Australia’s Workplace
Culture Conference

Johann Hari is a New York Times best-selling author and the Executive Producer of an Oscar-nominated movie and an eight-part TV series starring Samuel L. Jackson. His books have been translated into 40 languages and have been praised by a broad range of influencers, from Oprah to Noam Chomsky, from Elton John to Naomi Klein.

His latest book “Magic Pill" (Crown, May 7, 2024) is an investigation into the new trend of weight loss drugs and has been named a must-read by The Next Big Idea Club.
The first of three other books, ”Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention” (Crown, January 2022) was number three on Amazon’s list of the best books of 2022, and it was named as a Book of the Year by The Financial Times, The New York Post, and The Spectator. It was also chosen as Book of the Month by Britain’s biggest bookseller, Waterstones, and Australia’s biggest bookseller Dymocks. It won several awards, including being named as Most Important Book of the Year at the Non-Obvious Book Awards and Business Book of the Year at the 2022 Porchlight Book Awards. It has been a best-seller on three continents.

His second book, ”Lost Connections: Uncovering The Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions” (Bloomsbury USA, January 2018) was described by the British Journal of General Practice as “one of the most important texts of recent years”, and shortlisted for an award by the British Medical Association.

Johann’s first book, ”Chasing the Scream: the First and Last Days of the War on Drugs” (Bloomsbury USA, January 2015) was adapted into the Oscar-nominated film ‘The United States vs. Billie Holiday’. It has also been adapted into the documentary series “The Fix” on The Roku Channel.

Collectively, Johann’s TED Talks ”Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong” and “This Could Be Why You Are Depressed or Anxious” have been viewed more than 93 million times.
He has written over the past decade for some of the world’s leading newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Spectator, Le Monde Diplomatique, The Sydney Morning Herald, and Politico. He has appeared on NPR’s All Thing Considered, HBO’s Realtime With Bill Maher, The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the BBC’s Question Time, and many other popular shows.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, when Johann was a year old his family moved to London, where he grew up and where he has lived for most of his life. His father – a Swiss immigrant – was a bus driver, and his mother was a nurse who later worked in shelters for survivors of domestic violence.

Johann studied social and political science at King’s College, Cambridge, and graduated with a Double First.

Johann was twice named National Newspaper Journalist of the Year by the Amnesty International UK Media Awards. He has also been named Cultural Commentator of the Year and Environmental Commentator of the Year at The Comment Awards.

My name is Elijah Winnington, Australian Swimming Athlete Leader and 2x Olympian. I have been swimming competitively since 2010. Through the age group years I won 30 national age individual titles, the most in Australian history. I then followed my age group success through to the open ranks where I have won: 5x commonwealth medals, 5x world championship medals and 3x Olympic medals. Beyond just the accolades, I have been on athlete leadership since January 2023 - present.

Paul Devlin is a global leader in Sports for AWS and has over 20 years’ experience at almost every layer of the sports industry. Paul spent 10 years as a professional rugby player across Europe before pivoting into high performance coaching where he managed staff at the highest level in sports science, sports medicine, medical and strength and conditioning departments. Paul has consulted to many sports technology companies across the last 10 years, has extensive conference speaking experience as well as executive wellness coaching. Paul has MSc Strength & Conditioning Science, MBA from AGSM in Sydney, an LLM International Sports Law in Practice from Sheffield University in UK, and a Doctorate of Business Administration from EIMT.

Karl Treacher, CEO of The Culture Institute Group (encompassing The Brand Institute, and The Culture Institute of Australia), has devoted over 25 years to cultivating brands and culture across 12 countries. His expertise lies in guiding organisations on aligning reputation, brand, culture, and experience, and his career showcases interactions with figures like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Australian Olympic teams and luminaries.

Danny Almagor is co-founder (with his wife Berry Liberman) and the Executive Chair of Small Giants, a family office, and Australia’s first B-Corporation, dedicated to creating social and environmental change through business, education and storytelling. He is a genuine leader in the Impact space having been involved in the creation of over a dozen for profit and non-profit organisations including Engineers Without Borders Australia, The Sociable Weaver Group, and Impact Club. He also founded and Chairs the Impact Investment Group, was the driver behind the creation of Sentient Impact Group, and in 2020, amidst the global pandemic, transitioned Small Giants’ existing education, storytelling and media efforts into a dedicated not-for-profit accelerator, education, and media initiative called Small Giants Academy.

