I learned that in your twenties you were bringing up daughters on your own and you were balancing study commitments. So when you’re in your twenties, what did you learn from that time and what have you brought from that time into your later career?

DMW: Thank you, that’s a really broad question and there’s probably three or four things that I learned fairly early on. But I actually married very young and had my two daughters when I was sort of pretty much a teenager. Came from a very sheltered background. My first career was in nursing, but in my early twenties, I actually went through an accident. I had an injury and also went through a marriage break up and so I was raising my two daughters on my own, while I went back to study. And I think that because I was so young, they were times when I didn’t believe I couldn’t do something. So there’s something about, as we get older often we have things that define us that are outside of us in terms of expectations and not just our upbringing but I suppose how others define success for us or barriers. And so because I was quite young, I think I learned how resilient I am and it’s amazing what you can achieve when you just don’t believe you can’t. So when I say to people my original career’s is in nursing and I’m now CEO of Australian Military Bank, people usually say well that’s interesting, you know, how did that happen and it was very much a journey.

DMW: But really I think at the outset I learned not to accept the barriers, I guess, that others place on me or to be defined by that. By others’ view of success of me.

DMW: There were times when I just didn’t know I couldn’t do something because someone said. You know, I would have been surprised if people said oh, well, you can’t do this, you can’t do that, because I was just basically drawing on myself and finding that strength within and that really led me to actually understand that I needed to focus on my strengths first.

DMW: And you don’t have to be good at everything or do everything brilliantly all at once. But what I learned is that when you lead with your strengths, your weaknesses are actually picked up and bridged along the way. If you try to actually bridge the weaknesses and the things you can’t do first off, you dilute your strengths and then it becomes harder to really shine. When you put your strengths on steroids, success ultimately finds you. And because I was very attuned to, I suppose, I had a strong social responsibility ever since I was quite young and then into nursing and then when I went back to study, I was really gravitating towards structures of organisations and organisational design and strategy and the sort of human side of business. And I really found that the values aligned to mutuality were aligned to me for those reasons.

DMW: But what was profoundly, I suppose, important in terms of my journey and my success was that I learned to know myself. And really knowing yourself, leading yourself and leading others is the foundation of leadership. And every area of our life is marked by relationships and people have always fascinated me and I knew that it would be important that I cultivated my ability with people. And so I studied personality profiling and did a lot in that space and then that led to understanding how communities create success, how organisations and groups work together to create success. But it was really this focus and leading with my strength in that space and that focus that had the biggest impact on my success throughout my career.

AM: That’s a great great way of kicking off our discussion. Now you’re the CEO of the military bank, the Australian Military Bank. For those that may not know much about it, can you tell us a little bit about it and how it how it serves members?

DMW: Sure. So Australia Military Bank is a member owned bank and has been bonded to the Defence Force since 1959 with nearly 60,000 members and customers across Australia. So the bank’s target market includes just over 92,000 full-time personnel and active Reservist, supported by the Department of Defence and several other civilian agencies as well. The entire Defence community includes serving but also those veterans’ family members and these extended support agencies. That’s around 1.3 million Australians who are associated with helping communities and supporting international operations in the Defence. We have 19 branches, six kiosks that operate predominately on military basis across Australia. We’re one of three banks that also has the Defence Housing Contract to support the Defence community.

DMW: Our mission really is about our members, and we’re focused on building a value proposition that is tailored to our members’ unique journey and career, and this is often quite different to the average career, because serving members can be posted overseas, interstate, away from the family or in a remote locations such as on a ship. Being bonded doesn’t mean we don’t serve the broader market, it means that we’re focused on our target market. And our sustainability and differentiation is really about tailoring everything that we do to support the entire Defence community in the products we deliver, using the channels that support our members, and what they need when they need it. So we deliver the same products and services as the big banks in terms of personal lending and mortgages and also full deposit products. However, we’re not a commercial bank in terms of you know, we don’t attempt to try to deliver to commercial business and that sort of thing. Some of our members do have their own small business and that sort of thing, but we’re very much about understanding our target market, how they live and what they need, and making sure that we are very targeted to support them and that’s our sustainability and differentiation.

AM: When we had a discussion last week, you mentioned to me, here’s a phrase “the beauty of mutuality” – which really struck a chord with me. I hadn’t heard that before and I’m just wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about that, about “the beauty of mutuality”.

DMW: I guess what it brings together for me. I find co-ops and mutuals are sort of like you’re joining, I suppose, your own community in many ways, if it aligns with your values. I joined a mutual bank, and I thought, I’d come in from a sort of fairly commercial environment and then prior that quite international work, and I thought that I’d be there for a year. But you know here I am, nearly 20 years later, I’m still in the mutual sector because it isn’t like, you know the big banks and that very sort of more commercial environment. But it’s commercial in the concept of using the human as the first point of principle, so mutuality is about communities helping communities for sustainability.

DMW: And that’s where I think mutuality, you know, there’s a beauty to that because it’s about the human. So for me in a world that’s increasingly uncertain, the concept of the human is more important than ever, and the concept of people banding together for the greater good of the community is how positive change happens. So if you look at climate risk, there are so many examples of people helping each other through disaster recovery, or to regenerate the environment following disasters, and that’s really the power of the human which draws on mutuality. And you look at Yarra Valley – what happened in Yarra Valley with the fires and the amount of effort and the way in which the community in many areas banded together to regenerate that environment, you know, there’s so many amazing stories and it’s really about that. It has so much to do with the human spirit, you know. And I know that even in the flood environment, you know, it was a mutual bank that was there actually getting cash to people because cards weren’t working. You know in the floods that happened in Toowoomba and everywhere. So, it’s about what’s human, what does the human need and often you have that capacity to extend to the human without even thinking ‘are we going to make money out of this?’ I mean, you’ve got to be viable, you’ve got to be consistently looking at viability, but you’re doing that from what’s happening with the human first.

