Leading Australian business, academic and evangelical leaders will take part in a panel discussion on the 'Church in the Marketplace' at the Recreating Australian Congress to be held from May 12th to 15th at the Melbourne Concert Hall. The congress comes almost four years after over 170 Australian evangelists and church leaders met at Amsterdam 2000 - a world-wide event organised by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. The four day program will include keynote addresses, a track program focusing on key strategies and will provide an unprecedented networking opportunity.

The Church in the Marketplace panel will be held at 9.30am on Friday, May 14th and will give attenders an insight into the challenges facing Christians in contemporary Australian society.

Panel members include:

* George Savviddes - CEO of Medibank Private. George Savvides was appointed Interim Managing Director of Medibank Private Limited, Australia's largest health insurer, in April 2002 and confirmed as a permanent appointment by the Australian Federal Government soon after. Medibank Private is 100 percent owned by the Federal Government but operates as a discrete entity reporting to an independent governance Board. Mr Savvides has fifteen years experience in the Australian health care industry where he was Managing Director of a major pharmaceutical company, Sigma, for 5 years, which he listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1999. Prior to that was the Regional Managing Director of global health care company Smith Nephew. He originally trained as an industrial engineer, is an MBA, a fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and is also a non-executive director of World Vision International and World Vision Australia.

* Professor Ian Harper - Ian Harper is one of Australia's most distinguished academic economists. He has worked closely with governments, banks,corporates and leading professional firms at the highest level. As a member of the celebrated Wallis Inquiry, he was at the forefront of financial market reform in Australia. Ian holds the Sidney Myer Chair of Commerce & Business Administration in the Melbourne Business School at the University of Melbourne. He is also Assistant Director and Dean of Faculty at theSchool. Ian is Principal of his own consulting company, Harper Associates Australia, a Senior Consultant with Charles River Associates (Asia Pacific), and a financial services consultant to KPMG, Aon Financial Services and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. He is best known as a commentator and public speaker on economic and financial issues. He has been described as "one of those relatively rare academics who can communicate extremely well with both the business community and the academic community".

* Anne Winckel - Jones & Koller legal team. Anne Winckel is a lawyer from Adelaide who primarily worked in the education field (she has worked at all three universities in Adelaide, and most recently lectured with the Law Faculty at the University of Melbourne) before becoming a Legal Recruitment consultant nearly four years ago. She now leads the Legal and Executive team at Jones & Koller. Anne has also written a Masters thesis in the area of Constitutional Law.

* Colin Buchanan - songwriter/performer. Colin was born in Dublin, but atage six he moved with his family to Melbourne and then Sydney, before going bush as a young man. In the years since, he has won six Golden Guitar awards, and has written songs with Lee Kernaghan, Adam Brand and Troy Cassar-Daley, and become one of the country's most treasured singer-songwriters. His song Hat Town, written with Lee Kernaghan, won an APRA Award, while his Christmas album, recorded with Greg Champion, has become an Australian classic - in particular his Aussie Jingle Bells, now a staple at school end-of-year concerts. All that, plus appearances as a regular on ABC TV's Playschool - and more recently Playhouse Disney - regular appearance on radio, Qantas' in-flight country music channel, and a couple of children's albums of quite unrestrained silliness.

* Simon McKeon - is an Executive Director of Macquarie Bank and President of the Federal Government's Australian Takeovers Panel. He is on the boards of World Vision Australia, MS Victoria and MS Australia. He is also Chairman of the Point Nepean Community Trust. Simon has appeared in the Guinness Book of Records for the last ten years as the world's fastest yachtsman.

(The Recreating Australia Conference will directly follow the annual Christian Management Australia Conference (CMA). Thirty speakers from USA, UK, NZ and Australia will address the CMA conference and Recreating Australia delegates are invited to attend either the entire CMA conference, or the special CMA Conference Dinner on the Tuesday prior to the Recreating Australia event.

Visit www.cma.au.com/conference or phone 07 5533 2039