Reflections on my Dad's passing

I'm returning to the US today after a difficult return to Australia in December. My father died on 15 December last year, due to COVID restrictions I was only able to visit him briefly and in full PPE, before returning to quarantine (3 days in Sydney and then a full 14 days in Brisbane once I was able to cross the border) and we held his funeral on 29 December.

There is too much to say about Dad in a LinkedIn post, and no words that can convey my sense of sadness and loss fully, but given the nature of this forum I did just want focus on two "professional" points.

Firstly, my Dad was, and always will be, my professional role model and conscience. He was a successful partner at Minter Ellison and in the innumerable condolences my family has gratefully received, and in the eulogies that were offered, including by his protege and then practice leader Julie Whitehead, the themes of Dad's technical ability, his integrity, his focus on client service, his mentorship and his kind and wise counsel came through. My learning from Dad started when I was a child listening to half of a conversation on car trips and never stopped, I was asking him for advice until he could no longer speak. He will always be my benchmark that I will aspire to, but never quite meet, and his legacy will live on through his contribution to Minters and the many people within and without the firm that he mentored.

The second professional aspect that I wanted to highlight was the incredible support that I have received from PwC US and PwC Australia, and most importantly from my clients through this difficult time. I would like to specifically thank Maarten Maaskant from PwC US and too many people to name from PwC Australia, but specifically Tom Seymour, Chris Morris, Chris Rogan, Hayden Scott, Sarah Hickey, Rebecca Cohen, Michael Bona and so many others both for practical support, kindness and just going above and beyond to help me say goodbye to Dad and support my mother in this difficult time. The culture of an organisation comes through in a crisis and this was a personal crisis for me and PwC's culture of support made me incredibly proud, grateful and humbled to be a partner of this firm.

Like I said at the start of this post, this is just a snippet of the emotions that my family and I have been going through, and the above is only focussed on the professional aspects, but I couldn't finish writing anything about this saga without thanking my wonderful wife Madison who solo parented our 11 month old son (well, he was 10 months when this started) whilst working NYC hours from Australia as we navigated quarantine. If Dad was my original professional inspiration, Maddie is my continuing inspiration.