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Ben Wyatt GAICD made history in June 2021 when he became the first Indigenous board member of an ASX 200 company. When Ben Wyatt GAICD announced his shock decision to quit politics in February 2020, it wasn’t long before the then Western Australia Treasurer received a phone call from Woodside Petroleum and Qantas chair, Richard Goyder AO FAICD. But Wyatt soon reversed his plans in order to help see WA through the all-enveloping COVID-19 pandemic. However, by November 2020, with a critical state budget under his belt, he announced he would not contest the March 2021 state election. “When he got serious about going again, I was a sounding board for him on the ins and outs of being a non-executive director versus taking an executive role,” says Goyder. “The more I got to know him, the sooner I was going to pop the question about him joining the Woodside board — subject to the views of my colleagues.” Wyatt — who had made history as the first First Nations Australian to hold the role of Treasurer at a state or federal level — again made history in June 2021, becoming the first First Nations board member of an ASX 200 company when he joined the board of Woodside. That same week, it was announced he would join the board of Rio Tinto, which was still managing the fallout from its destruction of a 46,000-year-old sacred site in Western Australia’s Pilbara region in May 2020. Wyatt took up the Rio directorship in September 2021. Alone in the boardroom What surprised Wyatt most about the early months of his non-executive director life was the loneliness. He repeatedly asked himself the provocative question: “So, where is everybody? Where are my Aboriginal colleagues?” Wyatt recalls that he had heard “every chair of every top 200 Australian listed company” say that more First Nations people were needed on boards. “But where are they?” he asks. “Even though it’s unusual having an Aboriginal person join the board of a large listed company, the concept itself is so well- ventilated. I was surprised that I had come and there was just no-one around. We’ve been talking about this for so long.” “Over the past 20 years, you have seen the emergence of a cohort of Aboriginal people with significant commercial and governance experience, particularly in the governance of service providers,” he says. “That is not irrelevant to the experience and skill set of a commercial board. So there are people around. You don’t actually need affirmative action on this, because if you look, you will find them.” “You are not there because you are Aboriginal, you are there because your Aboriginality brings a perspective that is valued,” he says. “I don’t want to see chairs of boards appointing Aboriginal people as directors because they’ve got Aboriginal issues. They need to see value in the perspectives and experiences of Aboriginal people.” #CompanyDirector #IndigenousGovernance