Vanessa Morris, CEO of TimeBase, has spent much of her career clarifying complex legal and business information, developing an expertise that would prove essential for navigating one of the most complex information challenges for Australian and New Zealand businesses: legislative compliance.
From Economics Graduate to Legal Publisher
Morris’ path to leading TimeBase wasn’t linear – and she’s the first to say that’s been one of its greatest strengths. After completing an economics degree driven by an early interest in business, she started in finance before taking what she calls “a bit of a segue” into the commercial conference industry. “That’s really when I got the bug for business information,” she recalls. This pivot opened the door to legal publishing, where she spent almost a decade at CCH/Wolters Kluwer, eventually becoming a publisher and cementing her expertise in making complex legal and regulatory content accessible.
But it was a call from someone she’d worked with early in her career that would define the next chapter. “I think there’s a great lesson in that,” Morris reflects. “People that are meaningful to you in your early career can have an impact on your career much further down the path.” That former manager brought her in to run TimeBase, where she’s spent the past 13 years leading and transforming the business as its CEO.
Throughout these varied roles – including a period of consulting work that gave her flexibility when her children were young – one goal has remained constant. “If there’s a thread, it’s taking complex material, making it more accessible and enabling people to make better, more informed decisions,” Morris explains.
Navigating the Labyrinth of Legislative Complexity
Founded 30 years ago, TimeBase has always been an innovator in the legal publishing world – focusing exclusively on digital delivery since its inception. This technology-first approach, combined with the teams’ editorial expertise, has positioned TimeBase as a leader in legislative research across all Australian jurisdictions and now New Zealand as well.
The challenges TimeBase addresses are genuinely complex. Legislation is always changing through amendments and repeals, and nearly 1,000 new bills have moved through the parliaments so far this year But Morris points out that the complexity multiplies when you consider how businesses actually operate. “If you’re an organisation that has got operations in each state and territory, there is a huge amount of complexity to keep on top of,” she explains. A road transport company, for instance, may need to stay of top of dangerous goods legislation in New South Wales and Victoria, and potentially every other state and territory, plus federal requirements like the Fair Work Act.
TimeBase’s solution is built on three pillars: speed, accuracy, and knowledge. The platform publishes three times daily, with legally qualified editors applying analysis that enables customised alerting, legislative activity reports for compliance teams, and point-in-time technology that can recreate what key federal laws were at any date in the past – or will be in the future. “Imagine if you have got an issue that happened 10 or 15 years ago,” Morris notes. “It’s a labourious task to work out how the law read back then. TimeBase makes it easy.”
Regulation as the Foundation for Safe Business Growth
While it’s understood that the regulatory reality creates significant pressure for organisations and their advisers, Morris’s perspective on regulation is refreshingly pragmatic. Rather than viewing compliance as a burden, she sees it as an essential framework that enables businesses to operate with confidence and scale safely. “Staying compliant with the necessary regulations can be challenging, and the penalties for not continue to increase, however when an organisation can confidently confirm that it’s operating within the guardrails – the opportunities for growth are amplified,” says Morris.
TimeBase helps lawyers and general counsel maintain their awareness – knowing when bills are before Parliament in their practice areas, staying informed about changes to payroll tax or intellectual property law. The platform also enables deeper research for those who need to understand not just what is changing, but why. “When there are amendments, it’s like, well, what’s the purpose? Why are they wanting to change the law?” Morris explains. “What is it that the law makers were trying to achieve? It can be really useful to understand the intent behind a bill, beyond just what the bill says.”
A New Chapter with Thomson Reuters
Morris’s excitement about TimeBase’s integration into Thomson Reuters is evident. When she got the call that Thomson Reuters was interested in acquiring TimeBase, she admits she was “a little surprised,” but also “happy it was Thomson Reuters because of its great reputation.”
The acquisition also opens doors that can be impossible for a smaller business to open. For the business – there’s access to global technology platforms, AI capabilities, and resources to enhance TimeBase’s legislative coverage. But Morris is particularly energised by what it means for her team. “In a small business, what you can offer by way of a career path for more junior team members is somewhat restricted,” she reflects. “For the TimeBase team it’s brilliant to be able to offer the global exposure that Thomson Reuters has. The potential to be able to grow and develop here is just amazing.”
She’s also impressed by Thomson Reuters’ emphasis on AI enablement for employees. “Thomson Reuters’ emphasis on employees using AI tools, I think that’s hugely important for individuals to remain productive and also to keep up with the technologies,” Morris says. “It’s keeping the team current, developing skills and microskills essential for people’s career progression.”
Advice for Women in Leadership: Embrace Opportunities
As a woman in a senior leadership role, Morris has clear-eyed advice for other women navigating their careers, make purposeful decisions about your career, embrace opportunities to learn and be open to change.
Her advice is practical: keep up your skills no matter what you’re doing, maintain your networks, and most importantly, “construct a narrative around any career breaks that isn’t about loss but about gaining,” and don’t be apologetic for having to make different choices at different times of your life.
When asked what she hopes to see the team achieving in the next three years, her answer reflects the speed that work continues to change. “Once you could have a clear-eyed three-year time span,” she notes, “but I think things are changing so much that in one-, two- or three-years things will really look quite different to what we expect or imagine today.”
What she does know is that customers will continue to face the challenge of making sense of an increasingly regulated world, and that Thomson Reuters is well-equipped to help them navigate that complexity. For Morris, that’s what it’s always been about: taking information that’s inherently complex and making it clear so that people can make better, more informed decisions.
