Unlocking the potential of Information Management with Anne Cornish

Executive Summary

This webinar highlights the Global Information Consortium’s five-step framework for effective information management, underscoring its importance in overcoming common organisational challenges. Anne Cornish emphasises the need to measure value for building trust, illustrated by the inspiring Bankstown Council story. Additionally, she advocates for creating measurable value, transitioning from gatekeeping to strategic communication within information management, and concludes with a focus on career pathways in knowledge management and an urgent call to action for greater engagement.

Webinar Details

Title: Unlocking the potential of Information Management with Anne Cornish
Date: 2026-02-18
Presenter: Anne Cornish
Meetup Group: DAMA SA User Group Meeting
Write-up Author: Howard Diesel

Welcome, Introductions & The Global Information Consortium

The webinar opens with Howard Diesel welcoming attendees and thanking Anne Cornish, CEO of RIMPA Global (Records and Information Management Professionals Australasia). Howard shares a personal confession about initially having negative perceptions of records management after encountering professionals who refused to engage with data management. However, his experience at RIMPA Live in Melbourne completely transformed his perspective—he found the conference phenomenal, energetic, and packed with cutting-edge content on AI and information management.

Anne introduces the Global Information Consortium, a groundbreaking collaborative initiative bringing together professionals from data management, records, archives, libraries, content, and knowledge management. The Consortium aims to provide a unified global voice for information professionals who have historically worked in silos. Their first major initiative involves creating a central resource hub where organisations can share materials and best practices rather than constantly reinventing the wheel.

Whether you work in data, records, archives, or knowledge management, the core challenges remain remarkably similar: demonstrating value to organisations and gaining recognition that information management is mission-critical, not merely administrative overhead. Anne states that the Consortium represents hope that collective advocacy will achieve what individual disciplines struggle to accomplish alone: genuine strategic recognition and organisational investment in information governance.

Figure 1 About the Speaker

Why Information Management Matters Now & Persistent Challenges

Anne addresses why information management is no longer a back-office function. With AI, digital government initiatives, procurement scrutiny, and regulatory compliance intensifying globally, effective information governance has become essential for service delivery, accountability, and the maintenance of public trust. She drives home a critical reality: AI is entirely dependent on the quality and governance of the information it processes. The old adage “garbage in, garbage out” has never been more relevant or dangerous.

Information management professionals are crucial to the safe implementation of AI, yet the field faces a talent shortage. In Australia, records management was historically viewed as the organisational “dumping ground” for employees on light duty following workplace injuries—people were assigned to records offices because it “didn’t matter.” This legacy perception persists despite dramatic changes in the profession’s importance and sophistication.

Despite growing strategic relevance, information management still suffers from damaging perceptions: it’s seen as compliance-focused, reactive, operational, paper-based or system-bound, and separate from exciting initiatives like AI and digital transformation. Organisations treat information management as something that happens in isolation rather than as foundational infrastructure enabling everything else.

Anne discusses the challenges facing education and career development. Australian universities are closing combined library-archives-records programs due to insufficient enrollment. Organisations struggle to find senior-level information professionals capable of operating at executive levels. The profession isn’t attracting enough new talent, and young people aren’t waking up excited about careers in information management—a concerning trend given increasing demand for these critical skills.

Figure 2 Unlocking the Value of Information and Why this Matters

Figure 3 The Problem we Face

The Global Information Consortium’s Five-Step Framework

Anne introduces RIMPA‘s innovative five-step framework that transforms information professionals into influential business partners. Unlike traditional approaches emphasising technical competencies, this framework prioritises soft skills: communication, influence, education, and strategic alignment.

When Anne started in the industry, job interviews focused exclusively on technical knowledge—classification schemes, retention schedules, storage management. Nobody assessed communication skills, project management capabilities, change management expertise, or strategic thinking. This created generations of technically brilliant but strategically invisible professionals.

Step 1: Know Your Organisation begins with developing deep organisational intelligence. Information professionals must thoroughly understand their organisation’s mandate, governing legislation, strategic objectives, critical information assets, workflows, and decision-making processes. Anne challenges a dangerous misconception: many information professionals believe they understand their organisations comprehensively simply because they handle data and records across all departments. Records managers traditionally opened everyone’s mail, classified documents, created filing systems, and managed retention—creating a false sense of omniscience.

Reality proves humbling. When Anne’s consulting work takes her outside records offices to engage directly with business units, she consistently discovers how much remains unknown about actual organisational operations, priorities, and information flows. Understanding what the organisation truly does, identifying genuinely critical information assets (not treating everything equally), and aligning information management initiatives with overall strategic direction provides an essential foundation for all subsequent framework steps. Anne advocates treating colleagues as customers deserving of excellent service—a mindset shift that transforms professional relationships and organisational influence.

Figure 4 The Five Step Framework

Figure 5 Step One: Know Your Organisation

Common Organisational Failures in Information Management

Through extensive consulting experience, Anne identifies critical organisational failures that undermine information management effectiveness. Retention schedules often fall out of step with actual operations—records managers decree seven-year retention periods while business units insist materials must remain accessible longer for legitimate operational reasons.

