The Third Desk

Fractional company secretary

Protecting today.
Planning for tomorrow.

Every board has two responsibilities: protecting the organisation and moving it forward. I help with both.

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Mia Dhillon

When the foundations are sound, governance is a joy.

Why now

When the environment is moving fast, standing still carries risk.

Boards are now bearing a greater load. Directors are feeling the pinch, the community expects more, and regulators are checking the basics.

2nd

Legal and regulatory compliance is the second-biggest issue keeping Australian directors awake at night.

AICD Director Sentiment Index, 1H 20261

46%

of not-for-profit directors spend more than three days a month on a single board. The median has risen from two days to three in seven years.

AICD NFP Governance and Performance Study 2025–262

Over half

of directors say the pace of change is faster than their organisations can keep up with.

AICD Director Sentiment Index, 1H 20263

What Australians expect of organisations

In its Australian Governance Index, the Governance Institute of Australia asked 2,000 Australians how much these governance behaviours matter to them. All seven rated highly, with accountability and fairness at the top.4

89/100

average importance across the seven behaviours

  • Accountability
  • Fairness
  • Competence
  • Integrity
  • Transparency
  • Service
  • Stewardship

What this means for your board

This is good news with a challenge attached. Most governance work happens out of view, so fair elections, clear annual reports and well-explained decisions give boards a chance to show they're doing what matters most to Australians: being fair and accountable.

Regulators are checking the basics

ASIC's enforcement priorities include governance and directors' duties failures, and financial reporting misconduct, including failure to lodge financial reports.5

The ACNC's current focus areas include governing documents that are outdated, incomplete or not well understood by the people responsible for the charity.6 The ACNC has also found that charities without appropriate record keeping commonly experience other governance failures, such as inadequate management practices.6

The risk sits with one person

In many organisations the CEO or another executive does the company secretary role in addition to everything else.

Strategy gets what's left

Every hour spent on agendas, minutes and lodgements is an hour taken from the work only your CEO can do. A fractional company secretary gives them that time back.

  1. AICD, Director Sentiment Index 1H 2026 data pack, p. 10, April 2026
  2. AICD, Not-for-Profit Governance and Performance Study 2025–26, March 2026
  3. AICD, Director Sentiment Index 1H 2026 media release, April 2026
  4. Governance Institute of Australia, Australian Governance Index 2026, October 2026
  5. ASIC, Enforcement priorities, 2026
  6. ACNC, Regulatory focus, focus areas and previous focus areas, checked November 2026

Working together

Experienced support for a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire, and time back for your CEO to lead.

I help boards with both responsibilities. When the compliance work is sound, your board can rely on it and devote more time to strategy.

I'm also someone with senior executive experience in business development and stakeholder engagement, and I've led Commonwealth-funded national programs, so I understand what sits behind the papers your board reads.

You can expect

  • Confidence that your obligations are met
  • Better information for better decisions
  • More board time spent on the impact you want to make

A partner to your board and executive.

I work with you and get to know your people and how your board works: its culture, its information flows and how decisions get made. Together, we build on those foundations, so your board can make decisions with confidence.

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Answers and reflections for boards

Questions boards ask

Answers to the questions CEOs and chairs ask most about the company secretary role in Australia.

See the FAQs

When your CEO is also your company secretary

If your CEO or another executive is your company secretary, you're already paying for the role, just not in the way you might think.

Read the article

Let's talk about what your board needs.

Book a 20-minute conversation at a time that suits you, or send me a message and I'll reply within two business days.

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