As Head of Next Practice Innovation for The Google School for Leaders, Ciela directs projects related to the future of leadership. Her work informs how Google develops future-ready leaders. She shares her thinking at conferences across the globe. Prior to joining Google, she was an organisational development consultant for a number of tech organisations and served as the global lead for organisation development at Qualcomm. With a doctorate in Culture and Human Behavior Psychology, Ciela has a passion for anthropology and traveling the world. Ciela is a yogi, enjoys a good dinner party and is a proud introvert. She lives in San Francisco with her husband.

Rupert was appointed as Government Chief People Officer on 1 January 2016, joining the Civil Service from Lloyds Banking Group, where he was Group HR Director. As Government Chief People Officer, Rupert is responsible for delivery of the Civil Service Workforce Plan, which sets out what the Civil Service needs to do to attract the most capable and public-spirited people, and build a culture and ways of working that are as good, if not better, than anything on offer anywhere else. He provides leadership on the full range of people issues including talent, capability, inclusion, capacity, leadership, pay and employee deal, performance, employee relations, culture and behaviours. Rupert is also Director General for Government Shared Services. Rupert reports directly to John Manzoni, the Chief Executive of the Civil Service and Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary and is a member of the People Board and Senior Talent Forum. Rupert attended secondary school in Aberdeen, and graduated in Politics and Philosophy from St. Catherine’s College, Oxford. During his undergraduate degree he spent a semester interning at the US Senate. He attended Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program in 2010. Rupert began his career at the Confederation of British Industry before becoming a partner in Arthur Andersen and Deloitte. Since then he has worked for Barclays Bank plc, first as Executive Management Director and then as the HR Director for Global, Retail and Commercial Banking, and at Aviva where he was UK HR Director and then HR Centre of Expertise Director. Rupert is married with two children.

Dean leads global HR, Finance, and Legal teams for Patagonia reporting directly to the CEO, Rose Marcario.  He also currently serves as an Independent Director on the Board of Directors for two boards; Cornerstone on Demand (CSOD:NASDAQ), a publicly traded Cloud-based HR tech platform, and Griffith Foods, a high-growth Chicago-based privately held sustainable food company.  Prior to Patagonia, Dean brings a combined 15 years of experience as a CHRO for Sears Holdings Corporation as well as Fossil, Inc. Leading up to his time at Fossil, he served in variety of progressive HR and Management roles for Pier 1 Imports, Pearle Vision and Procter & Gamble.

During his career, Dean’s perspectives on the opportunities with HR, culture and the employee experience have been featured in The Economist, NBC Nightly News, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, NPR Morning Edition, NPR Marketplace, The Wall Street Journal and various other books and national publications. The work of his HR teams has led to Brandon Hall’s Gold Award for Innovation in HR as well as SHRM’s prestigious HRM Impact Award.

Dean earned his undergraduate degree from The University of Texas at Austin and currently serves as a Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law Workforce Science Fellow.

Kathryn van der Merwe joined ANZ as Group Executive Talent and Culture on 1 May 2017. Prior to joining ANZ, Kathryn worked for Bain & Company where her 14 year career has been focused on leading business transformations. This includes strengthening organisational culture and capability, and the development and delivery of change strategies to improve performance and facilitate sustainable growth. Most recently she was Expert Vice President for Bain’s Results Delivery Practice in the Asia Pacific. Kathryn holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of New South Wales.

In August 2016, Alexandra Badenoch re-joined Telstra to take up the role of Group Executive Human Resources where she was responsible for providing strategic advice and support to the Human Resources arm of the business. In 2018 Alex’s role expanded to include leading the delivery office of Telstra’s company-wide T22 transformation strategy, an ambitious program to lead the Australian market by simplifying its operations and product set, improving customer experience and reducing its cost base. This is in addition to her responsibility for simplifying the business structure and transforming how Telstra works to become more customer focussed, agile and collaborative. Prior to this, she was Director of Human Resources, Corporate Affairs and Customer at Asciano, Australia’s largest rail and ports operator, and brings a wealth of experience dealing with a highly diversified and international workforce. Before joining Asciano, Alex worked at Telstra for more than five years as Executive Director Organisational Development & Talent and Executive Director HR for Telstra’s Consumer business, including BigPond and Telstra Country Wide. Known for her change management skills and ability to deliver strong commercial outcomes, Alex has designed and implemented key initiatives to drive successful change across multiple organisations, including Novell Inc. and Coles Myer.