Conversely, some organisations embrace “just in case” hoarding because “storage is cheap,” failing to recognise that retained information creates legal exposure through freedom of information requests and discovery obligations. In Australia, the longer you keep records, the longer they’re susceptible to mandatory disclosure under right-to-information legislation.

Policies exist but aren’t embedded. Organisations invest substantial time crafting comprehensive information management policies that never achieve operational integration. Employees ignore policies that don’t answer “What’s in it for me?” and lack meaningful enforcement, rendering them effectively worthless despite the effort invested in creation.

Rogue systems proliferate without governance. Anne expresses frustration about the prevalence of systems implemented without any interaction with IT, records management, or data governance teams. These ungoverned systems sit siloed, managing critical information that nobody knows exists until problems emerge. She shares an extreme example: an engineer in local government who refused to share critical infrastructure plans, maintaining his own system that nobody else could access when he was unavailable. He’d been allowed to operate this way for 35 years because he “knew it like the back of his hand,” creating catastrophic organisational risk.

Information ownership remains unclear because people fear accountability. Information management gets introduced too late into projects, resulting in unstructured content dumps at completion. Over-reliance on technology persists—treating systems as magical solutions without recognising they’re merely tools requiring quality information and governance to deliver value.

Figure 6 Know Your Business

Measuring Value, Building Trust and Credibility

Howard raises the critical challenge of quantifying information value financially. CFOs dismiss valuation attempts as “funny numbers” lacking credible methodology because traditional accounting frameworks don’t recognise information as balance sheet assets. Anne reveals RIMPA‘s collaboration with James Price from Experience Matters on research specifically targeting this problem. Crucially, they’ve engaged accounting standards bodies directly—if successful, this work could establish legislated standards for information valuation and mandatory inclusion in profit-and-loss statements. Anne acknowledges this won’t happen overnight; it requires patient, rigorous work to establish credible methodologies that accounting professionals will accept.

Step 2: Build Trust & Credibility operates on two parallel tracks: ensuring information itself is trustworthy and building personal professional credibility. Information must be reliable, authentic, authoritative, and defensible from both usage and disposal perspectives. Organisations increasingly face regulatory scrutiny, investigations, royal commissions (in Australia), and public accountability requirements—all of which demand information that can withstand rigorous examination.

Personal credibility requires demonstrating expertise, acting proactively rather than reactively, and clearly articulating how information management protects organisations from risk while enabling opportunities. When executives trust your judgment, recognise your strategic insight, and understand the concrete risks you mitigate, securing “a seat at the table” becomes a reality.

Anne notes that Australian royal commissions consistently dedicate entire chapters to inadequate information management failures, yet organisations rarely prioritise sustained remediation. Investments spike immediately following crises, creating impressive-looking programs, then taper off as urgency fades because information lacks a visible representation as a valued asset. This cyclical pattern must break through demonstrated, measurable value that persists beyond crisis moments.

Figure 7 Step Two: Build Trust and Credibility

Figure 8 Information as a Trust Enabler

Educate with Inspiration & The Bankstown Council Story

Step 3: Educate with Inspiration challenges information management’s reputation for tedious, compliance-focused training. Traditional approaches involve generic lectures about policies, governance requirements, and system procedures—utterly boring and disconnected from individual roles. Attendees tune out because training doesn’t answer the fundamental question: “What’s in it for me?”

Anne advocates radical transformation: make training role-based, practical, and directly relevant to daily work. Rather than herding people into classrooms for generic presentations, invest in dedicated trainers who provide one-on-one coaching at employees’ desks, demonstrating specifically how good information practices benefit THEIR work. This personalised approach creates exponentially greater impact than generalised classroom training. Education should genuinely enhance skills useful to individuals while simultaneously advancing organisational objectives.

Anne shares the powerful cautionary tale of Bankstown City Council, which lost everything in a fire decades ago before digital backup became standard practice. Twenty-five years later, they still cannot provide complete records of building, planning, and infrastructure—a catastrophic loss affecting property transactions, development approvals, and public safety.

The rebuilding priority hierarchy revealed the severe undervaluation of information: the first system restored was payroll (employees refused to work without payment assurance), not information repositories. Financial systems received immediate attention; organisational memory ranked fourth or fifth.

This story demonstrates the urgent need to recognise and value information as a recognised organisational asset. Anne notes the council spent 25+ years “paying penance” for that loss. They cannot provide 100% accurate advice in the building and planning space because historical records simply don’t exist. After the fire, the council went fully digital with comprehensive backup and now invests significantly in information management—but they learned the hardest possible way.

Figure 9 Step Three: Educate with Inspiration

Figure 10 From Gatekeepers to Enablers

Create Measurable Value & Stop Being Gatekeepers

Step 4: Create Measurable Value challenges information professionals to stop talking exclusively about compliance, established practices, legislation, policies, and processes. While these matter internally, they don’t resonate with executives making resource allocation decisions. Instead, articulate value through risk reduction, efficiency gains, cost savings, faster information access, better decision-making quality, and safer AI implementation.

