About Us
Experience
ShedB Principal, Bruce Cowley has extensive experience as a lawyer, governance professional, board member, author and speaker on governance issues.
Bruce recently retired after nearly 40 years as a corporate lawyer at global law firm, MinterEllison serving as the firm's chair for the last six years. MinterEllison, with revenues approaching $700m is the largest law firm in Australia, having offices in all mainland state and territory capital cities as well as in Auckland, Wellington, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Ulaanbaatar.
As a practising lawyer, Bruce has been involved in many iconic transactions, specialising throughout his career in corporate governance and mergers and acquisitions and remains a member of the Takeovers Panel.
Although based in Brisbane, Bruce works nationally and internationally, including throughout Asia and the South Pacific, where he has undertaken major corporate governance projects.
Bruce currently sits on, or has previously sat on, a range of other boards, including superannuation funds, financial institutions, ASX listed companies and university councils and has chaired several not for profits, including in the children's health, indigenous health, medical research and disability sectors..
Bruce has been at the cutting edge of corporate governance in Australia, having chaired both the Law Committee of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Corporations Committee of the Law Council of Australia as well as having sat on number of other governance related industry bodies.
Publications
Bruce has written and spoken widely on matters related to corporate governance. In 2017 his text book, co-authored with Stephen Knight, entitled Duties of Board and Committee Members, was published by Thompson Reuters. The text-book discusses the duties of directors and board members of the entire range of corporations operating within our economy, from ASX listed and APRA regulated entities to government owned corporations, statutory bodies, co-operatives, joint ventures, ATSI corporations, and not for profits..
Bruce is also the author a series of publications entitled Protecting Your Position which summarise commonwealth, state and territory laws which impose duties and liabilities on directors and board members.