Melissa is the General Manager of People & Culture at Medibank, whose remit has included culture, employee engagement, capability, leadership development, learning, diversity and employee communications.

Mel is passionate about creating exceptional experiences for employees, customers and communities; supporting people to feel engaged, purpose-driven and able to bring their whole selves to work. A strong advocate for the role of leadership in shaping experience and culture, Mel has devoted a large part of her career to the design and implementation of leadership initiatives across a range of organisations.

Prior to joining Medibank, Mel was part of the HR team at NAB, led the Professional Services consulting team at SHL (now CEB) and has a background in Organisational Psychology.

Born to Joy in the harsh Manchester Winter of 77, Dominic has a career that has reached far and wide through Europe, US and Asia PAC.

Dom has responsibilities spanning 7 global R&D centres, and is our in-house “Team Doctor” helping Atlassian scale by being ruthlessly efficient and effective, with one eye on the future. Dom helped pioneer our Team Playbook and has personally run hundreds of sessions with our teams globally.

He has previously been the GM Program Management for a global gaming company and a Director of Deloitte.

Dom is proud to work at Atlassian, the home of the most intelligent t-shirt wearers in business, as the Work Futurist.

A keen traveller, Dom has traversed over 50 countries so far, but after 15 years on these shores, he calls Australia home.

Mrs Colleen Harris commenced with Ramsay Health Care on 8 January 2018 in the role of Group Chief People Officer.

In this role, Colleen is responsible for the talent strategy for the Group including mapping of where key expertise will be needed in the future, talent development and succession planning for the most senior leaders across our organisation.

Colleen is a successful Human Resources (HR) executive with more than 20 years’ experience across a variety of industries where she was responsible for designing and implementing talent, diversity, performance and reward programs linked to both individual and business performance outcomes. She has served in several senior executive HR positions reporting to the Group CEOs of National Australia Bank, Federation Centres and MyState Limited. She has also held senior HR positions at Crown Ltd and Yellow Pages.

She holds a Bachelor of Education (Science) from the University of Melbourne, is a Member of the AICD and a Fellow of the Australian Human Resources Institute.

Rebekah is an experienced HR Leader who enjoys working collaboratively and as a trusted advisor to develop and implement successful people and culture strategies as well as large scale change management and transformation.

Throughout her career Rebekah has developed a broad range of HR generalist capabilities with specialist expertise in employee relations and change. As well as senior HR roles in Media, Health, Finance and Transport, Rebekah has worked as an in-house solicitor specialising in Employment and Safety.

Passionate about people and making a difference, Jane is an accomplished human resources leader with 20 years of experience in the financial services and consumer products sectors. She prides herself on building strong organisational cultures, improving leadership capability and optimising business performance through strategic business partnering.

Jane currently works at Blackmores, where she has been the Chief People Officer since 2018. Previously, Jane was the HR Director for Diageo Australia and before that held senior HR roles with Westpac Group and BT Financial Group. Her qualifications include a Bachelor of Business/Commerce and membership of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Australian Human Resources Institute.

Sally Connell is the Chief People Officer of the Foxtel Group. She has held that position since October 2017 following the merger of Foxtel, Fox Sports and Foxtel Media businesses. Prior to that Sally was the Human Resources Director at Fox Sports, a role she held since 2014.

As Chief People Officer she is playing a key role in leading the transformation of the Foxtel Group into a modernised and highly competitive entertainment company, positioning the company for sustained growth and profitability.  This includes the launch of Kayo Sports – a ground-breaking new multi-sports streaming service.

Sally’s career in HR spans more than 20 years, and she has worked across a range of sectors including AGL, Telstra, Price Waterhouse Coopers and King & Wood Mallesons.

