Emma Slater

Originally one of the youngest operators to hold a monitoring centre operator's licence I went away from the industry only to return after ART Security purchased a similarly sized company "Rontech" in 2009. ART Security required someone with a background in change management and policy implementation to steady a business that had doubled in size and upgraded to a newly built ASIAL Grade A1 monitoring centre. At this point in time I started off running the service department and dispatching technicians. As corporate restructuring occured I progressed to running the operators of the company focusing on the internal technical departments and infrastructure management. I project managed the enormous monitoring centre network infrastructure upgrade that took place in 2020 and also the subsequent corporate network infrastructure upgrade that occurred shortly after. I spent, and still do, a lot of my time in business development and future planning. Identifying areas of the business where efficiencies can be found through increased effectiveness. In this process we elected to remove the role of Monitoring Centre manager and distribute this role to Monitoring Centre supervisors and myself. At this point I was in the role of Chief Strategic Officer and moved upward into the Chief Operating Officer role. I took over all the responsibilities for grading requirements and change management. During this process I required a comprehensive understanding of the Australian Standard for Monitoring Centres and all policies and legislation applicable to our industry and employment in general. When the comments for the new Australian Standard for Monitoring Centres was opened to industry members I provided extremely comprehensive feedback on the pragmatic implementation of the new standard, hoping to ensure that the new standard would be reasonable, unambiguous and functional.

During my degree at Melbourne University I had a particular interest in law and did several commercial law units. I have carried this interest into my career and have implemented changes to our contracts with employees, customers and suppliers. Even completely rewriting our standard terms and conditions. Therefore it is only natural that legislative policy is of particular interest to me.

Throughout my time at ART Security I have increased our Type 1/1A monitoring department from only a handful of end user connections, to a department that represents almost one third of our recurring revenue. This was done by developing strategic partnerships with integrators by providing them with a level of service they could not find elsewhere. In doing so I developed high level technical connections in the industry and often integrators will work with ART Security because they know we can get the job done. I now personally provision the Type 1A modems with a range of Wireline technology types from ADSL, NBN and recently Satellite. We are also the only monitoring centre who can monitor the Honeywell Type 1A panel. We made a strategic decision to stay away from the installation side of the industry so that we would never be in competition with our integrators.

Having worked in the service department I have become technically proficient myself and have been able to advise on complex installations and technical faults. Due to my involvement in our network infrastructure I have also become skilled in the management of our systems.

In 2021 we created a team of three employees to advise on a change or upgrade of accounting systems and customer relationship management software. As a team we presented two business cases and the decision was made to migrate to a new accounting package and customer relationship management software. We carefully planned our change and managed this extensive process that took almost 18 months in data migration, manual writing and policy implementation. Then we also managed the employee training on the new platforms.

Starting in 2020 and finalising in 2021 I developed a strategic partnership with a lone worker application "Sheqsy" and developed a software based receiver to accept their data and interpret signals into our monitoring software. Sheqsy went from strength to strength, soon to be purchased by Safety Culture who are one of the largest companies in Australia in the WH&S space. We now have more than a thousand connections utilising the receiver we built for them and being monitored by our operators.

I am process orientated because I believe if you get the process right, the outcomes will follow. I focus on improving processes and driving strategic initiatives. My background in the industry is extensive and my reputation for decisive leadership, problem solving and technical knowledge is not to be underestimated.