Professor Edward Wray-Bliss and Professor Maryam Omari.
Edith Cowan University, in partnership with the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation, has created an influential Professorial Chair position to ensure its business and law graduates are not only successful in their chosen careers — but ethical.
Professor Edward Wray-Bliss will be ECU's inaugural Professor of Business Ethics at the School of Business and Law.
Professor Wray-Bliss will teach core Business Ethics units and embed ethics more broadly across the School's courses, research, leadership and engagement with industry and the community.
Underlining the gravitas of the role, the Professor of Business Ethics has been given a permanent seat at the School’s Executive Committee.
The Stan Perron Charitable Foundation will fund the position for an initial five-year period — the first externally-funded Professorial Chair at ECU.
Stan Perron Charitable Foundation Chair Elizabeth Perron said her father displayed an unerring commitment to ethical conduct throughout his business life.
"In fact, we would regard his greatest legacy as the culture which now underpins the work of the Foundation and also the Perron Group of companies," Ms Perron said.
"Shortly before Dad passed away in 2018 the company launched our Vision and Values known as The Perron Way, which articulated the example he showed over his lifetime.
"The Perron Way has at its core the view that the key to commercial success lies in acting with integrity, honesty and fairness and I know he would have been thrilled to be playing a role in that message being passed onto the next generation of leaders in business and law."
Professor Edward Wray-Bliss' academic career spans more than 25 years.
He said the modern business world was defined by significant developments, including environmental destruction; inequality; the erosion of the traditional meaning of work; and the impact of artificial intelligence.
"Education in ethics, enabling students to hone their natural empathic and compassionate selves and to apply this critically and reflexively to their place and position in the organised world, is crucial for their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of those around them," Professor Wray-Bliss said.
Mr Perron – a prominent Western Australian business leader and philanthropist – was renowned for his own commitment to ethical business practices, with the Foundation donating over $100 million to hundreds of organisations and individuals since its inception.
ECU Vice-Chancellor, Professor Steve Chapman, noted the generous support of the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation would enable further integration of business ethics into ECU’s curricula and co-curricular activities.
"Its teachings will reach into the lives of our students, positively impacting their practices as future leaders of industry," Professor Chapman said.
"It is an incredible honour to recognise the legacy of Stan Perron himself through this first Professional Chair for ECU."
The new position adds to ECU's School of Business and Law's world-leading researchers and educators, working across areas such as sustainability and tourism, responsible leadership, dignity at work, human rights law, and wellbeing at work.
ECU School of Business and Law Executive Dean, Professor Maryam Omari, said the partnership with the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation would further strengthen the School's focus on ethical and responsible business education.
“Working closely with myself, our executive team, and the outstanding professorial, academic and professional staff in the School, Professor Wray-Bliss' appointment means that the School is uniquely placed to make a profound contribution to ethical and responsible business practice not only in Western Australia, but across the nation and internationally," she said.
This important appointment comes after ECU's School of Business and Law earned global recognition with accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) in 2022.
This accreditation is held by less than six per cent of the world's schools offering business degree programs.
It also follows ECU taking out top place in the quality category in the Australian Financial Review’s inaugural AFR BOSS Best Business Schools list in September last year.
ECU's School of Business and Law is preparing for its much anticipated move to the University's transformational new ECU City campus – currently under construction in the heart of Perth. Its new CBD location, come 2026, will place the School at the centre of business and industry, delivering much opportunity for students and academics and a new paradigm for the higher education sector.
About Professor Edward Wray-Bliss:
Professor Wray-Bliss received his Doctorate from the University of Manchester in 1998 and has held academic positions at universities across Australia and the UK, including Macquarie University, Deakin University, University of Technology Sydney, Essex University, Nottingham University, Salford University, Stirling University, and Edge Hill University. He was appointed Professor of Business Ethics at ECU in 2023 – the first externally funded Professorial Chair position in this institution.
About Stan Perron Charitable Foundation:
Stan Perron AC was one of Western Australia’s most successful businessman and established The Stan Perron Charitable Foundation in 1978. On his passing in 2018, Mr Perron left instructions that his Perron Group of companies, including one of the largest privately held property portfolios in Australia, should be restructured to operate as an enduring endowment to fund the activities of the Foundation. Mr Perron also left the Directors of the Foundation, now chaired by his daughter Elizabeth, with a set of principles outlining his wishes for the disbursement of funds in the years to come, This includes a major focus on the health and well being of children, funding for a wide variety of not-for-profit community groups and support for activity that encourages ethical behaviour in business.