Her key experience as a Director over the last decade has been in leading large-scale transformation in organisational culture, capability and engagement.

She is passionate about enabling high performance business outcomes through people, and creating great workplaces where great people want to work.

Sally holds an Honours degree in Organisational Psychology through the University of Newcastle, and post graduate qualifications in management at Macquarie University and UTS.

Andrew is concurrently Acting Vice President for the Optus Human Resource Group, Vice President for the SingTel Group’s Corporate Sustainability and a Leadership and Talent Coach to over 130 of the Optus Future and Emerging Leaders over the past few years. Prior to this, Andrew held various senior positions across the SingTel Group in Singapore, Australia and the Philippines. Between 2007 and 2013, he was the Optus Chief Information Officer, Managing Director for Optus Technology and Products Division, Managing Director for Optus Products and Delivery Division, and Managing Director of Optus Wholesale and Satellite Division. Andrew was the Chief Operating Advisor at Globe Telecom from 2003-2007, SingTel Group’s mobile associate in the Philippines. He has also held various other senior management positions in the SingTel Group including VP Consumer Marketing, CEO SINGNET, CEO Multimedia Group, Director Corporate Development, Director Business Marketing and Director Corporate Account Management. Andrew also started up and ran SingTel Ventures from 2007- 2000, a S$150m technology investment fund investing in emerging technologies in the ICT sector to drive innovation and develop new businesses spin-offs for the company.

Andrew holds a Bachelor of Arts (First Class) Honours from the National University of Singapore and Masters in Management from Stanford University, USA (Sloan Program). He is a certified Level 3 coach with the Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership and an LSI Accredited practitioner with Human Synergistics. He is also a mentor to various founders of impact start-up companies developing technologies to solve for social issues.

Lisa joined the The a2 Milk Company in November 2018 as Chief People Officer. Lisa has over 26 years’ experience across a wide breadth of human resources roles including previous senior positions at BHP Billiton, Origin Energy and leading the HR functions for Jetstar and more recently Qantas Airlines.  She has experience working across a variety of geographies, particularly Asia, and is very comfortable in a dynamic, fast paced company culture. Lisa is experienced in the development and leadership of the people strategy and is highly skilled in supporting the business and its people and culture through significant transformation and growth.

Raj Tapper  joined Cricket Australia in August 2018 as General Manager of People and Culture.

Raj brings a wealth of HR experience accumulated across multiple sectors including digital, retail, FMCG, healthcare and financial services.

Raj has previously held HR management roles at Sportsbet, Coles Group and ANZ Bank in Australia, and Nestle UK & Ireland and J Sainsbury plc while in the UK.

Passionate about HR’s role as a value creator, Raj has built a reputation for aligning business strategic goals and values with the employee experience.

Originally hailing from Yorkshire in the north of England, Raj completed her university studies at Coventry University studying Economics before commencing her career in London.

Ingrid Jenkins is currently the HR Director for Microsoft, Australia.   Prior to working at Microsoft, Ingrid held senior HR roles at Telstra, Toll Holdings and Alcatel-Lucent.   Ingrid is a passionate advocate of the HR profession and is energised by the opportunities to help businesses differentiate and strengthen their value proposition through their people.  Ingrid believes there is no better time to work in HR than right now!   As companies digitally transform and reinvent themselves, the cultural and people focus is paramount to enable their successful transformation.

Believing that “no peak is too high”, Anish reflects this value in both his personal and professional life, hailing from a humble background in a small town in East India. He currently leads the HR team at Unilever Australia & New Zealand which employs 1200+ employees. Anish has been with Unilever for 12+ years, starting his Unilever career in India. He has performed a variety of roles including HR Director for Marketing and the Unilever International business, HR Director – Learning & Organisational Development and other HR business partnering roles across India and Singapore. Anish’s experience spans across local, regional and global roles. Prior to Unilever, Anish also worked across the Financial Services sector, performing roles in people development, employer branding, recruitment, performance management, HR business partnering and leading change management.

Christine is an organisational development professional with experience working across industries, including engineering and manufacturing, consulting and professional services, and now the hospitality and gaming industry.

