Who Are We and Why Do We Do What We Do?

Roger Cowan

For 40 years, Roger Cowan was the CEO at Panthers Entertainment Group. During his term, the Club grew from a small club with $1M turnover and 800 members to a giant organisation consisting of 14 sites with 160,000 members and a turnover in excess of $150M per annum

He is an accredited NLP Master Practitioner and has been President of Registered Clubs and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management. In recognition of his services to the Club Industry he was awarded an OAM

In the late 80’s Panthers went through a period of rapid growth and started being a victim of its own success. Leadership of Panthers became a challenge focused on change and education. It became a flat, team-based structure emphasizing the benefits of group effort for achievement of effective strategic planning and change management.

More than 25 CEOs of NSW Clubs came through the Panthers’ ranks.

It was only when he came across distil that Roger was confident that he had found an organisation, Program and set of values that would be the catalyst for successful innovation and change including capitalising on the wealth of knowledge, skills and talent that are underutilised in most organisations.

Joe Bowers

Joe is the original founder of distil which he created to bring the leading edge FutureSearch approach to organisations and communities.

He is also the founder of the Australian Future Search Network, the only international affiliate of the US based Future Search Network.

He was the first Australian authorised coach of Duct Tape Marketing, an approach emerging out of the US which has received rave reviews from the likes of Harvard Business Review, Forbes Magazine, US Chamber of Commerce, Microsoft, Dell, HP and Michael Gerber.

In earlier years, Joe was the partner in charge of the Sydney Indirect Tax Practice at Coopers & Lybrand. Over 2 years, the practice doubled in size to 45 people and $10M turnover, before he left to set up his own business. He has also been a part time teacher in leadership and management.

Over his many years of consulting, Joe has worked with numerous large and small clients. Just a few of the more recognised ones include Tooheys, Castlemaine, Lion Nathan, Golf Management Australia, AIG, City of Sydney, Australian Museum, Macquarie University, Ryde Council, Boral, Channel 7, GIO, QBE, Canon, Toshiba, Comalco and Transfield.

Our Team of Experts

Dr. Helen Bryden CPA, FTIA.

Helen is an International Management Consultant and Australian Taxation Specialist with a PhD in Education.

She formerly taught and developed curriculum at the International College of Management, Sydney (including Hospitality, Tourism, Property and Retail) and had a major role in developing the curriculum for the new world-class Sports Management Program at Macquarie University.

Lana Walker

Lana is a US based award-winning business and marketing communications specialist based in the US. She has worked in a variety of industries and fields, including gaming, hospitality, restaurant, training, education, wellness, and nonprofit.

David Lee

David has been working in cross-cultural and international marketing and advertising for more than 20 years. With multinational agencies in both China and Australia, David worked on some of the biggest blue-chip companies,including Telstra, National Australia Bank, Singapore Airlines, AMP, RTA, NRMA, Unilever, Compaq, Microsoft, Epson, American Express, HSBC and many Federal and State Government departments.

David was a key member of the team that successfully launched Australia’s first 3G mobile network to the multicultural market and was the International Business Manager with Panthers Entertainment Group.

Educated in both China and Australia, David has a MBA degree majoring in International Management and is also a qualified professional translator.

Karen Riley

Karen is Distilled Club's internal expert dealing in marketing, telemarketing and advertising.

John Bowers

John has over 30 years experience in teaching management accounting at MBA, University and TAFE levels.

He is an International Management Accounting Consultant and as part of Bowers Bryden & Associates, John worked for the Commonwealth Secretariat for 10 years developing and running small business workshops in seven countries of Oceania.