DMW: So mutuality isn’t a soft approach to commercial, it’s a human approach. And when you focus on how people live and where the greatest issues are for people and communities, you create a bond and this allows you to deliver what the member or the customer needs as the as the focus first, rather than what you can obtain from them. And this is why mutuals have the best customer advocacy results. It’s about the collective greater good and harnessing the energy of people. There’s a lot of examples throughout history where amazing things have actually been achieved because people came together and made it happen. And that’s why I say, you know, there’s a beauty to that concept of mutuality.

AM: Creating a bond. That’s another phrase I really like.

AM: So if we’re looking forward a bit in terms of the future of mutuality, how can communities support each other, in the turbulent environment that we’re all experiencing?

DMW: Yeah. Yeah, I think the challenge often is to sort of look beyond the barriers that are there, that are defined for us. But there’s two ways, I think, and I’ll give one as a specific example for banking but I’ll give a broader one which is an example of an insurance company working on facilitating safe communities and what mutuals can do is to play that facilitation role. And so if I think about this example, this particular insurance company that actually was looking at a community that needed to really actually increase their safety measures in that community, because they had some high insurance claims, and so there was a joint objective. The objective for the insurance company, which was a commercial insurance company by the way, not a mutual but this is just a wonderful example of acting outside of your license to operate, and what they did was they actually facilitated the community working on being safer.

DMW: So setting up, playing the role to actually find a venue, getting people together to work on how they could actually make their community safer. And the spin-off for that is that it actually reduced their insurance claims as well. So it empowered the community, the community felt safer and they felt that they were in control. So it’s looking beyond just ‘how do we get a profit?’ or ‘how do we actually deliver our products?,’ to ‘what does this actual community need?’ And you know, there’s some great stuff being done by the likes of Bank Australia and others in this space around ESG and the environment.

DMW: But another one is when I’m talking to Defensive Administration, I’m not just looking at ‘how can we help you with your banking products?’, I talk to them about what’s going on with the Defence Force. What are the issues that Defence Administration are faced with in terms of our members and also the issues they have in actually keeping people in active service or in the Defence Force? And you know, one of those is a very high divorce rate. So what I do is have a team look at how can we run some human centred design and find out how can we actually support in this space? And so one of the areas is that this disconnection, when someone’s actually deployed or they’re working away from their family, actually contributes to the divorce rate. So we’re looking at how we can actually, in the backend, support someone who’s deployed away and can’t get their family, to be able to actually plug in dates and have flowers sent and things like that, messages. And that’s about us combining with external stakeholders, [AM: Yeah] to support our members. And so it’s looking at what’s actually specifically happening for these human beings and these people and this community. And you know, I don’t have a background in military, you know, I don’t think I’ve even been in a tank, you know. You don’t have to actually know a lot about that particular industry to enmesh yourself in what’s happening for them and what they need. And so I think that you know, that’s how communities can actually support each other.

DMW: And the other area around banking, I just thought I’d quickly mention is that there’s a really big issue in the banking environment for mutuals. Not the big banks, but in mutuals scale is a problem. We have to be able to deliver the same quality of products and services to the same standard channels that the big banks do. Because the average person, we’re fortunate we’re bonded, but the average person is looking for a bank that’s going to actually align to their values or their particular bond like we have, but if you don’t have that then really what you’re looking at doing is closing your branches to reduce your cost to income, to create money to then deliver to members, but that then detracts from the human concept. So, mutual banks can actually band together to create joint ventures and create scale to deliver things that are commercial in the commercial competition space. There’s so much that can be done through collaboration, but it does take looking outside of the square, but that’s where some of the things I think that can be done in this space.

AM: That’s such a lovely example that you just talked about. It’s really focusing on the humanity of the members that you have and walking through the door.

MM: Wow, that was an absolutely masterclass in organisational leadership! It’s a great example of a person-centred mutual that’s truly responsive to the needs of its members.

AM: Well, that’s what we do in the co-op and mutual movement, and that’s what we can do with our model. We can go beyond the work of just being a bank, or some other kind of business, and go beyond to just focus on members. And really those Defence force members get more than just a good banking service. The focus is on them and their development as part of that community. I found it very inspiring.

wMM: Well that’s the beauty of the mutual model, isn’t it – it’s the organisation being there, not to make a profit for shareholders, but to act in the best interests of its members. Thanks Antony, I’m really looking forward to the next episode! So who’s your guest going to be?

AM: It’ll be Taryn Lane of Hepburn Energy.

MM: Excellent – they are doing wonderful things in the renewable energy space. I look forward to hearing more.

MM: Thanks for listening to this episode of Meet the Co-op Leaders. To learn more about the purpose and incredible variety of co-ops and mutuals, please visit our website www.bccm.coop. That’s C-O-O-P.

MM: As the original social business, co-operatives and mutuals offer genuine solutions to some of the significant challenges in the world today. So if you’ve enjoyed today’s conversation, please share it with your friends and colleagues so that they can learn more about the co-operative difference. And remember, in a world of crisis and uncertainty, we will always be stronger together.

MM: I’m Melina Morrison, and I look forward to seeing you next time on Meet the Co-op Leaders.

Melina Morrison (MM): I’m Melina Morrison, CEO of the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals. Welcome to Meet the Co-op Leaders, the podcast series that features insightful conversations with the people leading our most innovative and inspiring co-op and mutual businesses.

(MM): Co-ops and mutuals are the businesses owned by members rather than shareholders. They’re all around us and they include some of our biggest brand names. In fact, 80 per cent of us are a member of at least one co-operative or mutual, but most of us don’t even know that. In an age of putting purpose before profits, it’s more important than ever to learn about the original people-centred business model. So we’re bringing the leaders to you, to tell you in their own words what makes this a better way to do business.

(MM): My co-pilot in this new series is co-operative developer Antony McMullen. Antony’s founder of Co-op Bonds, a worker-owned business that was set up to help other people learn to form co-operatives. Over the next series, Antony and I will be bringing you a new conversation with a co-op leader every couple of weeks to lift the lid on this incredible business model.

MM: Hi Antony, who have you got for us on today’s episode of Meet the Co-op Leaders?

