Thriving in Uncertainty – Episode Nine with Gina Dolan

What draws people leaders to managing, well, people? Is it curiosity about the world and the people in it? Is it the ability to problem-solve and be innovative? Is it grit? No one answer fits all, but certainly, these attributes play a significant part. This week, we dive into growth mindsets, failures, and flex workforces with people leader Gina Dolan.

Gina is the General Manager of People and Culture at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), and she joins us in this episode to share her experiences of grit and the ability to persist and lead others through uncertainty. Together, we break down the stigma attached to making mistakes and how courageous leaders can pause and reflect when the emotions are running high and admit to their workforce that they don’t always have all the answers.

Gina also shares her perspectives on managing a hybrid and geographically dispersed workforce, including how working together has changed the importance of how contact with people remotely has to be more deliberate than in the office and how creating rituals and ways of working can encompass individual needs and embrace the needs of a diverse workforce.

Gina’s motto of “no surprises,” creating a safe space where there is nothing you can’t talk to her about as there is no judgement, is refreshing. Her crucial advice on investing in yourself, being a decent human being, and paying it forward to others around you embraces what authentic and adaptive leadership is about all.

We hope you enjoy this excellent episode with a great people leader.

Listen to episode nine:

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Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Gina Dolan

General Manager

People and Culture

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

Gina is the General Manager of People and Culture at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission or ACCC. Gina is an accomplished HR professional with extensive global transformation experience in the private and public sectors. With a keen understanding of workplace culture and leadership, she excels in leading teams to achieve operational excellence and streamline processes, with the ability to simplify complex HR challenges and provide practical solutions.

Tune in next week as we speak to a new trailblazer in another episode in our series on Thriving in Uncertainty.

Thriving in Uncertainty – Episode Eight with Martin Hehir

In 2025, we are honoured to continue sharing more uplifting and encouraging stories in our series on Thriving in Uncertainty. Martin Hehir, who joins us for today's episode, is no exception.

Martin Hehir, the Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer for the Governance and Corporate Group within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, joins us to share his experiences in the public sector of Taking the Path Less Travelled.

As an experienced public servant, Martin has led teams in the Commonwealth and ACT governments. In this episode, he takes us back to the start of his senior leadership career by providing us with invaluable insights into how he has adapted his leadership style to take on a new role in a new department, and how the importance of communication helped him to navigate unfamiliar territory where his team increased by a factor of 20.

Martin also shares the importance that a couple of mentors played at this time in his career in helping him to stay real and honest with himself, which are invaluable attributes today for leading authentically. He also shares his key learnings from experiences in putting together multi-disciplinary teams and how fostering creative tension respectfully and engagingly can contribute to making sure that the right outcomes are achieved.

This open and honest conversation with Martin has many great takeaways, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Listen to episode eight:

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Martin Hehir

Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer

Governance and Corporate Group

Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet

Martin is the Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer for the Governance and Corporate Group within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, where he is responsible for the administration of the Executive Branch of Government, the management of Cabinet and Cabinet Committees, Ministerial Support, and the department's internal Corporate functions.

Before joining the Department in January 2024, Martin was the Deputy Secretary of Workplace Relations where he lead a range of industrial relations policy and programs. During his time in this role, Martin successfully delivered key legislation for the Government in relation to workplace relations, family and domestic violence leave, protecting worker’s entitlements and work health and safety measures. This included deep engagement and liaison across a variety of key stakeholders. Martin was awarded a Public Service Medal in June 2023 for outstanding public service in relation to workplace relations policy and employment services.

Prior to his role in the Workplace Relations space, Martin has held several deputy secretary positions in federal government during his career. He has been responsible for areas including developing a new employment services model; work, health and safety policy; and small business and industrial relations policy. Before this, Martin Worked as Deputy Secretary for Schools and Youth in the former Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and the former Department of Education, dealing with the Australian Education Act, and associated funding mechanisms.

He has also held a number of positions in ACT Government, including as the Director-General of the Community Services Directorate, ACT Government. Martin also holds an Economics Degree from the Australian National University and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment.

