MrRoss Monaghan

Ross Monaghan is a business communication and issues management specialist
with more than 20 years communications experience in public relations, general
management and journalism. A former Chief Executive Officer of the Australian
Mobile Telecommunications Association, and Chairman of the Mobile Carriers
Forum, Ross has advised and represented some of Australias largest
organisations such as BHP, Telstra and Optus. He has a unique combination of
communications theory and practical experience. Ross began his career as a
journalist working for a regional daily newspaper and spent several years
involved in general news reporting before completing his BA (Management
Communication) at Deakin University. Through the Deakin internship program,
Ross was offered a public affairs position by BHP. He spent eight years
working at BHP sites around Australia and North America. During that time he
was involved in a range of internal and external communication management
issues such as editing employee journals, developing community relations
strategies and managing the public affairs and media response to issues such
as industrial accidents and raids by environmental groups such as Greenpeace.
In 1996 Ross was appointed Community Relations Manager for Optus. During the
next six years in the telecommunications industry Ross was involved in a range
of public affairs, regulatory and community issues such as cable roll-outs,
mobile base station deployment, mobile phone theft, and an Australian Senate
Inquiry into the health effects of mobile phones. He helped establish, and was
the first chair of, the Mobile Carriers Forum. He chaired other groups such as
the Australasian Crime Commissioners Taskforce on mobile phone theft, and
dealt with issues at all three tiers of Government. During his time in the
telecommunications industry Ross gained general management experience as the
CEO of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association. A key
responsibility of that role was to represent the industry in all levels of the
media, from daily newspapers to television news and current affairs programs.
Ross continues to maintain strong links with industry.