HR Summit Brisbane Agenda 2023

Kylie Speer

Host & Journalist
Key Media

Kylie Speer is a television host, media professional and author with international experience spanning more than 15 years. Since graduating from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Kylie’s career has seen her assume posts in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Dubai, Los Angeles and New York across numerous print, online and broadcast television media outlets including The Sunday Telegraph, nineMSN, the Nine Network Australia and Sky TV in the UK.

Kirsty Harrison

Executive Manager, People Strategy & Culture
Suncorp

Kirsty is a HR Executive passionate about the power of organisational culture & leadership and its impact on the overall customer and employee experiences. Kirsty leads a team of HR Portfolio experts focused on Suncorp’s People & Workforce Strategy, Organisational Culture & Employee Engagement and recently has been leading the design of the Flexibility approach for Suncorp. Kirsty has been an active learner of the topic as it intersects with employee engagement, organisational culture, wellbeing and inclusion and is intrigued with the opportunities for leaders and employees to deliver exceptional customer experiences, whilst balancing the needs of the workforce.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsty-harrison-17450416/?originalSubdomain=au

Rebecca Munn

Group Executive People and Culture
Queensland Rail

Rebecca is an adaptable and experienced executive with more than 20 years’ experience in management and senior roles, both globally and locally. She has worked across public, government and private organisations.

Rebecca is passionate, and results driven and is most effective in large, complex, challenging and diverse environments. She brings a broad range of external experience from multiple industries, including emergency services, mining and manufacturing.

As Group Executive People and Culture, she is responsible for people capability, employee relations, people services, planning our future workforce and supporting engagement and well-being at Queensland Rail.

Ellie Whitton

Head of People & Culture
NEXTDC

Ellie is the Head of People & Culture at NEXTDC and is responsible for driving NEXTDC’s human capital strategy across Australia and Asia to support the attraction, engagement, growth and development of the company’s talent. Her scope encompasses all facets of People & Culture including recruitment, employee engagement, talent management, organisational change and development, and reward and recognition.

To ensure NEXTDC have the right people and capabilities to deliver on the ambitious goals they set, Ellie is passionate about empowering leaders and elevating the leadership capabilities that drive the company’s high-performance culture which is underpinned by strong company values. Her background in Human Resources and accreditation in Change Management fuels her dedication to effectively lead people through times of change so they are well positioned to adapt and succeed.

Nicola Young

Head of People ANZ
Cognizant

Nic has been working with a focus on People and Culture for over 25 years. Originally from Wales, she started her career in Retail where she found her initial passion – coaching others to reach their potential. That led to roles in Hospitality and finally to Technology where she has spent the majority of her career, 17 years of which has been in Australia.

She has had the good fortune to work both across Europe and Asia Pacific and has been able to indulge her passion for travel by working in countries as diverse as South Korea and South Africa.

She is a bit of a data geek and is fascinated by the inner workings of businesses. This led to her running her own business – a toy shop – for 5 years whilst continuing to work full time. It was an interesting balance and taught her several lessons about priorities and profitability. She still has an entrepreneurial itch.

She loves learning and active debate and feels as a business function we are truly integral in working with our people and leadership to build positive culture. She is excited to see what’s next for us all as we emerge from our post Covis chrysalis.

Lisa Paton

Associate Director
Mapien

Lisa is passionate about developing solutions that enhance people and organisational effectiveness.

As a Psychologist she specialises in developing leaders, utilising psychometric assessment and creating positive cultural change in organisations.

With experience designing holistic solutions to challenging and complex people problems, Lisa has worked in for-profit and for-purpose sectors and is skilled in transforming negative behaviours that impact organisational effectiveness.

As a manager, a leader, a Psychologist and a valued advisor, Lisa understands the complexities, challenges and rewards of working in senior leadership positions. She works collaboratively to understand the issues preventing an organisation from achieving its desired outcomes and, taking a systems approach, Lisa then co-creates practical, targeted and high impact solutions.

Joshua Bamford

Human Resources Director
M&H Ward Group – McDonald’s Toowoomba

Joshua Bamford is an accomplished QSR professional with 15 years of experience. He began as a crew member at McDonald’s Toowoomba at 16 and later progressed to senior management and Operations roles. Following a skydiving accident in 2017, he transitioned to the Human Resources Department and became the Human Resources Director in 2019. 

