Tina Taddeo is a qualified Chartered Accountant and Company Director with over 28 years (starting in 1996) of experience in Financial Governance, reporting, compliance and advisory. After commencing her career in public practice, she moved into commerce roles where her skills have been acquired across numerous industries including Defence, Construction, Government and Retail sectors.
In a Chief Financial Officer role, which is traditionally male dominated (with less than 12% occupied by women in South Australia for businesses with turnover exceeding $100m), Tina is well respected in the industry for working alongside key business stake holders (internal and external) to question the status quo and seek innovative ways to improve the quality, accuracy and relevance of financial information for critical business decision making. She effectively leads teams and mentors others to achieve required business results and individual career goals, including being a past mentor for the Institute of Chartered Accountants career development program for newly qualified members.
In her current role as CFO and Director of Spendless Shoes, a retail network of 210+ stores Australia wide with its head office based in Adelaide, Tina consolidates the national finance function for the ultimate business owner, who also owns Novo Shoes and other smaller shoe chains. She has 8 direct reports across Finance, Payroll, International Logistic and shipping as well as responsibility of overall corporate governance across other departments in the wider business. The business is a very successful household name, employing over 1000 people, and Tina contributes immensely to this.
In addition to her demanding daily role, Tina also volunteers on boards in the Italian community, utilising her skills in finance, strategic thinking, governance and compliance to help support not-for-profit bodies. She was on the Board of CO.AS.IT, a leading body for the wellbeing of ageing Italo-Australians in South Australia that operates services and programs that promote a fulfilling life. She has been on the board for almost 9 years, holding the role of vice president for 3 years and president for the past 4 years. She has led the organisation through the considerable difficult changes in the aged care regime, to ensure it remains compliant and eligible for maximum funding, which is then used to facilitate social support programs across the metropolitan area in the Italian community. Without this funding the groups would not be able to operate and her guidance and continual support with all required mandated submissions has ensured that CO.AS.IT has remained a full recipient of funding, which is then distributed to these groups to ensure they can offer this invaluable service to the aged Italian community in the future. She has acted as an advocate of the groups with both political parties and Italian Consulate, to help lift the profile of CO.AS.IT with external organisations, and always looks to find ways to ensure they work collaboratively for the future ongoing success of the organisation. On cessation of her Presidency in January 2024, Tina was appointed as a Life Member of CO.AS.IT in recognition of the extensive work done to lift the profile of the organisation in the Adelaide community.
She has also recently been appointed as a board member for both Bene Aged Care and Radio Italia Uno, roles that are to commence in January 2024. Both these roles were sought for her financial governance and treasury oversight skills and will complement the existing Board member knowledge base of those organisations.
In addition to these organisations, Tina assists other religious and local charity organisations with government grant acquittals and compliance reporting to ensure they are eligible to receive important funding to operate. Her skills are well respected and as a result she has also been asked to represent the northeast community for the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network (NALHN) part of SA Health, that specifically governs both the Modbury and Lyell Mc Ewin Hospitals, where she sits on the Corporate Governance committee once a month. All of these roles are performed pro-bono.
In a role that has traditionally been dominated by males, her technical skills have ensured she has had an equal voice and represented her industry in a professional and capable manner. She has not been afraid to challenge, develop, mentor and represent both the organisations she works with, as well as all those she donates time with, to help them flourish and grow. With the continual focus on financial viability, corporate responsibility and also the ever-growing rules and regulations of reporting and accounting under constant scrutiny, it is important to have someone well respected and qualified to oversee these metrics.
February 2024