AM: We have Heidi Lee. At the time of this interview, Heidi was the Chair of Common Equity Housing Limited, known as CEHL. Heidi is still a director of CEHL.

AM: CEHL is a housing association, and that housing association has as members co-operatives. Co-operatives are providing social housing right across the state of Victoria in Australia. It’s a really worthwhile conversation. As we know, we’ve got a housing crisis in Australia, so I think a lot of people will want to listen.

MM: Co-op housing is a really important topic – as you say, the model has got a lot to offer in terms of our current housing crisis.

AM: It sure does and Heidi brings to her role a lot of excitement. There’s a bit of a renaissance going on, new ways of thinking about co-operative housing, which really grew and it sort of then plateaued. Now we are thinking about growth again. Let’s have a listen to Heidi and see what she has to say.

AM: Hi, Heidi.

HL: Hi, Anthony.

AM: Heidi, you’re the chairperson of Common Equity Housing Ltd., which is a huge social housing provider in Victoria. And you’re sort of also part of that in a special kind of way which we explore in our discussion. What personally drew you to the co-operative area and your interest in this co-operative model?

HL: Like so many others in Australia and around the world, I discovered co-op hiding in plain sight. I had heard about this a co-housing model where basically a block of flats where people were getting together and they were going to share resources like cars and shared gardens and shared childcare and kind of live more sustainably. And I like that, that’s for me, I love the sound of that sort of social, environmental. That sounds amazing.

HL: And I moved in. It was it was really, really quite challenging to, like, jump through all these hoops. And I got to move into this place. And I lived there for about eight years with my family, raised my children there. In the beginning, doing the maintenance work and running the finances and these other parts of like living in community, kind of just slipped under my radar because, like, that’s just the way that things were done.

HL: But what I’d actually joined was a housing co-op, and one of the joys of being part of a housing culture, I wouldn’t say I didn’t know it, I knew it, but it wasn’t really like the heart and soul reason for joining this community and moving into this place. But one of the, one of the plus sides, I think, to living in a place that is, where a co-op is being run, is that co-op members and people who are interested in this topic, they physically come in and join you. They come to your doorstep and knock on and say hello and you have events and you get to be a hub for this kind of conversation like we’re having today. We get to be a hub for this and share this with people who are local or people who travel from actually all around the world to come and see this place that we were making.

HL: That has been, you know, just a quiet, incredible introduction to co-op. And for me, it was actually finding a co-op as a kind of business solution, like a mechanics, a way of trading and transacting that actually really resonated with my my personal values. And it was actually from that from that living in a place which was doing a lot of other co-operation and collaboration and sharing, but then underpinning it was this, this business model, and you know, I was a director of a co-op and and doing a lot of things from that.

HL: So like so many others, I kind of found co-op, find myself in the middle of a co-op by accident, but really used that as a chance to then say, well, where else is this hiding? And you know, of course, I found the bank, Bank Australia, and, you know all these other ways of like embedding co-op in my life in other ways because it is, I think, such an important way to kind of walk the talk.

AM: Yeah. Yeah. And it just it feels it, when you think about it, we all rely on relationships and we’re thinking more local, we’re going to local shops, and we’re, the importance of connection with people in our local community has just become front of mind for a lot of people and the co-op model, I think, just really kind of just fits with that really well.

AM: You’re member of a housing co-op, you’ve mentioned, and you’re Chair, as was mentioned before, of a housing association, Common Equity Housing in Victoria. So that must give you a bit of a unique perspective and maybe in terms of housing, you talk about co-housing and how that works, but what do you reckon makes it special and and contribute something to the community and the economy.

HL: So I think the way housing co-op works, like a housing co-op is basically a landlord that exists for the purpose of renting to its members. So it’s just a landlord that rents housing to members and it can be all sorts of different things all around the world. So some co-ops like the co-op I live in, they actually have a parent company that kind of backs them financially and holds all the titles to all the properties and all that kind of stuff.

HL: And a lot of co-ops, when you living in your house and you’re doing your landlord new tenant thing, like that’s kind of enough. Like that’s a big difference from a regular housing environment that’s quite different. But in a, in my housing co-op, we have the, you know, the quiet backup behind us, this company and that company is Common Equity Housing.

HL: So one of the ways that, you know, I contribute to my co-op is, you know, it’s basically I sweat equity part of my rent kind of thing, you know, like I, I contribute to the maintenance and the finance management and membership and all that kind of stuff. This is me just living in my co-op and I think that, you know, there can be a sense when you first hear the story of a housing code, like there’s some kind of conflict of interest there. Like, how do you resolve the interest between like, you know, allowing errant, like members like look after myself thing and this collective like how do you look after the co-op?

HL: But I think in practice my personal experience is not that there’s not member interest playing out, but that you kind of actually remove a really important split incentive that lives in a private housing market. This split incentive where the the member or the tenant’s interest and the landlord’s interest can sometimes be quite different, right, to minimise your rent in the short term and to maximise your profits in the short term. And I think that there’s other things that play out.

HL: But ultimately, when I’m part of a housing co-op, it’s, the interest of the same right? We’re both interested in the long-term benefit of the household and the property. So, one of the ways that, you know, I’m participating in this is to do the landlord duties and the member duties in my co-op, but because we have our parent company as well, our co-ops co-operate together to share the governance responsibilities for that company as well.

HL: So, when you introduce me, as Chair of the Board of Common Equity, I’m elected by the co-ops around Victoria to serve on the board of this company that is looking after, it’s providing all sorts of services to co-ops like practical services, like maintenance and financial support services, like helping you do the mechanics of the business, but also like co-op services by helping you to set up good communications and good governance and do the member services side of what you’re doing as well.

HL: So being on the board there, I think is a way that I am now and others have before me and will after me, sort of share this responsibility for a really special program. There’s not too many organisations like us in Australia, more around the world, but there’s not enough, I think. I think that could be quite a lot more like Common Equity because we have this, this incredible opportunity to provide agency for our members to both like, you know, take part in being a landlord and as well as a member of a small community.