Within her current role at The Star Entertainment Group, she is responsible for strategies and programs that aim to enhance the experience of the people journey through The Star, including the Employee Value Proposition, Diversity & Inclusion and Reward & Recognition.

Senior Human Resources professional with over 20 years’ experience gained both in Australia and internationally. Currently HR Director at Volkswagen Group Australia where the focus has been on driving cultural change, diversity and inclusion and building leadership capability. Whilst at Qantas Airways, I was based in Los Angeles for 2 years and led the HR function for North America with responsibility also for South America, New Zealand and the Pacific. Specialisation in Employee Relations and influencing senior leaders having worked directly with the positions of C suite and Managing Director.

Darren Fewster is the Executive Director of Telstra’s Employee Relations & Health, Safety, Wellbeing & Environment team. Darren is responsible for Employee Relations, Global Case Management, Health, Safety, Wellbeing & Environment, HR Technology and Workplace Analytics.

Darren joined Telstra in 2004 as a Senior Lawyer and was promoted to the role of General Counsel in 2006, leading the Telstra employment law team. He moved from Legal to HR in 2007 and commenced in his current role in 2011.

Prior to Telstra, Darren worked as a lawyer and also spent 8 years engaged in strategic intelligence roles, leading teams investigating organised and white collar crime across Australia.

Darren studied at the University of Western Australia and was awarded degrees in Law (with First Class Honours) and Psychology (with Honours).

Dr Jill Charker is the Deputy Secretary, Enabling Services at the Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business.

Prior to her current role, Jill was the Deputy Secretary, Programme Design, at the Department of Human Services.  Jill has also held senior positions with the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, ComSuper and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Jill holds a PhD from Griffith University, and a First Class Honours degree in Psychology, majoring in Statistics. In addition, she has completed an Executive Masters degree in Public Administration through the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG). She is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and a Level 2 qualified executive coach through the Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership.

Nicolette is the Head of Human Resources for Siemens in the Australia Pacific region and also the Human Resources regional speaker for Siemens in ASEAN-Pacific. Nicolette began her career in HR in 1994. She joined Siemens in July 2001 in South Africa where she held various HR functions including Head of HR for Africa. She relocated to join Siemens Australia in June 2011.  During her tenure at Siemens she has implemented multiple local and international best practice projects, in various disciplines within the HR value chain. Nicolette has been instrumental in the implementation of Australia’s first Industry 4.0 digital Apprenticeship in collaboration with Swinburne University and Ai Group. This first-of-its-kind apprenticeship has, amongst other accolades, has won the National Australian Training Awards. Nicolette is also leading Siemens’ co-creation of Swinburne University’s Master of Human Resources Management course.

Duncan became Chief People Officer of Fuji Xerox Australia in February 2019, after eight years based in New York, USA. He has more than 20 years of business and human capital experience, including an extensive track record of leading teams that deliver business results in times of significant transformation.

In his prior role as Senior Vice President Human Resources at Pearson Education, Duncan championed the strategic and operational leadership of Talent (Learning & Development, Talent Management & Acquisition, Diversity & Organisation Change) across the company.   Previously, Duncan held senior HR roles at American Express, Telstra & AMP in Australia and the USA.

Duncan has a deep understanding of building human capital strategies across key international markets including Australia, North America, China, UK, South Africa, India and Latin America. He is known for his leadership coaching and strong influencing approach, having worked as a trusted advisor at senior executives and Board level.

Duncan has a Bachelor of Economics degree from the University of Sydney and an MBA Degree from the University of Technology, Sydney.

Craig Taylor leads the HR team at Mondelez International (Cadbury/Oreo/BelVita/Pascall) across Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Over the last seven years, Craig has built a team of professionals that are acknowledged as best in their field by the major retailers in Australia. Using his over 20 years’ experience as a lawyer, industrial relations specialist and HR practitioner, Craig has successfully led multiple large business transformations and change projects, with a balance of delivering business outcomes whilst actively demonstrating care for individuals.