Danny facilitates many of SGA’s programs including the year-long Mastery of Business & Empathy (MBE) which extends and reimagines the traditional MBA, as well as Impact Safaris which combine transformational leadership and travel experiences. Danny was the inaugural Social Entrepreneur in Residence at RMIT and has been recognised through many awards including a Churchill Fellowship, the Hal Taussig B Corp award and the Medal of the Order of Australia.

Natalie Phillips-Mason discovered her purpose through neuroinclusion allyship. Drawing on diverse experiences as a corporate change implementor, people leader and a parent, she is dedicated to guiding the exploration of human differences and creating neuroinclusive workplaces.

In 2022, Natalie founded Inclusive Change, a consultancy founded on the values of respectful curiosity, partnership, and compassion. Inclusive Change delivers capability programs by creating safe spaces for respectful curiosity. Programs explore how equity is created in organisational ecosystems so that employees of all neurotypes can thrive. Since its launch in 2022, Inclusive Change has attracted clients from Tier 1 consultancies, government, retail, and the private sector.

Inclusive Change is active in customer experience research. In 2024, the team published new research into the experiences of Australian neurodivergent and neurotypical shoppers. The research challenges retailers to think differently about the in-store experience and is prompting well-known brands to explore inclusive retail opportunities.

Natalie’s work is endorsed by the Australian Retailers Association, Aspect, and the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower program. She has authored articles for Inside Retail and Inside FMCG and is a respected voice on panels and podcasts through which she shares her insights on neurodiversity and allyship.

Michelle has been with Amazon Web Services for over 7 years. In her current role as Head of Professional Services for Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), Michelle leads the ANZ team of experts who help customers achieve their desired business outcomes when using the AWS Cloud, providing specialist consulting expertise, prescriptive guidance and offerings to help customers achieve business outcomes.

Michelle has worked extensively in Australia and New Zealand, as well as holding Asia Pacific and global roles. Prior to AWS, she enjoyed a 23 year career in management consulting at Accenture, working with large enterprises on SAP transformation programs, project and program management; quality and risk roles; and sales effectiveness and enablement.
Michelle is passionate about inclusion and diversity, and is the Executive Sponsor for our Women at Amazon ANZ affinity group, which is focused on a range of activities across ‘attract and hire’ - including inspiring and educating our ‘next gen’ female technologists; ‘retain and develop’ – training and development, health and wellbeing plus opportunities to help influence job flexibility, work-life balance, and career paths for a diverse workforce; and marketing and community development initiatives.

Mundanara has more than 20 years’ experience, working for both Indigenous and non-Indigenousorganisations in NSW and QLD. Mundanara won the Indigenous Businesswoman of the year at the Supply Nations SupplierDiversity Awards 2023. Mundanara is the host of the award winning podcast, Black Magic Womanwhich is the first indigenous podcast to join the iHeart network.

Mundanara has been recognised internationally for her teaching & learning skills as an AssociateFellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) in the United Kingdom, and has formalqualifications in the disciplines of media, business, assessment and training.

Jo is the Head of Enterprise Skills Transformation in AWS for Asia, the Pacific, Japan & China (APJC). Her business line partners with Enterprise organisations to develop the transformative culture of learning needed to accelerate cloud adoption, and drive effective new-technology enablement. This includes the AWS Skills Guild.

For the last 25 years, Jo has influenced how organisations across the globe drive large-scale organisational change and business transformation.

David is the CEO & Regional Managing Partner of EY in Oceania. David is also a member of EY’s Asia Pacific Operating Executive and EY’s Global Practice Group. David leads a purposeful and inclusive organisation of over 750 partners and 11,000 people across Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea providing assurance, tax, transaction, strategic, technology and business consulting services.

Prior to becoming CEO, David was the Managing Partner for EY’s 900-strong Strategy & Transactions Service Line, a role he held for 5 years, and prior to this led the EY Oceania Infrastructure Advisory team, having joined EY in 2003 as one of the founding members of what is now a 250-strong market-leading team.

Jess Corones is an experienced sport scientist with a deep understanding of performance for the coach and athlete. For Jess, data is not just about numbers, equations, computations or algorithms: it is about understanding … and this understanding unlocking performance.

She’s worked in the Australian sporting system in a number of different high-performance roles from biomechanics and performance analyst to talent identification and development to the elite level performance.
Jess has implemented and driven a number of innovation and technology projects in the Australian Swim Team and leads the performance support team of the Dolphins that dominated at the Olympics in Paris, and also helped lead the Olympic Swim Team to their most successful Olympic performance in Tokyo. Jess is also an experienced public speaker, presenting at AWS re:Invent 2023 conference in Las Vegas and delivering a keynote at AWS : Sydney Summit and often speaks to international media and sports industry experts.
Her world’s best-practice skills were also acknowledged at AIS Sport Performance Awards in 2023, where Jess was awarded the Leadership Award at the premier awards’ night on the sporting calendar.