HL: So, you know, we’ve got really, really, I think, some very, very special things going on in our co-ops. So I think you’ve met one co-op. You’ve met one co-op. All so different and so unique. And people from literally like all walks of life are drawn to this, or wake up and find themselves living in a housing co-op. But it’s an opportunity here for, like if you’re into the idea of co-op, like what we’re talking about now, these principles of co-operation, it sounds like a, you know, kind of too good to be true sometimes kind of model, if you’re into the idea of it, but you also like rolling up your sleeves and doing the work. I think it co-op be a really great match for for housing, for housing solutions in a market that I think is otherwise pretty broken right now.

AM: Yeah, absolutely. You just see every day how broken it is and and how much there is just a huge need, and now in the regions, regions for housing as well. We’ve been exploring co-ops and mutuals in general and thinking and again, you’ve got to really interesting perspective in that you’re a member of a housing co-op and part of that is the sweat equity part that you’re talking about, so you’re doing work towards that common good of all members in the housing co-op. But there are also people that are employed that you mentioned as well, but are there to support that that work and that activity. And so do you have any sort of comments on in general? Maybe, but I guess from the housing perspective around the difference of working at a CME, or a co-operative or mutual and whether you have any sort of reflections on that.

HL: So I work for my co-op, I’m a member of a co-op and I work in my co-op. But when it comes to the Common Equity Housing, we hire around 70 odd staff to to serve the co-op’s needs.

HL: Like you said, we’re a registered housing association as well. So we have a pretty high standard for like, you know, the financial management and all that kind of stuff. But I think what you’ll find I think might be different is the cultural setting, right? So in the boardroom what I get to be part of is setting the strategic direction for the organisation, going out to members and listening to what they want and helping to bring that together and set it up in a strategic plan, doing the governance and the oversight of the operations of the business.

HL: But in the boardroom, what we’re actively doing with all the major decisions that come to us is like checking that: Where is the member value in this? How are the principles of co-operation inherent in this outcome? You know, I really like we discuss a lot about how we can kind of bring the idea of co-op to life and how can we get more co-op in this in this, you know, investment decision or in this, you know, property decision or what will the impact be on members if this new regulation comes in that will affect them all?

HL: How will that play out in these small communities all around Victoria that we’re looking after? There’s this sense of like our role as a company is to provide that agency and that platform and that opportunity for co-ops to do whatever they want to do with that. But the idea of, like how the conversations that we have in the boardroom, I think, flow down through the organisation, right. Like they when you’re in the boardroom and making these critical decisions and based around member value, based around co-operation and collaboration, that flows I think through and I only get to attend a few like staff events and stuff, but that just there’s such a palpable sense of like, you know, togetherness and, and real connection between the staff, a real genuine care for the members.

HL: And I don’t think that’s unique to co-op, but I do like seeing that the same values that we, that I hear in the boardroom, I do see that among staff as well.

AM: Yeah, yeah. And I think you get a sense of that. You know, like you mentioned Bank Australia, but you do get a different feeling. I think just even as a customer, when you walk through the doors and you get you just feel like you’re part of something and that is a different kind of relationship and purpose as well, this broader social purpose that that kind of shines through.

AM: So thinking about co-ops, how do you think they can remain relevant, perhaps even grow into the future?

HL: Well, I do think about this a bit, because I think for Common Equity Housing, we’re at a point of generation change. So when I found it kind of like hiding in plain sight, when I was I was around 30 when I found co-op or co-op housing, and I feel a little bit like maybe co-op has been a bit of a victim of its own success, where there’s been a real growth in co-op housing, at least in the eighties.

HL: And it kind of like the sector grew, it filled up and it kind of just stayed full. But there was a reason to move on. It was a great place to be. And I think that there’s been a lack of investment or certainly been objectively a lack of investment in the sector over the last few decades. And there’s a lot of people around my generation who are really like you kind of recreate co-op you like there’s got to be a better way of participating in the housing market.

HL: Right. Anyway, we’ll start on why it’s a market anyway. But first and foremost, housing is about community and about security and all these things that really are a direct parallel for, you know, a co-op or a mutual ownership model. So, a lot of what I hear at the moment around the boardroom and in the property committee meetings of Common Equity Housing and new partnership opportunities that are coming to us from organisations like property collectives and a whole range of other ones that I probably can’t give too many examples of.

HL: But a lot of new organisations are starting up today to try and provide collaborative housing solutions. Might be collaborative finance, might be collaborative operations. A lot of deep care about environmental challenges that are that are facing us as well and how the built environment can play a really positive or quite a detrimental role in that. So, I think that from what I’m seeing, I do have a strong sense of quite, quite a lived experience of people coming to us and saying we’ve we’ve come up with this model where we could get these number of households together. We think they could live near each other. They could share the money. They could do this stuff. We think it would be great. And we’ve just spent the last five years building up this bespoke model. And then we found you. And it looks like you do this and.

HL: And we’re like, yeah, yeah, that’s what we we know how this works. This is a thing that we can play a role in supporting. And this is, I think, going to be part of a new wave. I really hope a new wave of interest and of expansion of this sector, because I feel like we are actually now at that kind of pinch point again in the housing market, in our finance market around, we’ve created some real challenges in the last couple of decades and I’m so excited for the work of the Business Council for Co-ops and Mutuals, I think is so integral, and I think has really benefited Common Equity Housing to be part of things like the member value measurement tool. I did part of the AICD, the Institute of Company Directors course that you set up with the Business Council. So we got to do, you know, governance training, but with all the co-op examples. Like this, I think is incredibly relevant, it’s more like rediscovering that the solution to a whole lot of big problems in front of us is actually already here as well

HL: And I think the more, the more that we do this, that we talk about course, that we do the work, the heavy lifting that the BCCM is doing in like re legitimising the model, bringing it back to the fore of people’s minds as like a business model that embeds solutions to multiple challenges altogether. I think this is the time for this to happen. And certainly, in co-op housing.

