Virtual On the Couch with Rick Persse

Rick Persse AM was appointed to lead the Department of the Premier and Cabinet in December 2024.

An accomplished public sector leader, Rick joins the department after a successful period from April 2022 as South Australia’s Under Treasurer leading the Department of Treasury and Finance.

Prior to Treasury, Rick was Chief Executive of the Department for Education for 6 years, after leading the Attorney-General’s Department for 4 years.

With expertise in policy and strategy development, transformation, public sector reform and major project delivery, Rick’s knowledge of public administration comes from an expansive career building and leading teams as an executive at a variety of South Australian central government agencies.

Prior to being appointed to the role of Chief Executive, Attorney-General’s Department, Rick worked with government and non-government clients as a Big 4 Consulting firm SA Government and Health Leader.

Rick has a Master of Business Administration from the University of Adelaide and a Graduate Certificate in Public Sector Management from Griffith University.

Jamie Briggs is the Adelaide Managing Partner and South Australian Government leader at PwC.
He was previously a member of the Australian Parliament, serving in the capacity of Federal Minister for Cities and the Built Environment and the Federal Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development. Prior to entering Parliament he was a Senior Advisor to the then Prime Minister the Hon. John Howard from 2004-2007 advising on workplace relations reform.
He has completed his MBA at the University of Adelaide and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Relevant Experience

Throughout Jamie’s 15 year career in the Australian Government he has worked extensively on significant public policy issues, managing a range of stakeholders and delivering high performance outcomes. More specifically in his role as Federal Infrastructure Minister, Jamie worked very closely with State Governments to design and implement major infrastructure projects ranging across Australia. This included developing unique and innovative approaches to deliver projects such as the implementation of the Australian Government infrastructure asset recycling programme, the development of the Western Sydney Airport supporting and infrastructure and the first of its kind concessional loan for the 2nd stage of the WestConnex project in Sydney. In addition, Jamie was appointed as the first ever Federal Cities Minister beginning the process of establishing the city deal concept in Australia.

Since joining PwC in February 2017, Jamie has worked with a range of issues with clients to implement strategies for dealing with significant public interest issues to achieve high quality outcomes. This has included developing PwC’s approach to cities with the development of the ‘CityPulse’ and working with private sector clients to develop solutions to important problems by providing a deep understanding of government and its processes driven from extensive experience in the government sector.