This national award takes into account all codes on the Australian sporting landscape. In 2024 Jess was named by Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) in the Game Changers: power 100 list. Helping to shape the future of sports innovation in Australia.

Laura is a Senior Policy Adviser at the AICD, with expertise in governance, ESG, corporate law and regulatory affairs.

Laura is responsible for developing the AICD’s public policy agenda, advocacy and contemporary governance practice initiatives, engaging with government and regulators, legal experts, directors and senior leaders from both the private and public sector.

Prior to joining the AICD, Laura provided corporate law and board advisory services at KPMG and was a solicitor at Gilbert & Tobin and Russell McVeagh (NZ).

Andrea Clarke encourages people to be 'future fit' through writing, speaking and delivering digital learning programs. A former television news reporter and Washington D.C. correspondent, Andrea covered major news events for Al Jazeera English, the Pentagon Channel and Thomson Reuters before working on humanitarian aid programs to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan.

Andrea founded FutureFitCo in 2012 and stepped into EdTech in 2015 when she built her first LMS system to deliver content to remote learners. She is the author of the book: 'Future Fit: How to Stay Relevant and Competitive in the Future of Work' - a finalist in the Australian Career Book Award 2019, winner of the Australian Business Book of the Year 2019 and finalist in the UK Business Book Awards 2020. Andrea is also a member of the Australian HR Institute's Future of Work Advisory Panel.

PhD Psychology, BS (hons) (UNSW)

Kathryn van der Merwe (Kath) joined Telstra in July 2023 as the Group Executive of People, Culture and Communications. Kath is a highly regarded people and transformation leader with a track record of strengthening organisational culture and capability.

In her role with Telstra, she is responsible for supporting our people to deliver great outcomes for our customers through building the capabilities and culture required to deliver on our ambitious T25 strategy. Before joining Telstra, Kath led the Talent and Culture function at ANZ which delivered the bank’s core people-related initiatives to empower ANZ’s strategy and
organisational culture and she managed the operation of their Global Service Centres.

During this time, Kath led the bank’s purpose-led transformation, creating a solid foundation for culture and values and embedding new ways of leading. This included strengthening governance, implementing a new enterprise-wide performance, remuneration and recognition framework, and improving the bank’s digital and data capabilities.

Prior to joining ANZ in 2021, Kath, as the Results Delivery Expert Vice President at Bain & Company, helped build the Results Delivery practice focused on transformational organisational design and change management and successfully led a number of client engagements across Asia Pacific.

Kath holds a Doctorate in Psychology and Bachelor of Science with first-class honours from UNSW. She is based in Melbourne.

Katherine Boiciuc, also know as KB, is the EY Chief Technology and Innovation Officer for the Oceania region. Prior to EY, KB has more than two decades experience and is one of Australia’s go to professionals on tech. She’s led global teams at Telstra and more recently has been advising Australia’s next generation of CTOs as a Director at Maximus. She also sits on the boards of NSW Bureau of Health Information and Infoxchange (Australia’s largest technology non for profit).

Melina started at REA Group in 2019. Her current portfolio includes the Consumer and Advertising Product divisions, the Audience, Brand and Marketing divisions and REA Group’s property data and analytics business PropTrack.

Melina has over 25 years of experience building, scaling, and leading diverse teams across a range of categories including e-commerce, media and advertising, transactional (SaaS) platforms and subscription marketplaces.

Melina joined REA Group from Domain, where she was Chief Marketing Officer. Prior to this, Melina held several senior product roles at Fairfax Media, including Group Director, Life Media leading the product, mobile, video and online business for several brands across the SMH, AFR, The Vine, Good Food and Traveller. Her experience in the UK includes working for e-commerce start up MoonPig (now FTSE listed) and Advertising agency View Communications (now Isobar).

Melina is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She holds a BA (Hons) from Monash University, a Grad Diploma from Birkbeck University of London and has completed an Executive Leadership Program with Oxford University. She is a member of Chief Executive Women, and has been recognised several times in Australia’s CMO50.

Tracey Spicer AM is a multiple Walkley Award winning author, journalist and broadcaster
who has anchored national programs for ABC TV and radio, Network Ten and Sky News.

The inaugural national convenor of Women in Media, Tracey was the NSW Premier’s
Woman of the Year, accepted the Sydney Peace Prize for the Me Too movement, and was
among the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence.

