My Unique Career Path

I have spent more than 30 years following a unique career path to acquire the breadth and depth of knowledge, skills, traits and experiences to help people and organisations achieve visions, benefit customers, employees and stakeholders, and solve major challenges.

I have worked in strategy, governance, education, communications, consultancy and law, including as a CEO and Senior Manager. I have worked for a private multinational company, private businesses, NFP and self-employed, as well as in federal, state and local government. I have worked in educational institutions, associations and peak professional bodies, and been involved in organisations as employee, senior executive, volunteer and Board member. I have broad experience in multiple industries and with organisations of all sizes, and have worked advising organisations of the best structures, sizes and approaches to suit their people, goals, strategies and operations.

Career Redirection – from Individual assistance to systemic change

From an early age, I wanted to be a lawyer dealing with social justice, human rights and disadvantage, and I spent nearly a decade working mainly in legal aid, criminal and administrative law. It was experiences as Instructing Solicitor for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal and Islander Deaths in Custody (NT) that led to major changes in my life, including career direction:  rather than represent individuals, I discovered that addressing social justice issues through systemic and cultural change could be a more effective way of creating sustainable improvement in people’s lives.

Listening to the members of Australian Indigenous communities, I started to understand the impacts of systems and cultures, and how change could be achieved through authentic and respectful collaboration. I learned the importance of shared values, and of focussing on individual and community outcomes as foundations for the evolution of systems and cultures. These foundations lead to the design of flexible solutions with multiple pathways that support success. After the Royal Commission, I wanted to help create better communities and minimise disadvantage, and eventually decided to work in roles that would help me develop the variety of knowledge, skills and experiences that would be needed, instead of following a more traditional legal path.

I also started to understand the benefits of diversity, especially within organisations and in evolving, transitioning and changing environments. Diversity is a driver of innovation and challenge. I decided to work on finding ways to utilise and enable the power of diversity, and began to develop my skills in multicultural leadership, communication and education.

Acquiring the Knowledge, Skills, Traits and experiences

By the mid 1990’s, I had started my career journey to acquire the breadth and depth of knowledge, skills, traits and experiences I needed.

• I am a values-based, collaborative leader capable of focusing teams on continually delivering value to customers and stakeholders

  • I guide and develop staff, and ensure they have the authority to act and to make mistakes

  • I recruit team members with a shared values-base and a commitment to delight customers, and manage the performance of all team members

  • I have managed a culturally diverse teams of staff members

• My work has been in complex local, national and international environments and I am very comfortable dealing with complexity in dynamic, shifting environments

  • My knowledge and skills help me design solutions using multiple, flexible approaches to the benefit of participants, partners and communities

• I have extensive experience of governance and compliance, and am a

  • Graduate of the AICD International Company Directors Program (Singapore)

  • Chartered Manager from the Chartered Management Institute

  • Fellow of the Institute of Managers and Leaders

  • Director of organisations since the 1980s, including private businesses, community businesses and organisations, and representative associations

• I am an exceptional strategist and excellent at aligning values, purpose, vision and strategy with operations, staff roles and financial management

  • I am adept at developing policies, processes and procedures to drive services and overall customer delight

  • I have undertaken issues identification and environmental analysis for strategy purposes and have taught business analysis at undergraduate and postgraduate levels (see Presentation)

  • I have worked in strategy roles for a multinational, state and local government bodies and NFPs, as well as in a consultancy capacity

  • I have taught leadership and strategy at postgraduate and undergraduate levels, and in training programs and have used multiple strategy models (See Presentation)

• I have almost 20 years of experience in relationship, stakeholder and reputation management as a professional communicator and marketer, including:

  • International experience with Delaware North Companies International

  • Government experience at local, state and national level

  • Leading and participating in many change and transformation projects

  • Worked in political and commercial environments requiring the ability to deal with both confidentiality and high-level public (and media) focus

  • Worked across external, internal and stakeholder engagement in my communication roles

  • Author of The Leader’s Beacon: The 55-minute guide to Leadership Communication (Verb Publishing, UK, 2011)

  • Involvement with legislative enquiries at national and state level

• I have developed an understanding of risk management

  • Utilised a risk management approach to develop the ACPSEM strategic plan in 2012

  • Responsible for developing the risk management plan to support the successful bid for the Village Catering at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Delhi

  • Have taught risk management at undergraduate and postgraduate levels

• I have had full budgeting and P&L responsibilities, and have drafted budgets and delivered financial results within budget

• I have drafted and presented business cases and market entry analysis

• I have undertaken research work for policy development and academic projects, and market entry research for Delaware North Companies International

  • I taught research methods courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including qualitative, quantitative and textual analysis methodologies (See Presentation)

• I have worked on all sides of grant and tender processes, from small research grants at universities to major tenders at international sports stadiums and events

  • At ACPSEM I successfully negotiated with the Department of Health to reduce bureaucratic reporting and tied funding arrangements, and to focus on specific outcome driven measurements

  • I have designed and written grant and tender specifications, proposals and evaluations

• I have extensive experience of adult education and am a lifelong learner – details are available under Educating Learner

• I am dedicated to improving the professions I work in and have been a board member of legal, communications and peak professional and business bodies to give back to my professions

• I have often been asked to speak at workshops and conferences on the importance of values and ethics, and believe an organisation is defined and created by its shared values

  • My first strategic project at ACPSEM was helping the Board to identify and define the shared values of the organisation

• I have strong advocacy experience

  • Submissions for ACPSEM to ANZ government and regulatory bodies and officials

  • Involvement with the Tripartite Committee on Radiation Oncology and the Peak Imaging Coalition for Medical Imaging

  • Involvement in the successful #ScrapTheCap campaign to oppose the proposed cap on self-education expense tax deductibility

  • Work as a Barrister, and on behalf of legal bodies, including the Law Council of Australia and the ANZ Criminal Law Association

  • Voluntary work with community organisations on human rights and equity

I’m still working on it – & I'm looking to the Asia Pacific

Over the last few years, I have intensified my focus on developing skills in multicultural leadership, communication and education, as well as knowledge of Asia Pacific region, markets, cultures and environments. Rather than complete the Australian Institute of Company Directors standard program in Australia, I elected to do the International Company Directors program in Singapore. During 2016, I worked with UGM Consulting to improve my understanding of cultural risk, leadership, management and communication.

During my Masters of Communication Management, I focused on intercultural studies, completing work on an analysis of the KAO Corporation and the 1Malaysia campaign. Over the last 2 years, I completed work on Universal Design for Learning principles to design courses to improve cultural understanding and knowledge transfer and designed education programs for ASEAN trainees and professionals in ACPSEM professional fields.

There was another critical lesson from the Royal Commission: there were many recommendations, but few were accepted and implemented and there are more Indigenous deaths in custody today than there were at that time. I am driven to create real and sustainable change.