MEET YOUR PRESENTERS

  • Futurist & Global Leader Digital Transformation

    Nick Abrahams is a leader in the technology & innovation community as an entrepreneur, director, investor and advisor. He is the Global Head of Technology & Innovation for Norton Rose Fulbright, a professional services firm with over 8,000 people. In that role he created the world's first AI-enabled legal chatbot and the world's first Employment Agreement as a Cartoon Strip.

    Nick created the world’s first AI-enabled privacy chatbot and was a category winner in the Financial Times Asia-Pac Innovator of the Year Awards in 2020. Separate to NRF, he is the co-founder of Australia’s leading online legal service, LawPath which has over 250,000 users and was recognised in the 2020 Deloitte Fast 50 as one of Australia’s fastest growing companies.

    He is a director of: the Vodafone Foundation; the Sydney Film Festival and global genomics research leader, the Garvan Foundation. In December 2020 he stepped off the board of ASX300 software company, Integrated Research after six years.  He is the author of two Amazon best-selling books Digital Disruption in Australia and Big Data, Big Responsibilities.

    Nick Abrahams is a futurist. But Nick’s real-world business experience makes him very different to other futurists. Nick doesn’t just read about trends, he lives them every day in his various roles. The knowledge he gains from being at the front line of global business means his presentations have a currency and a credibility that is hard to match.

  • Cate Maguire is Principal, Solution Adoption and Implementation at design agency STCK, where she bridges the worlds of human-centred design and change. Drawing on nearly two decades of experience delivering change in Australian organisations, she is also a trained service designer who's committed to blending human-centered design with change approaches to create more adoptable and sustainable organisational transformations. Known for her pragmatic and empathetic approach, Cate is recognised for her ability to create the conditions where change not only succeeds but thrives.

  • Reshma is a Senior Executive Change leader in Westpac with proven experience leading high performing change functions that enable successful delivery of organisational transformation. Skilled in driving strategic initiatives and supporting major transformation programs in a way that fosters innovation and continuous improvement whilst building capability for sustainable change. Strong leadership that drives a team culture where people feel safe to share ideas and collaborate effectively, ensuring results are delivered with cross functional teams

  • Bill Synnot has had 50+ years of global experience in change management. He is widely recognised as a leading consultant specialising in change management and is an experienced public speaker, trainer, mentor/executive coach, meditator, author, facilitator & reviewer.​

    His firm is recognised & acknowledged as one of the top 10 change management organisations in APAC (2019 & 2021) & Best Specialist Change Management Consultancy 2020 - Australia. ​

    He has developed an online Knowledge Base (including a generative AI Chatbot) on organisational change that currently has had around ¼ million visitors.

  • I am a specialist recruiter with over a decade of experience, connecting top talent with roles in change, strategy, organisational design, learning, and communication. With a background in coaching and a global podcast on change, I don’t just recruit for change—I live and breathe it. Whether you’re hiring or exploring your next move, I am here to make change happen.

  • A Monash University Economics graduate, Kerrie Smit boasts over 30 years of diverse experience driving successful change across government, private, and not-for-profit sectors. Her expertise spans IT, culture, data, finance, and regulatory; empowering organisations to effectively handle complex transformations and achieve impactful results. Now, as founder and CEO of Agencia Change, Kerrie leverages this experience to guide individuals through personal and professional transitions, enhance change management capabilities within organisations, and provide expert consulting and advisory services.

  • Michelle has over 25 years of practical experience leading change, people, and capability for some of the most iconic brands across multiple industries—including global change leadership in psychosocial risk for one of the world's biggest resources companies. Beyond hands-on experience, she’s studied psychosocial risk management at AGSM, behavioral science for change at Monash, is a specialist educator in the neuroscience of change—and accredited as a Master Neuroplastician by the Institute of Organisational Neuroscience.

  • Prina Shah is a global coach, consultant, and speaker, host of the "Ways to Change the Workplace Podcast," and author of "Make Work Meaningful: How to Create a Culture That Leaves a Legacy," a highly acclaimed guide to workplace transformation. In this masterclass, she will share practical coaching and facilitation techniques to build trust, address resistance, and lead impactful change conversations. Expect an interactive and insightful session filled with actionable strategies to create lasting impact in your organisation.

  • Denise is a Managing Director with Changeworks Consulting and has extensive experience in managing complex change programs. With over 25 years’ experience in the organisational change management consulting field, Denise specialises in change strategy and implementation, workshop facilitation, business readiness, stakeholder engagement with particular experience in business transformation programs. Denise has managed both Agile development and Waterfall delivery-based programs, as well as programs with a digital user and customer experience focus.