For her 30 years of media and charity work, Tracey was awarded the Order of Australia. We're delighted and privileged to have Tracey as our event MC.

Prabha is a leading human rights and discrimination lawyer with over 18 years of experience, specialising in areas such as workplace culture reform and business and human rights. She founded Elevate Consulting Partners to support organisations dedicated to positive social change. She is also the Founder of SafeSpace@elevate, Australia’s first independent trauma-informed reporting and support platform.

Rob is an experienced Chief Executive Officer in the international sports industry and is the newly appointed CEO of Swimming Australia. An Olympic medallist and Australian swim team member for 10 years, with an in-built strong work ethic, Rob thrives on teamwork, goal setting strategies, and has an ongoing curiosity to learn. Rob has sourced, negotiated and serviced some of the biggest and most successful Olympic talent partnership deals in the world and along the way, has built and maintained strong relationships with global brands, agencies, key decision-making executives and sports organisations. Having taken the helm of Swimming Australia only last month we are so privileged to have Rob here today.

Matt Kuperholz is an accomplished Artificial Intelligence scientist and advisor with a wealth of experience applying AI to real world client challenges spanning over 3 decades. He has dedicated his career to applying AI to address real-world challenges for clients, driven by a passion for optimising humanity with technology. Matt has been a Professor of Practice for The Centre for AI and the Future of Work with Deakin University and was prior to that the Chief Data Scientist for PwC Australia (10 years) and before that the Advanced Analytics leader for Deloitte Australia (8 years).

Georgie Harman is one of Australia’s most influential and trusted figures in the mental health sector. As the CEO of Beyond Blue, she believes passionately in doing better for people and communities affected by mental health issues and suicide. Like for most of us, it’s personal. Georgie has steered Beyond Blue through significant change – expanding its services and supports, strengthening advocacy and community connection, and harnessing digital innovation.

Phil has a demonstrated high performance history of Leadership in the corporate, media & professional sporting industries, gained through working at NAB, Network 10 and alongside some of the biggest sporting brands in the country. He is an Executive/Corporate Leader focused on People, Relationships, Mindset & Performance! Skilled in Leadership, Management, Sports Management, Coaching, Media & Public Speaking. Passionate about driving elite standards & getting the best out of people to achieve outcomes!

Kim McKay’s career has focussed on public advocacy and community engagement programs around the natural environment and science both in Australia and internationally.

In her role as Director and CEO of the Australian Museum, Kim is responsible for the strategic direction and management of the nation’s first museum, including a collection of over 22 million natural science specimens and cultural objects.

Since being appointed to the Director’s role ten years ago in 2014 (the first woman in the AM’s 190+ year history), Kim has initiated a broad transformation program including overseeing Project Discover, the AM’s $57.5m award-winning renovation of public spaces.

With a background in marketing and communications, Kim has worked in the USA in senior roles in non-fiction television for Discovery Channel and National Geographic; she co-founded the iconic Clean Up Australia and Clean Up the World campaigns in the 1990’s working in conjunction with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The co-author of five True Green books published in Australia and internationally by Nat Geo, Kim has received many awards for her environmental and citizen science work.

Kim was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2008 for distinguished service to the environment and the community.

Lizzy is currently Reece Group’s Brand and Culture Director. Within her remit she is responsible for driving Reece’s purpose and values across the 10,000 strong workforce in Australia, New Zealand and the US. By doing so Reece is able to deliver its customer promise and ensure the brand-led business continues to thrive. During Lizzy’s career she has been accountable for the activation of brands, protecting and enhancing a company’s reputation and helping businesses do the right thing through social impact.

Lizzy brings a design-thinking approach to her work, translating business strategy into tangible programs with clear outcomes.

Before Lizzy joined Reece in 2017, she led Bupa’s roll out of the new global values across its 80,000 strong workforce. She has also worked at NAB, Barclays and KPMG in Australia and the UK.

Kristy is a highly experienced human resources and diversity and inclusion leader.
As a Senior Associate at Diversity Partners, Kristy has designed numerous diversity and inclusion strategies to guide organisational efforts and implement targeted action plans and measures, based on diagnostic research of organisational strengths and opportunities.
Kristy regularly reviews employee policies, such as recruitment, parental leave, and flexible working, to hard-wire best practice inclusion principles.

Kristy is also an experienced facilitator, having worked with thousands of leaders to improve their awareness and understanding of inclusive leadership and purposeful actions they can take to strengthen psychological safety in their teams.