Tune in next week as we speak to a new trailblazer in another episode in our series on Thriving in Uncertainty.

Thriving in Uncertainty – Episode Seven with Maree Bridger

Failure is often regarded as a bad word in the workplace. No one wants to fail or intentionally sets out to, and it can make you feel pretty terrible when something you are working on goes wrong. Reframing failures positively by rallying around those colleagues and helping them work through them can turn failures into successes, and importantly, it can build resilience in a team, which is essential for embracing challenges, turning them around, and thriving in uncertainty.

Having leaders who acknowledge their mistakes early and take accountability for their team's mistakes by owning them as their own without directing blame to the individual builds a culture of respect. It helps to shift the perception of failure in a team.

Joining us to discuss this further is Maree Bridger, Chief Operating Officer at the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, and the Arts.

Maree details the three key things that underpin planning work and help her department with anticipation, proactivity, and responsiveness to priorities that serve multiple ministers. She also explains how her department overcame scepticism to view 'red as your friend'—and how encouraging others to share projects or initiatives that aren't going well helps colleagues rally together to work through challenges.

In this compelling chat, Maree shares experiences from her career from times when things haven't gone to plan and how she has kept moving forward and turned things around through active listening and engagement. She also offers a different perspective on how organisations view innovation and how often, when you are in the trenches, you don't necessarily look around you to realise how far you've come.

Don't miss this uplifting chat with an inspiring leader about changing how we view failures at work.

Listen to episode seven:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

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Maree Bridger

Chief Operating Officer

Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development,   Communications, and the Arts

Maree has worked in the APS for 16 years across a range of policy, program, regulatory, corporate and service delivery functions and she has held senior roles at Services Australia, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the Australian Customs Service.

Prior to the APS Maree had seventeen years in the private sector and held roles at the Shell Company, Osborne Computers and Austar United Communications. Prior to her move to the public sector, Maree worked as a consultant for eight years, with a specific focus on organisational change, strategic planning, maximising competitive advantage and building organisational capability.

Maree has a Bachelor of Economics from ANU, Executive MBA from the AGSM at UNSW and is a Certified Practicing Accountant.

Tune in next week as we speak to a new trailblazer in another episode in our series on Thriving in Uncertainty.

Thriving in Uncertainty – Episode Six with Erma Ranieri

Welcome back to our weekly podcast series on Thriving in Uncertainty, where we spotlight leaders who have gotten comfortable in ambiguity and hear their professional stories of overcoming challenges to navigate change successfully.

As the final states send their kids back to school over the next week, many parents will be thinking about the year ahead for their children and what they’ll learn; others may be excited for their children as they take their next steps into their tertiary education, or even possibly start their own professional career in their given field.

Whatever the case, developing, supporting, and guiding this next generation of leaders is imperative. Erma Ranieri, Commissioner for Public Sector Employment for South Australia, joins Andy this week to discuss the topic of next-generation leaders and offer her lived experiences of being an authentic leader who’s driven to support others through a whole-person approach and provide fairer opportunities for all.

Erma also talks about how important it is for every generation to be clear on their own sense of purpose and how, even with the best technological skills, future leaders must also be self-aware, vulnerable, and resilient, ensuring that human interactions and connecting with each other are valued.

Erma shares examples of some of the numerous mentoring programs that she’s led, detailing what it means for leaders to take a whole-person approach to support their workforce’s mental health and how she’s used her past setbacks to forge a new path for others in avoiding the disadvantages that she encountered earlier in her career.

It’s a powerful conversation that will leave you wanting to make a difference in supporting those around you.

Listen to episode six:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

References from this episode:

Conversations matter – Case managers guide to mental health support

The Happiness Expert That Made 51 Million People Happier: Mo Gawdat

Diary of a CEO Podcast

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Erma Ranieri

Commissioner for Public Sector Employment

South Australia

Appointed as Commissioner for Public Sector Employment in 2014, Erma Ranieri is driven to create a world-leading public sector that makes a difference for the South Australian community through an agile, flexible, and inclusive workplace.

