SSON: How did you become involved with ANZ’s shared services program?

Nicola Stokes: I was appointed General Manager Shared Services in 2005. There was probably about two-thirds of the organization that exists today in place when I got there; the organization was all based in Melbourne at that stage. I think the most striking feature for me when I arrived was probably that the people didn’t really understand why they were all put together in a shared service; each piece was run quite separately, and was very much a cost-driven service-delivery focus.