MM: What a great personal story of discovering and then adopting the co-op model. It really as a way of life and not just good for goods and services, it’s good for a way of living.

AM: Yeah, look Heidi lives it and she actually leads in the sector, so they’re the two twin pillars we’re always looking for. She’s also an inspirational leader more broadly in the environmental movement, so it was wonderful to have that conversation with her.

MM: Absolutely. I enjoyed hearing how people like Heidi go from searching for a collaborative kind of model, and then discover it already exists and they can jump straight into creating their own co-housing community.

AM: It was a good story. It was a great story! And we’ve got another good story coming up from Darlene Mattiske-Wood.

MM: Oh from Australian Military Bank? That’s great, I look forward to hearing from Darlene.

MM: Thanks for listening to this episode of Meet the Co-op Leaders. To learn more about the purpose and incredible variety of co-ops and mutuals, please visit our website www.bccm.coop. That’s C-O-O-P.

MM: As the original social business, co-operatives and mutuals offer genuine solutions to some of the significant challenges in the world today. So, if you’ve enjoyed today’s conversation, please share it with your friends and colleagues so that they can learn more about the co-operative difference. And remember, in a world of crisis and uncertainty, we will always be stronger together.

MM: I’m Melina Morrison, and I look forward to seeing you next time on Meet the Co-op Leaders.

Melina Morrison (MM): I’m Melina Morrison, CEO of the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals. Welcome to Meet the Co-op Leaders, the podcast series that features insightful conversations with the people leading our most innovative and inspiring co-op and mutual businesses.

(MM): Co-ops and mutuals are the businesses owned by members rather than shareholders. They’re all around us and they include some of our biggest brand names. In fact, 80 per cent of us are a member of at least one co-operative or mutual, but most of us don’t even know that. In an age of putting purpose before profits, it’s more important than ever to learn about the original people-centred business model. So, we’re bringing the leaders to you, to tell you in their own words what makes this a better way to do business.

(MM): My co-pilot in this new series is co-operative developer Antony McMullen. Antony’s founder of Co-op Bonds, a worker-owned business that was set up to help other people learn to form co-operatives. Over the next series, Antony and I will be bringing you a new conversation with a co-op leader every couple of weeks to lift the lid on this incredible business model.

MM: Hi Antony, I’m looking forward to hearing from another one of our co-op leaders in today’s episode. So, who do you have lined up for us?

AM: I’ll be talking to Lynne McLennan, who was the CEO of UFS, that’s the United Friendly Society Dispensaries, for many years. She’s one of those people that’s shown a great commitment to the co-op and mutual movement.

MM: Wonderful! Lynne has recently retired, and she was the 2022 inductee to the BCCM Honour Roll for her service to the co-operative and mutual sector. So, what did you talk about?

AM: Well, look, we talked about growth, a real focus on, not only being a viable business, but that community impact. And I know a lot of people in that community that have really talked very highly about what they did when Covid came along – UFS just jumped in there and they really made a difference. They just stepped up to the challenge and looked after their members and the broader community.

MM: Great, I can’t wait to hear more.

AM: Lynne, if I can start with asking you a little bit of a question so we can get to know you a little bit more. So, before you were at UFS, you’ve had a really interesting career, but one of the interesting ones is that you were a senior advisor to the John Cain Government in 1980s Victoria. So you’ve been very much in the political sphere. Just wondering, to kick off, what did you learn then that you could sort of apply later to your professional life? That must have been a very formative time for you.

Lynne McLennan (LM): It is more than 30 years ago, so I did do a few other things in between that job and coming to UFS 21 years ago. I guess the thing I learnt, and it’s just inevitable, but you know I only wish now that back then I knew what I know now, but of course when you’re in your 20s, you’re full of verve and enthusiasm and you’re not really aware of how much you don’t know. So, I certainly see that playing out now with my adult children.

The interesting thing that I did find, because Premier and Cabinet in the mid-1980s when John Cain was the Premier was a very well-oiled machine, but back then there was a lot less politicisation, so over the intervening 30 years, we’ve seen, you know, ministers and premiers grow huge kind of shadow departments almost of advisers, they’re like mini bureaucracies of themselves, but back then there was so much more reliance on advice from public servants. So….

AM:

AM: Getting the right information and the data, is that something that has informed you professionally at UFS?

LM: Yes, it has, and I find that if I find a decision difficult to make as a senior executive, it’s often because I don’t have the right data and we haven’t asked the right questions and just going back again to our members. It’s really and I think at UFS, a board member said this to me when I first started there 21 years ago was every decision, every strategic and big decision made at Board level, they tested through the lens of their members. So how does this benefit our members? So, when we’re looking at business development, which we have done a lot of, or a change to how we do business, we have to test that and always always always put yourself in the member’s head or the customer’s head. Just go: how’s the customer to see this? And it’s inevitable, as organisations grow and become larger, that they can lose that customer centricity. I mean, they’ll be all blah blah blah about customer service, but it’s actually inside their heads that people have to think like that and test every decision they make and really have it in the culture.

AM: Yeah, that culture piece is really important. It’s what happens when no one’s looking, you know, like how actually people really operating, you know, apart from the procedure manual so culture’s so important and speaking of culture, I mean UFS has got a long history and I’m sure that that informs culture but so maybe talk a little bit about that history and how  we can honor organisational history without it actually weighing you down moving into the future. There’s a for a lot of co-ops and mutuals that very long history, and I know UFS has got an extraordinarily long history, so it’d be fascinating to hear a little bit more about that.

LM: I think I’m a bit of a co-operative and mutual history nerd, not quite as nerdy as you or Tim Mazzarol, but it’s really important for me to honor the history. So UFS started in 1880, the company was formed. Opened the first pharmacy in 1881, and I was fond of saying when I started 20 odd years ago that some of the personnel practices dated from that time because they’re, well it’s a place where people stay a long time, and I’ve accidentally stayed 21 years. So, oops. Because it’s such a great place to work and the ethos and the driving force and the purpose of the company is so energising I think for the majority of the employees.