  • Janine is the co-founder of Rethink Change, a project driven by her passion for ‘good’ change, life-long learning and community.

    She has extensive experience partnering with business leaders, delivery partners and a broad network of thought-leaders.

  • Marié is a creative business and transformation leader, coach and facilitator with 30 years of experience in leading change across multiple industries.​

    In her appointment as Head of Business Transformation for Weir Minerals APAC, she developed a deep understanding of business strategy and transformation with a strong background in technology adoption in manufacturing, mining equipment maintenance and construction.​

    Marié embodies values of people care, innovation, strategic thinking, collaborative leadership, and a passion for empowering teams.

  • Sabina Schlegel is currently the Director of Organisational Development, Change, and Inclusion at Queensland Health. With extensive experience in leadership and change management, Sabina is passionate about solving complex organisational and people challenges and building adaptive and future-fit workplaces. Sabina's expertise in psychological safety, systemic, organisational, and behavioral change, combined with her commitment to people-centered continuous improvement, has helped organisations drive meaningful transformations and build adaptive, high-performing teams.

  • Tiffany is a change leader with extensive experience globally, driving transformation for iconic organizations like the BBC, Pernod Ricard, Stockland, the UN, and Jaguar Land Rover. Known for building change functions and strategies from the ground up, Tiffany excels at equipping leaders and teams with the tools to thrive when executing change. A trusted advisor and speaker, she brings clarity, insight, and inspiration to every audience.

  • Mel is the Founder & CEO of Hey Mel! Communication & Training, a small but energetic agency offering specialist change communication services to clients across the world. She is also the author of the world's first book on change communication, a podcast host, international award winner, sought-after speaker and, in her spare time, a group fitness instructor! ​

    Obsessed with how people behave, Mel has honed the art of people-centred communication, developing frameworks and tools that cut through the noise and inspire people to act.

  • Greg likes to think of himself as a change agitator. While he started his career as an Air Force C130 transport pilot, he's transferred his skills into the change management space, leading projects in the private and public sector over the last 20 years. From transformation, organisational redesign, culture change and technology projects he now finds himself leading the APAC Human Centered Change practice within Salesforce. His exposure to AI in his role has led him to explore what this means for change managers and for organisations more broadly.

    He advises CXOs on what they need to consider in their AI journey, and has run two very successful, hands-on Masterclasses for Rethink, helping change professionals leap-frog their way into the world of AI.

  • Robert is a commercially astute Consultant, demonstrating over 20+ years cross industry experience and providing the leadership and strategy needed for organisations to maximise business performance and sustain ongoing improvement. Through being able to focus on the wider picture, earned a reputation as someone who is able to deliver measurable results, providing the vision and direction needed to achieve key milestones whilst assembling and leading multi-disciplined teams.

  • Debbie Owen, Manager, Enterprise Change at NZ SuperFund. ​

    With a proven track record in project management, design, and change/human behavior, Debbie has successfully led transformative change projects across the health, social, and innovation sectors. Her leadership is characterised by a passion for human-centered change practices, collaboration and commercial acumen. At NZ SuperFund, Debbie has been instrumental in developing and implementing the enterprise change strategy, creating a robust change framework that resonates across functions and building a thriving community of change champions.​

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    Jo McDowall, Change Advisor​

    Jo plays a pivotal role in guiding the organisation through various change initiatives with her thoughtful and engaging approach. Bringing her background in recruitment to her change practice gives her unique experience in understanding people and especially those who are new to the change practice.

  • Huw is a professional speaker, mentor, executive advisor and change leadership expert. He has led over 100 strategy, capability and implementation projects across more than 15 industries and four countries. His real leadership experience includes driving scale and maturity in multiple service-based businesses including several consulting firms and as the chairman of a large not-for-profit NDIS service provider.

  • Dr. Mariam Mousa is a seasoned change leader with over 20 years of experience driving transformational change across healthcare, aviation, and government sectors.​

    A published author and dynamic speaker, Dr. Mousa holds a PhD in Organizational Psychology and specializes in helping businesses navigate complexity, align people with strategy, and turn change into a competitive advantage.

  • Paul is an accomplished Agile Coach dedicated to delivering customer-centric value through transformative ways of working. He specialises in building and nurturing high-performing teams that help business leaders and product owners achieve their strategic goals. With expertise spanning Scrum, Kanban, Design Thinking, Lean, and DevOps methodologies.

