Celebrating the 2025 Bob Baxt AO Panel on Corporate Reputation
L to R: Rebecca Maslen-Stannage, CLARS Director Professor Jennifer Hill, Professor Roy Shapira, Monash Law Executive Dean Steven Vaughan.
On Thursday 16 October, Monash Law's Centre for Commercial Law and Regulatory Studies (CLARS) held a very special event at the Melbourne office of Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer (HSFK). It was a panel discussion on "Corporate Reputation" in memory of Professor Bob Baxt AO, who had an extraordinary influence on commercial law in Australia. The guest of honour was Bob's wife, Ruth Baxt.
Dean of Monash Law, Professor Steven Vaughan, and HSFK Chair and Senior Partner, Rebecca Maslen-Stannage, opened the event by reflecting on the profound influence that Bob Baxt had on the culture of both Monash Law and HSFK.
The panel featured barrister Ruth Higgins, SC (joining online from Sydney), Carmel Mulhern, independent director, and Professor Roy Shapira, visiting scholar from Harvard and Reichman Universities.
What followed was a vibrant and wide-ranging conversation exploring many facets of corporate reputation - including what it means, how it differs from corporate culture, what constitutes a strong reputation, and the respective roles of the board, CEO, and management. The panel also discussed how reputation can be lost and regained, the relevance of ESG to reputation, the influence of institutional investors, and the most effective accountability mechanisms for addressing reputational failures.
The discussion covered an impressive breadth of issues. A heartfelt thank you to Ruth, Carmel, and Roy for their thoughtful and engaging contributions. CLARS also extends its gratitude to HSFK and Rebecca Maslen-Stannage for generously hosting the event in their beautiful offices, with their spectacular views over Melbourne.
Event Details
Bob Baxt AO Panel on Corporate Reputation
Presented at the Melbourne office of Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer by Monash University.
Date: Thursday 16 October 2025
Time: 5pm - 7:15pm AEST
Speakers
Professor Roy Shapira
Roy Shapira is a visiting Senior Fellow at Harvard Law School's Program on Corporate Governance, a Professor of Law at Reichman University, and a Research Member at the European Corporate Governance Institute. He earned his doctoral and master degrees from Harvard Law School, and has taught at Harvard Economics Department and UC Berkeley Law. Roy's research focuses on reputational concerns, corporate governance, and corporate law litigation. He published a book with Cambridge University Press on the interactions between legal and reputational risks, and consulted corporate boards on the issue.
Ruth Higgins SC
Ruth Higgins SC is a leading commercial silk practising nationally in competition law, constitutional law, class actions, energy, media, corporate criminal, and corporations law. She is a member of the Takeovers Panel and a Visiting Fellow at the Julius Stone Institute at the University of Sydney. She is the immediate past President of the NSW Bar Association, and a former director of the Australian Bar Association and the Law Council of Australia. She has been included in Best Lawyers Australia since it commenced in 2008, and in Chambers Global since 2011. Ruth was described in the 2024 edition as ‘very much top-league at this moment. ’ She is listed in Doyle’s Guide as a preeminent silk in competition law, commercial litigation and a leading silk in class actions, media and technology, white collar crime and insolvency law.
Carmel Mulhern
Carmel has more than 25 years’ experience as a global executive leader and senior trusted advisor to boards and CEOs in the financial services, telecommunications, media and technology sectors. She has been involved in navigating a range of sensitive and complex commercial, policy and stakeholder issues for ASX10 companies in highly regulated industries with large customer and shareholder bases. Until 2023, Carmel served as Group General Counsel and Group Executive Legal & Group Governance at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), driving the fair and efficient resolution of the Bank's legal matters, rebuilding stakeholder trust and effective corporate governance in strategy execution. Prior to joining CBA, Carmel held various senior executive positions at Telstra, covering legal, government relations, internal and external corporate communications, regulatory engagement and sustainability during periods of strategic transformation and digital disruption. Carmel is currently an independent non-executive director of PwC Australia; Chair of the Telstra Foundation, director trustee of the Australian Cancer Research Foundation, deputy chair of Methodist Ladies' College. She is a member of Chief Executive Women (CEW), a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia and a graduate of the AICD. She holds a Master of Laws from Monash University (Directors' Duties/Corporate Governance) and is the author of two legal textbooks.
Rebecca Maslen-Stannage
Rebecca has advised leading Australian and international clients on transactions across a range of industries. Rebecca has been either winner or a finalist in the Australian “Dealmaker of the Year” awards every year since 2011, and is rated by all major directories as a leading M&A and Equity Capital Markets lawyer. Chambers Global describes Rebecca as “brilliant” and “acclaimed for her deft handling of ECM and M&A matters”. Rebecca lectures at the University of Sydney on topics relating to securities regulation and continuous disclosure.
Chair
Professor Steven Vaughan
Professor Steven Vaughan is the Dean of the Faculty of Law. Professor Vaughan is an internationally renowned legal educator, scholar and author with 20 years’ experience spanning industry, higher education and several non-executive director roles. Over the course of his career, Professor Vaughan has made significant contributions to the legal field both in the UK and abroad. His work has been cited and used by legal services regulators in the UK and Canada, and he is recognised as an authoritative voice in policy-making with several non-executive appointments in healthcare, press and legal services regulation. With an established international reputation as a prolific researcher, Professor Vaughan has dedicated his academic career to environmental law, lawyers’ ethics, legal education (including clinical legal education), diversity and corporate governance.
Professor Jennifer Hill, CLARS Director, Faculty of Law, Monash University
Professor Jennifer Hill is the Inaugural Bob Baxt AO Chair of Corporate and Commercial Law and Director of CLARS. Her scholarship on comparative corporate law and governance is widely cited in judicial decisions and academic literature in Australia, the United States, Europe and Asia. Jennifer has received several ARC Discovery grants and held visiting teaching and research positions at leading international institutions, including Cambridge University; Cornell; NYU; University of Virginia, and Vanderbilt University. She is a Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on Sustainable Finance and EU Law (EUSFiL), University of Genoa, Italy. She is also a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.