AISA board survives member vote

Directors of the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) have survived a membership vote on whether they should be removed from their roles.

An extraordinary general meeting (EGM) was held on Friday in response to a petition that sought to topple the association’s current leadership by sacking its entire board, which had been gathering signatures since February.

Of those that voted: 53.9 per cent voted ‘no’ to removing all current directors from their positions, 41.5 per cent voted ‘yes’, and a further 4.6 per cent were present and abstained.

The EGM achieved a record rate of participation, doubling the votes cast at the organisation’s last AGM, AISA said in a statement.

The vote, which was overseen by legal firm Gilbert + Tobin, had come in response to a petition run by a group of disgruntled members who, according to its website, were “dissatisfied with the current board’s governance, leadership and oversight of the organisation”.

“The EGM was called in response to a petition received by the Board and while it failed to meet the requisite number of signatures, the vote was held to remove uncertainty and enable AISA to turn its full attention to a busy and productive 2017,” a statement from AISA noted.

Full attention

In December last year, AISA elected a new board of directors which acts as an operational board, rather than the governing board set-up of previous years.

One of the new look board’s first actions was to pass a vote of no-confidence in the position of CEO, leading to the departure of Arno Brok.

Although the petition website did not explicitly mention the abandonment of the CEO role, it did make reference to “recent events that have negatively impacted our association”, and that “the board has lost it’s mandate to lead the organisation”.

A statement from AISA issued this afternoon said the board was now “turning its full attention towards improving engagement between AISA and its members, and ensuring the successful delivery of upcoming programs” including the sold-out BrisSEC17 event to its upcoming national conference.

AISA also confirmed that its AGM would be held in November, after the national conference in a bid to improve member participation. The new board had initially proposed an earlier AGM as a compromise to petitioners.