    Paul is driven by seeing teams embrace agile principles to unlock their full potential and deliver exceptional results.

  • Kate Scarafiotti is the Head of Organisational Change at Hydro Tasmania - Australia’s leading clean energy business. Kate has a background in people, culture and change and has built and developed a change function that supports Hydro Tasmania to deliver on its Strategy, through this work leading a significant and sustainable transformation in organisational culture evolution at Hydro Tasmania.

     

    Kate is a deeply insightful and effective practitioner, passionately inclusive leader and trusted advisor. Kate has a profound understanding of how inner development and growth shapes the development of the people around her and influences the progress of organisations. Kate has a keen interest in adaptive change practices and building adaptive cultures, through taking a systems view of change.

     Kate is a mum of three beautiful children and lives on the banks of timtumili minanya (River Derwent) in Hobart. She is endlessly curious and enjoys taking a dip in just about every ocean, river, pool or lake she comes across!

  • Sarah Button is the Manager Organisational Change at Hydro Tasmania - Australia’s leading clean energy business where she works on aligning organisational Strategy and organisational change to position Hydro Tasmania to proactively adapt, embrace change and leverage opportunities.

     

    Passionate about building capability and leading change with a whole systems approach, Sarah invites people into change to identify the systems, ways of working, norms and individual beliefs, qualities and capacities needed to enable sustainable change.

     

    Sarah’s experience spans people, culture and change and is a life-long learner with university qualifications in human resources, psychology and strategy and is an Adaptive Cultures Practitioner. Sarah has recently taken on her biggest learning adventure yet – becoming a parent - and loves running rain, hail or shine while listening to podcasts.

  • Caroline Perkins is an internationally recognised expert in Transformational Change, working with government, blue chip and not-for-profit companies to sustain complex operating model and technology change. Her 40-year career has seen her rubbing shoulders with many of the formative thinkers in the field, from Steven Covey, John Kotter, Daryl Connor to David Rock. ​

    Caroline has sat on and advised a number of boards and mentored many senior executives around the globe. She is a published author and an established public speaker on the subject of Change Agility. ​

    In 2005, Caroline led the startup of the Change Management Institute and the creation of the first globally recognised standards and education to support the burgeoning change profession. ​

  • Simon is a transformative executive leader and coach with over two decades of experience driving strategic change across industries such as professional services, retail, banking, finance, insurance, FMCG, and government.

    He has led large-scale transformation programs, driven operating model realignment, advanced diversity equity and inclusion goals, and built high-performance talent, leadership, and culture systems. A trusted leadership partner, he combines commercial acumen with pragmatic realism, delivering sustainable results for clients.

    Having held leadership roles at PwC, AMP, and Woolworths Group, he specialises in change and transformation, leadership development, culture strategy and activation. and executive coaching. His strategic yet practical approach has made him highly sought after by global clients seeking to enhance leadership, team dynamics, and organisational culture.

    Today, he partners with global executives, empowering leaders to drive organisational success and make purposeful, lasting impact.

  • Dr Jen Frahm is the co-founder of The Agile Change Leadership Institute and builds change capability in organizations. She is a global expert on organisational change, communication and transformation, three times published author, a tamer of ambiguity, speaker of truths and solver of problems. A sought-after speaker she is known for being at the frontier of business agility and change.

  • With 30 years of experience leading over 300 organisational design projects and mentoring thousands of business leaders, transformation, change, and HR professionals, Dr Hofmeyr is regarded as a thought leader in organisational design. She is the inventor of the SysCAP approach, which is founded on human-centred design and agile change principles. The SysCAP Organisational Design certification program is a groundbreaking course that teaches the foundations of organisational design best practices and equips change practitioners with practical tools and skills.​

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    Dr Hofmeyr is a regular speaker at in-person, virtual, and webinar events and makes the complex discipline of organisational design simple, practical and compelling.​

  • Sharon Connolly is the founder of Change Superhero.​

    Change Managers from all corners of the globe bookmark from Sharon's tools, templates and training to help them beautifully deliver their Change. Over one million Change Superhero templates are downloaded every year! ​

    Sharon delivered her first webinar on corporate transformation in 1993. Since then, she has lived and worked in 12 countries on three continents, where, as her change superhero tribe will tell you, she never fails to sprinkle unicorn dust.

  • Jo plays a pivotal role in guiding the organisation through various change initiatives with her thoughtful and engaging approach. Bringing her background in recruitment to her change practice gives her unique experience in understanding people and especially those who are new to the change practice.

Presenters & topics are subject to change