So, it’s really important I think to honor the history and particularly the values. It’s important to consider the values and our values really haven’t changed. They’ve been described sort of a little differently over time. But it’s “we only exist to benefit our members and to improve the health of our members and the communities in which we operate” so and doing that we respond to changing needs in order to fulfil those needs.

So, it is really important to consider the values that originally drove you and how that plays out in your contemporary community may be different but I think it’s really really important to not let that history weigh you down or let it create inertia. It’s really important to look to the future all the time and  right out to the future, you know, right out five, 10, 20 years to the future and particularly in health, you know, there’s huge opportunities and huge technological advances happening now, so much will change massively and I, you know, certainly at UFS, we’re trying to make sure we’re positioned so we’re actually right on that early wave. We’re not a big enough organisation, our total turnover’s sort of eighty-five mil, something like that, we’re not going to be doing that cutting edge research and work. But we want to be early adopters and really be brave enough to try out a few things.

AM: Maybe give us a little bit more detail about UFS and how you’re currently operating, so just give a little bit of that context to people, but maybe a couple of examples of how you’re doing practically doing some things a little bit differently.

LM: Okay, um, yes so UFS now operates 21 pharmacies across Western Victoria and in inner Melbourne in Coburg, and we also have, we’ve run medical centers for the last 12 years, which I jokingly say it’s a reinstatement of the old UFS Medical Institute, which operated from 1919 to 1938.

AM: Wow.

LM: So, we also run a number of connected businesses and we have a number of government contracts related to those business.

LM: So, we have a thriving work Health practice. We have a little well-being center/day spa called Peace and Quiet because everybody needs some, and we’re running supercare nursing contracts across the state on behalf of Victorian government. We’re running nursing service in 16, 24-hour pharmacies, and we also operate a 24-hour pharmacy in Ballarat, which is a government contract.

LM: We’ve done a lot during the pandemic. We’ve really stepped up, particularly in the Ballarat region, and worked collaboratively with the other public health providers still running a Covid testing and vaccine clinic, on a contract with the Commonwealth Government, which has been [an] extremely important part of our local response to Covid and we’re running, through our pharmacies and medical centers right across the board, vaccination services for Covid and doing our best to be out doing the public advocacy on Covid best practice and some other health related issues.

AM: Something that I’ve just picked up, in terms of something interesting like not I’m wondering how many co-ops and mutuals would be front facing like running a pharmacy customer members are coming in. But also, you’ve got some significant government contracts there and that’s a little bit unusual. So, I think that’s very interesting and I think that’s also maybe that’s something for our sector to kind of think about a little bit.

LM: So, I think my view, and I come from the Friendly Society Pharmacy perspective, but obviously, I’m a member of other mutuals health fund, motoring organisations, all those other things.

AM: Yeah.

LM: If mutuals are in a state of being high functioning, there are huge opportunities at the moment. You know, there are hazards for mutuals. Just having a glorious purpose and being a lovely feel good for-purpose organisation is not enough. You can still find boards and organisations get subject to hubris and just become so thoroughly delighted with themselves, they don’t actually pay attention to what’s happening in the environment and can become self-serving, I guess.

LM: So, there are risks to being a mutual which should not be underestimated, but I think the future for mutuals is really: now is our moment. Like I just feel so strongly that now is our moment, just in terms of banking. You know, it’s been the Banking Royal Commission. No one was up fronting those fearsome QCs during the Banking Royal Commission, which is not to say the mutual sector is perfect, but we had none of those corporate institutionalised sanctioned scandalous and unethical behaviours, not to speak of the corruption.

LM: So, there’s a great opportunity to gain the trust of people who are disenchanted before that, you know, knowledge and awareness in the general public sort of dissipates. The same with health. Huge opportunities in health for co-operatives and mutuals, I think at the moment and particularly in aged care.

LM: So, there’s a great opportunity there for mutuals who are considering looking at healthcare to actually show what a purpose driven organisation can look like and how that can play out in aged care.

AM: Yeah, it feels like there is that moment but there’s also a moment for different parts of the co-operative and mutual landscape to maybe even partner and be able to offer things together in this environment as well.

LM: I would agree with that, and I think some of the work that the BCCM has done in recent years has actually been on those lines and I went to the presentation a few years ago on the supply nation, but there are other forms of co-operation, certainly at UFS. We’ve had a philosophy for many years, we formally put in a policy maybe seven or eight years ago, that we would, our preference is we actually want to partner with organisations whose values align with ours.

LM: So, for us the values alignment is really important with our partners. So it’s not necessarily we have an absolute preference for co-operatives and mutuals, but the values alignment, and very often that means it’s a co-operative or a mutual business or a you know, a B-corp certified private business or, something that’s classified technically as a social enterprise, which I think is 50 per cent or more of profits are returned. So, they’ll be a private business but they can still be called a Social Enterprise.

LM: I like to say that we are the original social enterprise as a Friendly Society group.

AM: Yeah. Yeah, and I love friendly society as well, its friendly.

LM: It’s so good when new staff come, and we’ve had a few new staff come in lately because we’re dealing with you know, the great supposedly post-Covid (except we’re still in it) the turnover of people and  people come in after about a week, I say, “hey how’re you going?” and they go “Oh everyone is so friendly.” And I say: “We’re a friendly Society.”

AM:  Thank you very much Lynne.

MM: Thanks Antony, I can understand why UFS thrived with Lynne at the helm. She’s found the balance between honouring the history, you know, the values of the organisation, while thinking very strategically about their growth.

AM: That’s so true. They’ve stuck to their purpose, they’ve stuck to their member focus, but they’ve also responded to new opportunities without, you know, losing the core of what they do, and that’s a real challenge. And so that’s why it was such an inspiring conversation, I think.

MM: Thanks Antony for another great episode. Who have we got on the podcast next time?

AM: Well, it will all be about co-operative housing. We will have Heidi Lee who is the Chair of Common Equity Housing Limited.

MM: Great, see you then!

