Partnering with USC to build capability

We have an ambition for growth, for our Westfield destinations to become essential to people, their communities and the businesses that interact with them.

Maria Stamoulis, Director Human Resources, said: “We identified building our leaders’ capability as a lever to grow the business. To do this, we brought outside thinking into our organisation by partnering with the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

“USC is ranked as one of the United States’ premier schools and is recognised for its emphasis on entrepreneurship and innovation.

“As part of USC Marshall’s Global Leadership Program, Scentre Group hosted 30 students and showcased our business strategy to provide insight into how we think about customers and our Westfield destinations.

“With their in-depth understanding of our business, USC’s Professor Rebecca Heino then created a bespoke Innovative Enterprise Leadership Program for Scentre Group. Over six months 17 leaders completed three modules of work on campus in Los Angeles.

“Their immersion in USC’s world-class setting, supported our leaders develop skills to create innovative, customer-centric solutions.

“To establish this mindset across our entire leadership team, USC’s Professor Rebecca Heino, Professor Abby Fifer Mandell and Professor Greg Patton joined our CEO’s annual Ambition Forum and guided our 200-strong leadership team through a day of interactive sessions that reflected fundamental parts of the full program.

“We hope that our leaders’ learnings and experiences with USC, are the beginning of an enterprise-wide mindset shift where every team member is empowered to deliver customer-centric solutions every day and we become truly innovative in our approach to delivering our plan to attract more people, more often and for longer to our Westfield destinations.

“We know our success comes from our people, and partnering with USC is an important investment in our people and the future of our business.”