Executives don’t ask “Is our retention schedule compliant?” or “Is our data being kept as long as required?” They ask practical, risk-focused questions: “Are we exposed to regulatory action or litigation? Can we find what we need when we need it? Can we trust our systems? Can we use AI safely?” Information professionals must frame responses in this language to gain executive attention and support.

Anne passionately addresses the “gatekeeper problem”—information professionals have earned an unfortunate reputation for reflexively saying “no” to requests without offering alternatives. “Can we manage information that way?” No. “Can we share that with someone?” No. This pattern trains organisations to stop consulting information professionals entirely, instead working around them through rogue systems and ungoverned practices.

Howard shares a governance rule: you cannot say “no” unless you provide an acceptable alternative. This transforms dynamics from obstruction to collaboration. Anne emphasises that most people don’t care deeply about compliance unless it directly affects them personally—using “the compliance stick” creates resentment without behaviour change.

Information professionals must become enablers, advisors, translators, educators, and partners—not gatekeepers who block progress. When someone asks if they can manage information a certain way, the response should be: “That specific approach creates these risks, but here are three alternative approaches that accomplish your objective while maintaining governance.”

Figure 11 Step Four: Create Measurable Value

Communicate with Influence & IM as Strategic Voice

Step 5: Communicate with Influence addresses the profession’s historical weakness in information management. Technical expertise dominated early career requirements—deep knowledge of classification, retention, and storage management. Project management, change management, marketing, and communication skills were never assessed or developed, creating technically brilliant but strategically invisible professionals unable to articulate value beyond specialist circles.

Today’s environment demands dramatically different capabilities. Stop using jargon. Terms like “metadata,” “taxonomy,” “data modelling,” “data lakes,” and “data quality” sound like foreign languages to executives and operational staff. Anne notes both records and data professionals are equally guilty—data professionals talk about “data modelling and pools and ponds” while records managers discuss “retention schedules and appraisal.” When audiences can’t understand you, they disengage completely.

Speak outcomes: risk, trust, and value. Tailor messaging for specific audiences—executives require different information than legal teams, who need different content than operational staff. Frame responses in business impact language. Anne stresses that information management influence grows exponentially when communication shifts from policy compliance to organisational impact.

Stop defending practices because “that’s how we’ve always done it” or “legislation requires it.” Start by explaining how information governance enables the achievement of strategic objectives, protects against catastrophic loss, builds regulatory confidence, maintains public trust, and creates competitive advantage.

IM must claim its strategic voice at leadership tables for digital transformation, AI adoption, and public accountability initiatives. This is non-negotiable—no longer optional or “nice to have.” Organisations implementing AI without information management expertise are driving at high speed without seatbelts. Governance serves as the protective framework that ensures the safe, ethical, and trustworthy implementation of AI. The profession must position itself proactively within AI initiatives from inception, not reactively after problems emerge.

Figure 12 Step Five: Communicate with Influence

Figure 13 Information Management as a Strategic Voice

Career Pathways, Knowledge Management & Final Call to Action

The webinar concludes with robust Q&A addressing persistent industry challenges. Career progression remains problematic—Chief Information Officers typically emerge from either an IT or an information management background, rarely both, and then favour their original expertise when allocating resources. In the Australian public sector, CIOs usually report directly to CEOs (one level down), but their actual influence and “seat at the table” vary significantly based on individual credibility and organisational culture.

An attendee asks about typical senior titles for information professionals. Anne confirms that “Director” represents the highest direct information management role (approximately the third level from the top in the public sector), while CIO positions encompass both IT and IM responsibilities. The persistent problem: CIOs with IT backgrounds tend to under-resource information management, while those with IM backgrounds may neglect IT infrastructure. Rarely do individuals possess deep expertise in both domains.

Knowledge management resurfaces as a topic of discussion. Anne reflects that 20 years ago, knowledge management was trendy but lacked practical tools for capturing tacit knowledge. Organisations hired knowledge managers, then eliminated positions when the trend faded. Now, with AI capabilities enabling genuine knowledge capture, the expertise developed decades ago has been lost and must be rebuilt from scratch—a frustrating cycle of progress and regression.

Another attendee shares an example from nuclear power plant construction: millions of lifetime quality records were required, with proper sign-offs, before the plant could go live. This tightly coupled data and records in workflows using ITIL and information asset management frameworks—exactly the integration Anne advocates.

Anne’s final call to action: Information management professionals must take ownership of their value propositions. Stop waiting for others to recognise your importance. Get out of your offices. Proactively demonstrate strategic worth. Build relationships. Tell your story repeatedly—messages require multiple repetitions before penetrating awareness. Never waste a good crisis; leverage disasters to demonstrate why information governance matters. The profession’s future depends on individual practitioners’ willingness to step up, speak out, and demand recognition for the strategic value they deliver.

Figure 14 More Information on Information Management Resources

Figure 15 Q&A Section