MM: Thanks for listening to this episode of Meet the Co-op Leaders. To learn more about the purpose and incredible variety of co-ops and mutuals, please visit our website www.bccm.coop. That’s C-O-O-P.

MM: As the original social business, co-operatives and mutuals offer genuine solutions to some of the significant challenges in the world today. So, if you’ve enjoyed today’s conversation, please share it with your friends and colleagues so that they can learn more about the co-operative difference. And remember, in a world of crisis and uncertainty, we will always be stronger together.

MM: I’m Melina Morrison, and I look forward to seeing you next time on Meet the Co-op Leaders.

Melina Morrison (MM): I’m Melina Morrison, CEO of the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals. Welcome to Meet the Co-op Leaders, the podcast series that features insightful conversations with the people leading our most innovative and inspiring co-op and mutual businesses.

MM: Co-ops and mutuals are the businesses owned by members rather than shareholders. They’re all around us and they include some of our biggest brand names. In fact, 80 per cent of us are members of at least one co-operative or mutual, but most of us don’t even know that. In an age of putting purpose before profits, it’s more important than ever to learn about the original people-centred business model. So we’re bringing the leaders to you, to tell you in their own words what makes this a better way to do business.

MM: My co-pilot in this new series is co-operative developer Antony McMullen. Antony’s founder of Co-op Bonds, a worker-owned business that was set up to help other people learn to form co-operatives. Over the next series, Antony and I will be bringing you a new conversation with a co-op leader every couple of weeks to lift the lid on this incredible business model.

MM: HiAntony, welcome to Meet the Co-op Leaders. So tell me, who did you sit down with for this episode?

Antony McMullen (AM): I had a great conversation with Paul Ransom, he’s the CEO of Bank of Us, the aptly named bank, Bank of Us. It’s actually Tasmania’s last mutual bank. It started as a ye-oldy Building Society way back in 1870.

MM: Wow, that must be a sign of their resilience and success as a business. What does Paul put their longevity down to?

AM: Look, they’ve stuck to their guns basically. And they’ve really thrilled by continuing to offer people in Tasmania something different. They’re keeping purpose at the heart of what they do.

MM: Great! Let’s have a listen!

AM: Bank of Us is based in in Tasmania, Paul. And before we talk a little bit more about Bank of us and where it comes from. I just wanted to start with where you kind of come from professionally. We spoke last week, and you mentioned that you’d been the council clerk. Now they have changed terminology. But I love that. So what were some of the things that you learned when you were working in local government that you carried with you when you started to work at a mutual customer owned bank?

Paul Ranson (PR): Yeah. No. Thanks, Antony. It was probably a little bit of an unusual move to change to banking. I think it probably it would be somewhat more challenging today just because of the way the sector’s evolved. But yeah, I guess back then, when you looked at I mean local government really had to have like three key functions in Tasmania.

PR: One was around service provision and you think quite broadly about what Councils actually have responsibility for or take on. The second was both working as a regulator and within provision of regulating regulatory services, so you think planning, building, plumbing, health, etc. And probably the third part was around development of community. So that was often, you know, working with communities on particular plans, strategies, to make communities more livable and to help support economic development.

PR: So I think from a lot of that involvement over 20-odd years in the sector, you sort of learned to work quite strategically and had to do a lot of collaboration with stakeholders and within the council but also a more broadly government and other players that were part of that that local community. And also probably think that some of the skills you build up during that time stand you up quite well from a leadership point of view and coming to be involved in mutuals and I think you did touch on Antony in your presentation. It sort of sits, now mutuals sit somewhere between private sector and government, and local government sort of sits at the lower end of government in terms of how it works.

AM: Yeah

PR: Probably it’s not too far away from being a mutual or be it it’s a little bit different.

AM: A corporative academic Tim Mazzarol mentioned that a managing director or a CEO of a co-op is somewhere like a cross between a CEO and a Mayor. You’ve kind of got to have both sort of skill sets.

AM: But let’s get into Bank of Us. Now, it was originally a building society so and it was founded in 1870. So you go back a long long way. So why did Bank of Us stay, stay a mutual for from the roots through to where you are now?

PR: Yeah and a great question. So if we go back, I mean I want try to dwell on this too long. But 1870 there was a need for, was very difficult housing finance back then so, you know a group of like-minded citizens effectively put together a building society. They establish it as what’s called a permanent building society which means it could continue on, whereas in there were often terminating doing societies that were established for the sole purpose of helping establish a township for example, and then they sort of they effectively ceased operating after a certain period.

PR: So it was really a slow start and was actually called the Launceston Equitable Savings Building and Investment Society. So it was very formal. In fact, then everything was green, long names. I was into what I saw that video you showed, one was called the Equitable Pioneer Society. Yeah, so Equitable was a great term for the day, but it really just slowly built up a deposit base and helped fund housing finance, initially in Launceston and then grew a little bit later into Hobart in the sort of the late 80s early 1900s.

PR: To be fair didn’t do a lot probably for quite a while but by the late 1960s we started to see a lot more private housing being established and that’s where the building societies, which back then along with the banks, were the only way you could access housing finance in Australia. So they started to come more into their own and a sister building society got started on the northwest coast, which is along if you’ve been to Tassie, Devonport through to Wynyard and it grew very quickly and by the late 80s, it was a similar size to the much older Equitable. But so they sort of essentially had a building society coverage within Tasmania, but at the same time the industry was changing. The 1980s brought the opening up of competition. Credit unions were started to allow to do housing finance before it was just personal loans. And non-banks were layered to lean for housing, and there was a lot of shift in terms of how the sector was regulated. It moved from being state-based to national. And of course, we think about you know technology and what impacts that’s had within the sector and required a lot of investment. So there was naturally a lot of consolidation. Across Australia, went from being thousands of mutual banking institutions to less than 70 today during that time. So the two came together in the late 1980s, formed Bass and Equitable and I think that’s really where the fundamental change came for what was a pretty sleepy building society to something that’s been a lot more active and it was really founded on the principle of really strong, contemporary governance and staying true to what was the original purpose which it was about putting people into own homes, but really seeing our members as our owners. And so I think if you look at the, since then, there’s been a very strong focus from the board on, you know, getting the right directors, strong focus on cultural fit, the skills and experience. They really been early adopters of new governance practices. Now, I think in around 2002, we had the first female chair of a building society ever in Australia.

