Vistage Australia and New Zealand

The Executive Connection, founded in Sydney in 1986 by Dr. Phil Meddings, was the Australian and New Zealand licensee of the peer-advisory format created as The Executive Committee in Milwaukee in 1957. Vistage Worldwide acquired it on 4 March 2024, when it had more than 1,000 members and over 60 Chairs, and the business now trades as Vistage Australia and New Zealand; the tec.com.au domain redirects to the Vistage site. The operating model is unchanged: members join a confidential peer advisory group of 12-16 non-competing CEOs and business owners, meet monthly for a full or half day depending on programme, and take a separate one-to-one coaching session with the Chair who facilitates the group. Members also receive Vistage speaker sessions, research and the global member network. Groups run in Sydney, Newcastle, Tamworth, Melbourne, Brisbane, Toowoomba, Adelaide, Perth, Auckland and Christchurch. Neither the eligibility thresholds nor the dues are published; both are settled in conversation with a member advisor.

How it works

Applicants speak with a member advisor and are placed into a non-competing group of 12-16 peers matched on leadership role, business size and industry mix. Groups meet once a month for a full or half day under a trained Chair, and each member also has regular one-to-one coaching with that Chair. Members get access to Vistage's speaker network, research and global online community.

Typical member

Members are chief executives, owners and senior executives of small and midsize companies. Vistage says the model is designed for leaders managing complexity rather than early-stage start-ups, and that placement weighs leadership role, business size and industry mix.

For anyone searching under the old name, the practical point is that TEC Australia no longer exists as a separate brand: the organisation, its Chairs and its groups are now Vistage Australia and New Zealand, with the same managing director. That resolves an old source of confusion - TEC in Australia, TEC in Canada and Vistage in the United States were the same format under three names - but it also means the regional membership figure has stopped being published; the site now quotes the global 45,000. Geographic coverage is genuinely thin outside the state capitals: Newcastle, Tamworth and Toowoomba aside, a leader in a regional centre will be travelling. As with Vistage everywhere, price is not published and the experience depends heavily on the individual Chair, which is worth testing before committing to a monthly full-day plus a coaching session.

Editorial analysis by Peer Group Guide editors. It is separated from the record above and follows the editorial policy.