Left to right: Angus Nardi, Executive Director, SCCA; Elliott Rusanow, CEO, Scentre Group; Michael O’Brien, Managing Director, QIC Real Estate; Deb Palmer (Winner), National Programs Manager, QIC and; Anthony Mellowes, Chairman of the SCCA and CEO of Region Group. 

The Shopping Centre Council of Australia (SCCA) has named Deb Palmer, National Programs Manager, QIC Real Estate, as the 2022 winner of the prestigious Frank Lowy Fellowship.

Deb is a highly competent risk and compliance specialist who manages QIC’s risk policies and procedures to limit business risk exposure. She spearheaded Project Safe-Guard — a first-of-its-kind initiative for Australian shopping centres that significantly reduces the likelihood of self-harm and security breach incidents before they occur, using leading-edge technology and sophisticated camera analytics.

Nominees for the Frank Lowy Fellowship 2022 were evaluated by a judging panel comprised of Anthony Mellowes, Chairman of the SCCA and CEO of Region Group, along with other SCCA Directors; Elliott Rusanow, CEO, Scentre Group; Steven Sewell, Managing Director, Abacus Property; Rosemary Condron-Calic, National Portfolio Manager, Retail Services, ISPT and; Stewart Hutcheon, Executive General Manager, Industrial, Retail and Healthcare, DEXUS.

The 2022 Frank Lowy Fellowship winner, Deb Palmer, will receive a grant of $20,000 to put towards their continued education.

Deb has proposed in her nomination to undertake a Harvard Business School course.

2022 Nominees

Kate Bailey

CBRE

Kate leads a team of researchers and GIS analysts who are dedicated to understanding the market, especially new trends and technology and their impact on the retail sector. Projects she has completed include rolling out a national CBD vacancy count, working with retail landlords to include last mile space in shopping centres, using CBRE’s new retail analytics software to create post-COVID recovery dashboards and reimagining retail forecasting to ensure a higher degree of accuracy.

Maya Koura

Haben Property Fund

Maya is centre manager at Casey Central Shopping Centre. She is in the process of creating an end-to-end arrears solution, including a robust tenant concession model, enabling centre managers across the Haben portfolio to assess concession requests, against multiple criteria.

Deb Palmer

QIC 

Deb is a highly competent risk and compliance specialist who manages QIC’s risk policies and procedures to limit business risk exposure. She spearheaded Project Safe-Guard — a first-of-its-kind initiative for Australian shopping centres that significantly reduces the likelihood of self-harm and security breach incidents before they occur, using leading-edge technology and sophisticated camera analytics.

Craig Parr

Scentre Group

Craig has led the development, alignment, and endorsement of Scentre Group’s net-zero commitments, and has also led multiple initiatives to accelerate the delivery of goals including the CleanCo long term renewable electricity agreement; significant solar expansion; and renewable energy on-sell product.

Kate Elizabeth Guest

Scentre Group

Kate has focused on implementing a risk culture where risk proactively partners with the business to confirm strategic objectives are achieved in a responsible sustainable manner and the Scentre Group and Westfield brands are protected.

Linda Burgess

The GPT Group

Linda is a passionate property and leasing manager and has demonstrated excellence through such projects as strategically leveraging Highpoint’s brand new aesthetic upgrade, the Major’s resizing and the gentrification within their trade area. She dovetailed leasing / asset strategy with an intense focus on collaboration which galvanised excellent working relationships to deliver 45 plus new stores to Highpoint by the end of 2021 including the creation of a new Food Court, and the introduction of a new Coles and Kmart.

James Nguyen

The GPT Group

James led the project team to deliver CX Connex, a Voice of the Customer program that utilises Machine Learning to cultivate a customer centric culture, adding NPS as a KPI for the entire retail team.

Sonia Koukoulas

The GPT Group

Sonia led a team that developed an automated solution for processing, approving and reporting tenant abatements and rent deferrals. This solution was used during the COVID pandemic to ensure the business had one source of information. The negotiator inputted the deal in the app which then progressed through for approval using LOA’s, once approved it cascaded to Lease Admin for documentation and sent to the tenant for execution.

Dean Jones

Vicinity Centres

Dean has led the development of a human centric approach to the design of Vicinity centres to ensure that they create spaces customers love. Examples include building permanent Visual Merchandising displays at Roselands as part of the interior celebrating long-standing key retailers, as well displaying ingredients the multicultural community cherish.

Natalie Boston

Vicinity Centres

Natalie is an architect with experience across a range of project typologies from institutional and pharmaceutical sectors through to commercial, residential and retail places. She guides her team to impel best design outcomes and collaborate. She works in partnership with the sustainability team, membership into the Vicinity Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group, is involved with GBCA using one of their projects as a pilot to test the new Green Star Buildings Tool and presented this project at the 2022 Green Building Day conference.

Brian Gee

Vicinity Centres

Brian has developed a connected roadmap for all Centre operational activities whilst leveraging Vicinity’s new data science function and targeting ESG outcomes. This has resulted in multiple successful outcomes.