PR: So they were just small example, but I guess it’s it’s a relevant one.

PR: And the board’s never been afraid to be brave and I guess the reality is we’ve looked at is how do we start relevant? And at times we’ve had to make brave decisions. It was 20 years ago, we moved away from calling ourselves a building society because you know, we just, the research we were doing, you know doing building societies won’t well understood, so we couldn’t call ourselves a bank at that point because under the old until recently you had to have a certain size of capital base over 50 million, we weren’t there but by 2017 we were. So we took that opportunity to really change the whole organisation and who you know to really set ourselves up for growth. Because we’re relatively small we could only really do it once. You know, we’re talking about for our size, it was quite a substantial investment and change. So it was a whole business change project which focused on you know, the culture, people, capability, products, distribution, and then the whole thing around the name. So we went from calling ourselves at the time B&E, and traded at the time as B&E Personal Banking, to Bank of Us and that was really a deliberate research about the purpose of being there for customer, community and for Tasmania.

PR: And since then, you know, we’ve had a really great growth story. It’s not obviously the reason for existence but you know, that growth has been double-digit year-on-year-on over that five years and often during that period we’ve had to slow down growth because of our capital constraints.

PR: I guess it does really reply just to the last part of the question which is about well, why wouldn’t you then go and demutualise, and you obviously explain that earlier but what it means, but I guess from the board’s point of view, it’s well, we have a differentiation in market, history now has left us as the only mutual left in Tasmania in the banking space, and our view is provided that we can keep growing the business sustainably, then we can keep delivering on our purpose of placing people at the heart of banking. I think that just round off that final, the answer is you know, we often used to debate about, do we call ourselves a mutual or what is it in market, and for us we sort of landed on the simplest way to describe ourselves was as being “customer owned” so that it just sort of seemed to be the simplest way to resonate in market to explain what is different about Bank of us to all the other banks that existing in our marketplace.

AM: One of the things that we talked about last week, which really interested me was that you you’ve really gotten into back, back to the roots really. You’ve got, you really looked at affordable housing and you’ve been doing some really interesting work in that area. Could you could you tell us a little bit more about that?

PR: Yeah no, happy to share. It’s still relatively modest at this point, but it goes back about 10 years ago when one of our actual SME customers was growing quite strongly who were a residential builder and we we had a conversation about how we could support their growth. And we effectively developed some white-label housing products that were pitched at the affordable housing space and that company which is called Wilson Homes and still going strong today, has been a key partner with us. And so we developed a couple, developed over time initially and a product where it just capitalised the interest during the construction of a home and anybody who’s built a new home would know often, you know, you still potentially renting somewhere while you’re building that home so, you know, that’s become quite onerous if you’ve got to then find the additional money for you as you’re repayments start while you’re still renting, so you can move in. So that proved to be very popular and then more recently we moved to another product, where effectively you just pay a small upfront deposit and of Wilson’s capitalise the interest in their actual building costs during that period, so that’s also been a great product.

PR: But more recently we’ve been keen to get into the shared equity space with the Tasmanian Government and they’d run along term scheme which Bendigo used to provide. But they did do a major review several years ago and with some ongoing advocacy, we ultimately got an opportunity to pitch for that business along with with others and we’ve met we did get awarded that scheme. And what we’ve been able to do, working with the government, is to expand the scheme to now provide opportunities for people to access shared equity for not only the original purpose of the scheme, which was about, you know, a director of housing property or new house land packages, but now to existing dwellings in the market, which you will appreciate is the biggest part of the market and is a more traditional space for first home buyers to participate in.

PR: So we’re finding, you know, we’ve been doing that now for three or four months and we’ve had fantastic inquiry levels and you know, it is really growing quite quickly. But it’s interesting because I think for as a as a customer owned bank, one of the benefits we brought to the table for the government is a really good understanding about how we deliver a much better customer experience. So we’ve been able to help them improve significantly the process which will, you know, I’m sure, also help us with the scheme, but get more people to be able to access the housing market. And I think that just as you start to look at those opportunities, we’re starting to see other opportunities now emerge that could see us doing more in the space like under the NDIS scheme with access to housing for people with a disability. So I think it’s certainly, as we know, a very topical subject, yeah, but I think well we are well place as a sector to do some innovative work across that, to make a difference.

MM: That was a fascinating conversation, Antony. I love that they are still focused on people’s housing needs after more than 150 years.

AM: Yes, it’s the story that I think we hear from a lot of co-ops and mutuals, they’ve got this original commitment to make a difference, to actually address a problem, and you know, we’ve had issues around housing ups and downs over many years, and now they’re doing things to meet the housing needs to people in their community as part of a broader co-operative and mutual approach to these problems. They are being part of the solution.

MM: I grew up in Tasmania. It is a beautiful island and it has a great sense of community. I really felt the community values shine through in your interview with Paul. Thanks again Antony, I can’t wait for the next conversation.

AM: We will be talking to the legendary Lynne McLennan, a character, an innovator and a really successful CEO, CEO of UFS Dispensaries, with UFS standing for United Friendly Society, so they are keeping it friendly.

MM: Thanks for listening to this episode of Meet the Co-op Leaders. To learn more about the purpose and incredible variety of co-ops and mutuals, please visit our website www.bccm.coop. That’s C-O-O-P.

MM: As the original social business, co-operatives and mutuals offer genuine solutions to some of the significant challenges in the world today. So if you’ve enjoyed today’s conversation, please share it with your friends and colleagues so that they can learn more about the co-operative difference. And remember, in a world of crisis and uncertainty, we will always be stronger together.

MM: I’m Melina Morrison, and I look forward to seeing you next time on Meet the Co-op Leaders.