Freya Ellen Steffen is the Head of People & Culture at HelloFresh ANZ. Freya is overseeing talent recruiting, employer branding, people operations, employee experience, learning and development, and employee retention across Australia and New Zealand.

Before relocating to Australia, Freya was part of HelloFresh’s Global Human Resources team in Berlin. Here she devoted her time to the global alignment of HR departments as well as building a strong tech team in Berlin.

Prior, Freya worked with SIEMENS Professional Education, Corporate Human Resources, and Energy Services for many years.

With an educational background in Psychology, Freya taught at FOM University of Applied Sciences in the field of Work and Organisational Psychology. In addition, she is involved in Applied Psychology research projects regarding subjective well-being at work, servant leadership, and organisational citizenship behaviour.

Michelle Phipps is currently Group Head of Talent, Learning and Inclusion at Coca-Cola Amatil, an ASX Top 100 company. She also serves as a member of the Australian Human Resources Institute D&I Advisory Committee. Before joining Amatil, Michelle was Vice President HR Asia Pacific for Brown-Forman Global Spirits. She was on the Board of the Australian Drinks Association and Committee Member for its Women in Drinks and HRD Forum and also served as an NED on the Board of AusDance NSW. Before Brown-Forman, Michelle was HR Director ANZ for the Kellogg Company, HR GM for Coles Supermarkets NSW and spent nine years early on in her career in Retail Sales and Store Management at David Jones. Michelle has a PhD in Culture and Identity, a Masters in HR Management and is a Fellow of the Australian Human Resources Institute. She lives in Sydney with her husband and two children.

For over 15 years, John has pursued his passion in talent identification, leadership development and diversity and how these can be advanced through the power of technology and data. His PhD and Master’s degrees in industrial (organisational) psychology have taken him from silicon valley startups to NYSE and ASX-100 companies.

In his current role as Group Head of People Data & Analytics at QBE insurance, John oversees the life cycle of people data, from analytics to data governance and ethics, driving the cultural change that is needed to establish trust in organisations and how they use people’s data.

Chris is the Director of Talent Development and Performance at Lion, a group role responsible for talent development strategy and solutions and Lion’s performance framework and people practices.

Over 15 years Chris has held senior HR positions in change, organisational development, business partnering and HR strategy & operations in businesses across a range of industries including NAB, Telstra, Bupa and Treasury Wine Estates.

He is passionate about collaborating and innovating with ways to help people to realise their potential and the potential of others.

Karl has over 24 years of experience in human resources, 20 years at executive levels across several human resource functions, and the last 15 years specialising in HR metrics, workforce analytics and planning. Since 2011 Karl has guided the journey of the corporate Australian Taxation Office Workforce Analytics function from basic spreadsheet reporting to the streamlined, integrated and contemporary data-driven practice it has become. This has involved investing in developing internal capability to enhance the user-experience of workforce analytics products and services – manifested in contemporary on-line metrics dashboards, interactive forecasting and predictive, scenario modelling applications. Continual enhancement of these products is narrowing the previous chasm between client experience and client expectations of what digital HR can deliver. Karl has demonstrated that putting insightful HR analytics in the hands of decision-makers at all levels, whilst optimising the user-experience, creates great business value across the organisation in the form of significant efficiencies and better, more informed decisions and planning.

Karen is the CPO of KFC SOPAC business with $2bn in sales and responsible for over 55 franchisees and more than 36,000 employees. She leads, and is responsible for, the HR strategy for both Restaurant Support Centers (RSC) and field. She also plays a big role on the global HR agenda, especially on the L&D agenda. Karen is particularly passionate in building a “Heart-Led” culture that drives business results.

Before coming to Australia, Karen was the CPO for KFC Latin America & Caribbean (LA&C) based in Miami, Florida, where she was also responsible for all the HR disciplines and people strategies that helped the business to meet its goals. Under Karen’s leadership LA&C achieved an unprecedent score of 100% in GPTW. This Business Unit leads the KFC brand in 38 countries and has sales of over $1bn from 1,200 restaurants.