He is a strong advocate for disability and inclusion employment in the Toowoomba region. Joshua has received two awards and recognition for his innovative Disability Employment Program, which has successfully placed over 50 applicants with barriers in meaningful employment across the 8 restaurants owned by the M&H Ward Group. 

As HR Director for the M&H Ward Group – McDonald’s Toowoomba Region, Joshua works with various stakeholders to provide employment, training, and career opportunities, with a focus on breaking the cycle of multigenerational unemployment and supporting disability, refugee, Indigenous, and WorkForce Australia employment programs. He is committed to developing the next generation of Australian workforce leaders, making a positive impact on each employee who joins the team. 

Anthony Jukes

General Manager – People and Culture, Facilities and Asset Service
Downer

Anthony Jukes is a passionate and values-driven people and culture executive with over 20 years’ experience. Over the course of his career, Anthony has worked in organisations including Downer Group, QGC, Ausenco and Thiess across industries such as oil and gas, facilities and asset maintenance, mining and construction. With a passion for inclusive culture, engagement and strategic leadership, Anthony’s current role is General Manager – People and Culture at Downer Group, where he has led the national people and culture function within Business Units with large and diverse workforces, ranging from 4,000-18,000 employees. Achievements include increasing employee engagement scores across all priority categories and successfully rolling-out an inclusive culture leadership program to 400 influential leaders. Anthony holds a Bachelor of Business and a Masters of Labour Law and Industrial Relations. 

Tannielle Raynor

Head of Organisation Development
Engineers Australia

Tannielle Raynor is Head of Organisation Development for Engineers Australia, the peak body for the engineering profession in Australia. Over the past 10 plus years Tannielle has been focusing on driving positive change in organisations with human-centric approaches. She specialises in culture transformation, diversity and inclusion, leadership development, and employee engagement strategies that create tangible business results with people at the heart of decisions. Her expertise lies in creating custom programs, in collaboration with senior leaders and team members. Tannielle challenges conventional norms to address organisational hurdles, and her mission is to unite teams, align hearts and minds, and fuel shared success.

Emma Wright

Chief People Officer
WorkCover Queensland

Emma is a trusted, authentic leader known for her unwavering commitment to inspiring others with a vision that values people. With a background in corporate services and human resources, she excels in building and leading high-performing, diverse teams, with a strong focus on fostering a positive culture and exceptional employee experience.

As the Chief People Officer, Emma is driving WorkCover’s transformation into a modern and adaptive organisation for the future of work. In addition to her role as CPO, Emma plays a pivotal role in shaping corporate strategy, leveraging her profound understanding of human resources and organisational development to align the company’s goals with its most valuable asset – its people. Her academic achievements include a Bachelor of Business in Human Resource Management and a Masters of Organisational Development. Emma is also nearing completion of an Executive MBA from QUT and in recognition of her outstanding leadership, Emma was honoured as one of the AFR Boss Young Executives of the Year in 2023.

Lisa Paton

Associate Director
Mapien

Lisa is passionate about developing solutions that enhance people and organisational effectiveness.

As a Psychologist she specialises in developing leaders, utilising psychometric assessment and creating positive cultural change in organisations.

With experience designing holistic solutions to challenging and complex people problems, Lisa has worked in for-profit and for-purpose sectors and is skilled in transforming negative behaviours that impact organisational effectiveness.

As a manager, a leader, a Psychologist and a valued advisor, Lisa understands the complexities, challenges and rewards of working in senior leadership positions. She works collaboratively to understand the issues preventing an organisation from achieving its desired outcomes and, taking a systems approach, Lisa then co-creates practical, targeted and high impact solutions.

Lynne Cawley

Chief Operating Officer
Canstar

Lynne Cawley is a successful, solution-focused HR and Operations professional and the Chief Operations Officer at Canstar.

Established 30 years ago, Canstar is Australia’s biggest financial comparison website whose purpose is to simplify the world of finance and help consumers confidently find the right product for them. In 2010, we expanded our services and launched Canstar Blue to provide customer satisfaction research and ratings for consumer products and services including energy, telco, NBN, appliances and much more.

Lynne is responsible for fostering the company’s culture, as well as developing and leading the implementation of Canstar’s operational strategy to drive business goals through quality research and technological advancements.