Throughout her extensive career in the public and private sectors, her dynamic and inclusive leadership style has helped organisations optimise productivity while also enhancing employee wellbeing.

Erma was awarded the Public Service Medal in the 2021 Australia Day Honours list, for her long-standing advocacy of gender equality, diversity and disability employment and her commitment to public sector reform.

Tune in next week as we speak to a new trailblazer in another episode in our series on Thriving in Uncertainty.

Thriving in Uncertainty – Episode Five

Thank you for joining us for our new podcast series on Thriving in Uncertainty, where we spotlight leaders who have gotten comfortable in ambiguity and hear their professional stories of overcoming challenges to navigate change successfully.

You often hear about 21st-century leaders in government, but what about 22nd-century leaders? It’s an intriguing concept to ponder, especially considering that Gen Alpha, children born between 2010 and 2024, will play an pivotal role in stewarding our community, country, and world into the next century.

Join us in exploring this topic and much more with Kate Driver. Kate is the CEO of IPAA ACT and the co-founder and board member of the CoRE Learning Foundation, linking education, industry, community, and government to meet the needs of students and deliver future sustainable workforces for the Australian Industry.  

While Kate may not have a crystal ball to predict the skills a 5-year-old will need to thrive in a 22nd-century workforce, she offers fascinating perspectives and insights drawn from both her public sector career and her lived experiences.

Through her work with teenagers in her charity, she explores what they want from leaders today and how many question or reject the long-standing assumptions about the world of work that have persisted for generations. Listen in as Kate moves beyond the excitement of science fiction hype to provide pragmatic insights on the jobs and industries of the future, framing the importance of sustaining and improving life for humans at scale.

Listen to episode five:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

Links to information sources mentioned in this episode:

• Foundation for Young Australians research - Our Reports: The New Work Order Series - FYA

• Crawford School of Public Policy |

• Pathways to Positive Public Administration – An International Perspective | Elgar Online: The online content platform for Edward Elgar Publishing

• Dr Laurie Santos, Yale University - The Science of Well-Being | Yale Online

• Dr Angela Duckworth - https://angeladuckworth.com/

Organisational links:

• IPAA ACT - Institute of Public Administration Australia (ACT) Limited |

• IPAA National - Institute of Public Administration Australia | IPAA National Website

• The CoRE Learning Foundation - Leading Foundation Education & Learning Centre in Australia

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Kate Driver

Chief Executive Officer

IPAA ACT

Co-founder and board member of the

CoRE Learning Foundation

After starting her career as a private practice Barrister and Solicitor, Kate realised that she was destined to follow a less “planned” but more “intentional” path, with careers and roles that better aligned with her personal and professional values.  So she left behind the view of Sydney Harbor and unfulfilling hours at the desk, and returned home to Canberra where she began an eclectic career working in the Commonwealth Public Sector. Kate was appointed as the CEO of IPAA ACT in January 2024.

Kate describes herself as the quintessential “accidental public servant”. After she took a 6 month contract in the APS, she found herself in a rewarding public sector career spanning almost two decades.  Her career mantra has been “good things with good people”.  She has worked across a variety of roles as a senior executive in public policy and programs, HR and corporate services, property and security, policy implementation and National Cultural Institutions.

In addition to her professional executive career, Kate is a philanthropic leader, working across a variety of Australian charities and not-for-profit enterprises, including co-founding the CoRE Learning Foundation. Kate is a proud Auntie and Auntie Mother to some wonderful First Nations young people, and is a passionate advocate for inclusion and belonging.

That was the last episode of Thriving in Uncertainty for 2024.

Tune in on Tuesday, 28 January 2025, as we return with our series and are joined by Martin Hehir, Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer for the Governance and Corporate Group within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, as he talks about taking the path less travelled.

