Mark Coupe (ILF2013)

Institution: Melbourne Business School
Course: Senior Management

How I became an Industry Leader Fund recipient
I am sure that, like myself, very few people are aware of the Industry Leaders Fund (ILF) and its charter. The encounter was interesting in many ways; it made me recognise the important aspects of what I do each day, what and how I guide others and what and how I influence others. Not only did I disregard myself as a significant person relative to the South Australian economy, but also underestimated my current impact and involvement with respect to the state employment and significant relationships and responsibility to the community that I held. Being asked to consider the grant and what it means, helped me realise that there are responsibilities which I hold and that the fund could provide access to education, not normally undertaken, to strengthen my foundation skills and confidence, outside my normal surrounds, to drive and develop activities within South Australia.

The application process
The application process was easy to complete, the hardest thing is defining what skills gaps you have and what needs to be developed. I guess this is one of the reasons the Senior Managers Program seemed like a good fit.

Mount Eliza – Senior Managers Program
Globally recognised for manager development the MBS at Mount Eliza offers several stages to grow managers into leaders. The senior management program was a great stepping stone to piece together a host of skills and learnings gathered over the years and allow you to create a more complete picture from what you have and what you need. The course content, co students and lecturers worked well together all aiming for similar outcomes and the facilities were outstanding. The program is aimed at the complete management toolkit, focussing on change management, performance and culture, strategy and operational implementation. Using some 360 profile feedback allows identification of specific skills and development needs moving through to create specific goals and practice change in my career.

What I learnt from the course
Not only piecing together the skills developed into a sensible picture, the course allowed me to recognise my development needs and future potential to contribute further in the executive world. My back ground is highly technical and learning with others across varied industries allowed me to experience the challenges of change management and development of high performance from others.

The benefits
I now recognise the need to continually develop and educate myself to maintain the leadership skills needed to uphold my responsibilities in industry, where ever I land. Sharing the experience and knowledge has been rewarding and reassuring around the development principles learnt, I hope to continue to develop in the future to support the charter that ILF stands for.

My sincere thanks to the ILF board, the acknowledgement and allocation of development funding has been a very worthwhile experience and a great personal journey.
Mark H.C. Coupe

Mark Coupe