With a degree in psychology at QUT and having specialised in Organisational psychology, Lynne established the human resources function at Canstar. Lynne has expanded this role in recent years to now head up the entire operations function, leading the People & Culture, Research, Product Data, Data Platform Services and Infrastructure teams.

Lynne’s leadership role sees her managing the back-end technology platforms that power many of Canstar’s data initiatives including the company’s Star Ratings research, product database and data feeds to the website. Her teams are also responsible for building resilience into the Canstar technology infrastructure and applications. This includes managing the company’s website stability, tech partnerships and cloud services.

Having spent the majority of her career working in the financial services industry, Lynne is the first to highlight the career opportunities and the job satisfaction that comes from working in a digital company like Canstar where your purpose is to empower consumers to make better purchase decisions.

Laura Jones

Chief People Officer
dnata

Laura Jones is Chief People Officer for dnata catering Australia.  Part of the Emirates Group, dnata catering is Australia’s most admired catering and retail partner specialising in inflight catering, buy-on-board catering programs, travel retail technology solutions, and airport lounge operation and management. 

A wide-ranging role, Laura leads People, Culture, Safety, Wellbeing and Internal Communications; areas which have been critical as the aviation sector and its dedicated staff have navigated the post-pandemic world of work. Drawing on the positives of opportunity and innovation that are born from adversity, Laura and her team have implemented initiatives to ensure business survival, whilst remaining dedicated to maintaining staff connection and support. 

An experienced HR professional, Laura is passionate about giving everyone the opportunity to thrive and boasts an impressive portfolio. Prior to her role at dnata catering, Laura lead people and culture initiatives at both UnitingCare Queensland and Virgin Australia. As part of her role at UnitingCare Queensland, Laura provided advice and support to leaders in a rapidly changing sector with a workforce of 25,000 people, including volunteers. Her role headed up a portfolio that included Employment Relations, Strategic Workforce Planning, Learning and Development, Workplace Health and Safety, Remuneration and Recruitment. Holding a number of senior roles at Virgin Australia including general manager roles, Laura was responsible for business partnering, leadership, talent and development. Leading large transformation change programs, Laura rolled out performance frameworks and embedded diversity and inclusion programs.   

A strong and accomplished HR professional, outside of work Laura is mum to a firecracker 11 year old daughter and loves ocean swimming. 

Isabella Manning

Head of Organisational Change Management
Virgin Australia

Isabella Manning, originally an Occupational Therapist, has designed and led complex organisational change and transformation programs across many industries over the past 15 years.

Her current challenge, as Head of Organisational Change Management at Virgin Australia, is to engender a culture that embraces change agility and resilience at all levels of the organisation, empowering leaders and project delivery professionals with the insights, mindsets, first principles, tools and capability to lead change and transformation with confidence and ease.

Now that the scale and speed of change across most industries continues to accelerate, Isabella invites strategic HR practitioners, to re-think change at the enterprise level and embedding change and transformation power-skills broadly across all core competencies and leadership frameworks, to help organisations thrive (not just survive) in the face of near-constant change and disruption.

Sabina Schlegel

Director Organisational Development, Change and Inclusion
Queensland Health

Sabina Schlegel is currently the Director of Organisational Development, Change and Inclusion at the Department of Health in Queensland. 

During the past few years, she has been focused on understanding employee experiences and how work and life has changed for us now and into the future, especially as a result of the pandemic. She has guided the Department of Health on the ways leaders can lead and manage adaptively and in our new hybrid environments, and is keen to ensure that managers and leaders know how to support the health and well-being of their teams and wider organisation. Systems thinking and human centred design approaches underpin the ways in which she approaches her work. 

Sabina is passionate about leading kindly and believes that psychological safety comes when we can be authentic, become comfortable with imperfection and show genuine support in times of struggle. She has been facilitating groups and discussions for over 15 years on numerous topics but particularly enjoys facilitating group sessions that explore people’s life and work challenges, the ways in which we can build awareness of self and others, and identifying the things that help us not only survive but thrive.  

She has a Master’s Degree in HR and Organisational Development, a Postgraduate Diploma in Guidance Counselling and Bachelor Degrees in Psychology and Education. In a previous life, she used to work with young people and lectured in Human Development and Youth Culture at a London University. She’s now a mum to 7 year old twins, spends a lot of time warding off magic dragons, and could probably do with more sleep.