About

One of the most notable companies in the Australian economy, Wesfarmers is an Australian conglomerate with interests predominantly in retail, chemicals, fertilisers, coal mining and industrial and safety products. The Wesfarmers organisation has been extremely active in the last 12 months, undertaking a number of different projects concerned with reshuffling its business portfolio to best ensure its market position and future competitiveness.

Amongst the most high-profile recent business movements was the sale of DIY chain Homebase in the UK, which is considered by some analysts as removing a risk hanging over the company’s stock and improving its balance sheet position. As of August 2018, Wesfarmers announced the sale of its Kmart Tyre and Auto Service business to Germany’s Continental for $350m AUD, which is expected to raise a pre-tax profit on the sale in the range of $270m AUD to $275m AUD upon completing the deal. The company also recently exited the coal mining business with the $860m AUD sale of its last coal asset, and is set to spin off its biggest business, Australia’s second largest supermarket chain Coles, estimated to be worth about $16bn AUD. Helping achieve the company’s wide range of business objectives that are complex and attract large scale media interest is lead lawyer and widely recognised in-house legal professional Maya vanden Driesen. With a long history in the group – she first joined Wesfarmers in 1993 – vanden Driesen was appointed group general counsel of Wesfarmers in January 2015 after a number of different roles including as general manager legal – litigation, overseeing the management and conduct of all litigation and dispute matters across the Wesfarmers Group.

Prior to joining Wesfarmers, she worked in private practice at Parker & Parker and Downings Legal, covering areas such as general commercial, industrial, regulatory and insurance litigation. Vanden Driesen is a member and former secretary of the Association of Corporate Counsel (Australia) – WA Division and a member of the Law Society of Western Australia. She sits on the executive committee of the GC 100, representing the general counsel of Australia’s top 100 ASX listed companies within the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Australia branch. Further proving her dedication to the provision of legal expertise, vanden Driesen is a member of the UWA Law School’s Advisory Board and she has been a director for the Committee for Perth since January 2016.