Karen started her career in Yum! Brands as the Organisational Development Director for KFC United Kingdom and Ireland where she shaped the Organisational Development strategy for the field and RSC across one-system. She joined KFC in January 2013.

Before joining KFC UKI, she spent 8 years in PepsiCo in a variety of HR roles, specifically around Organisational Design, Organisational Effectiveness and Core People Processes in Latin America.

Karen has a bachelor’s degree in Economics and she studied her MBA in Spain.

Karen is Mexican, married to her husband Luis and they have a 7-year-old daughter Paola.

Anne Marie is Australia Post’s GM Talent, Remuneration, Culture and Capability. With the strength of 70,000 employees, community postal agents, licensees and contractors across Australia, Anne Marie is responsible for leading Australia Post’s people strategy relating to capability, inclusion, remuneration and performance to drive future growth by continuously meeting changing customer and community needs.

Anne Marie is a purpose and values driven executive that is dedicated to working with Australia Post’s people in creating the workforce of the future so they can thrive professionally and personally, while delivering value for customers, community and business.

Prior to her current role, Anne Marie has held senior HR, Safety and Transformation roles across both retail and health industries.

Anne Marie approaches HR with a commercial mindset and is experienced in leading, directing and managing multiple programs across large organisations, delivering outcomes to customers and team members alike. Anne Marie is passionate about developing teams and individual team members to be highly successful and effective.

She holds a Bachelor of Science (Occupational Therapy) from Latrobe University and a Masters of Business from the Swinburne University.

Anne Fulton co-authored The Career Engagement Game which showcases how to create a career-agile workforce and is into its third re-print. She has been identified as a top 10 Employee Engagement Influencer across the globe two years running and EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist. She has been a Registered Organizational Psychologist for over 20 years, executive career and performance coach and strategic contributor to organizational development strategies that have resulted in tangible ROI and, in particular, engagement uplifts in multiple organizations. Working with Fortune 100 companies such as MasterCard, Ebay, TexasHealth, Pepsi and Global Top 10 banks such as Westpac, Anne is a recognized global expert in Succession and Talent planning, and workforce talent strategies, working to  transform performance and growth conversations and the employee career experience in many of the world’s thought-leading organizations.

Jo has worked in the psychometric and human capital industry for nearly 10 years, always working closely with her clients to identify tailored solutions to meet their identified business needs.

Jo’s clients include organisations from a range of industries comprising state and federal governments, financial services, mining and resources, FMCG’s, pharmaceutical and utilities. Jo has implemented a broad range of solutions across industries including development of tailored selection processes, talent development programs, talent analytics projects and solutions involving customised competency frameworks.

Jo’s particular expertise is working with her clients in utilising evidence-based data to inform talent solutions with measurable business results. Jo builds solutions around the use of psychometric tools to promote more robust decision making in both selection and development programs, to ensure organisations are putting the right people in the right roles, at the right time.

Jo is accredited in Hogan assessments and is familiar with a broad range of associated talent measurement tools. Jo’s background in applied science, combined with her industry experience and client focus, makes her ideally placed to assist her clients transform their organisations through more robust decision making regarding their talent.

Tim Sprague is the NSW President of ICF, an executive coach and consulting psychologist and with more than 25years in HR.  He has been the HR Director at the Australian Graduate School of Management and at Macquarie University. His qualifications include a master’s degree in coaching psychology, and he uses a range of psychological and adult learning models to facilitate change, learning and performance through The Coaching Practice, Australia.

As the President of ICF NSW, he works on developing the capability of coaches by organising education and development opportunities such as presentations and forums on evidence-based practice and launching a peer group supervision program for on-going coach development.

Gemma Matthewman is a growth executive who helps organisations build their brand through communicating their unique mission, purpose and value to attract new clients, employees and partners. At Reward Gateway, Gemma has worked across client success, consulting and communications, supporting companies from different industries in defining and delivering unique and impactful employee engagement strategies. Her passion lies in inspiring and building a community of HR changemakers to make the world a better place to work. Outside of HR Technology and employee engagement, you can find Gemma on the beach playing volleyball or planning her next hiking trip.