Thriving in Uncertainty – Episode Four, Part Two

Welcome back to part two of our special podcast episode with Dr Rachel Bacon, Deputy Commissioner of Integrity, Reform and Enabling Services at the Australian Public Service Commission, where we discuss a growth mindset approach to change. In part one, Rachel shared insights on what makes up a growth mindset and integrity within the APS.

In part two, we continue our conversation with Rachel, discussing the APS Reform, which she has been heavily involved with, and how she keeps herself and others motivated on long-term projects that are hugely significant, have many initiatives attached to them, and require enormous patience and perseverance.  

Listen in as Rachel shares the details of the design approach for the APS Reform Agenda, including how they determined the six guiding implementation principles using extensive research they conducted into global best practices on similar-scale projects. She also provides an introspective look at how she remains resilient and perseveres on long-term change projects .

This episode is a fantastic conclusion to our discussion on a growth mindset approach to change, and we hope you’ll take away as much from it as we did!

Listen to part two:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Dr Rachel Bacon

Deputy Commissioner

Integrity, Reform and Enabling Services

Australian Public Service Commission

Dr Rachel Bacon is currently the Deputy Commissioner Integrity, Reform and Enabling Services at the Australian Public Service Commission. Rachel has also been appointed to the IPAA ACT Council where she works to promote excellence in public administration.

Prior to this Rachel worked at the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet (PM&C), as Deputy Secretary Public Sector Reform, helping to shape and deliver a suite of reform initiatives to make people’s interactions with government simpler, easier – and make life inside the public service understood and valued.

Over the previous four years, Rachel has worked for the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts as Deputy Secretary of the Regional, Cities and Territories Group, delivering place based policy and services for communities around Australia. Rachel has also spent time in the Department of Environment and Energy, running the Policy Analysis and Implementation Division, and as Deputy Chief Executive Officer with the Northern Territory Government’s Department of the Chief Minister.

Rachel has led a number of taskforces (many based in PM&C) to deliver whole of government priorities in areas such as environment regulation reform and Australia’s engagement with Asia, and has worked in teams to improve implementation capability, deliver strategic policy projects, and support government in areas such as counter terrorism, native title and refugee law. 

Rachel’s PhD focused on administrative law and organisation change.

Tune in next week as we speak to a new trailblazer in another episode in our series on Thriving in Uncertainty.

Thriving in Uncertainty – Episode Four, Part One

Dr Rachel Bacon, Deputy Commissioner of Integrity, Reform, and Enabling Services at the Australian Public Service Commission, joins us for a special two-part episode to discuss a growth mindset approach to change.

In this engaging conversation, Rachel shares unique insights and perspectives, blending evidence-based and consultancy viewpoints with her personal experiences.

In part one, we delve into the components of a growth mindset and integrity within the APS with Rachel. She explains how the literature on high-potential leaders has evolved over the past decade: once focused on high IQ as the primary predictor of leadership potential, the emphasis has shifted toward the importance of a growth mindset. Rachel discusses how a growth mindset is closely tied to learning agility, which involves curiosity, openness, and a willingness to continuously learn. This openness to new experiences transcends culture, age, and gender.

We also delve into integrity, exploring how making mistakes at an institutional level doesn’t necessarily undermine trust and confidence—but how those mistakes are handled certainly can. Rachel discusses the importance of vulnerability in leadership, emphasising how fear of showing it can stifle innovation and compromise psychological safety within an organisation.

Join us next week as we wrap up our conversation with Dr Rachel Bacon, who shares insights into the design approach for the APS Reform Agenda, including the six guiding principles for implementation. She also offers a thoughtful perspective on maintaining resilience and perseverance in long-term change projects.

Listen to part one:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

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Dr Rachel Bacon

Deputy Commissioner

Integrity, Reform and Enabling Services

Australian Public Service Commission

Dr Rachel Bacon is currently the Deputy Commissioner Integrity, Reform and Enabling Services at the Australian Public Service Commission. Rachel has also been appointed to the IPAA ACT Council where she works to promote excellence in public administration.

Prior to this Rachel worked at the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet (PM&C), as Deputy Secretary Public Sector Reform, helping to shape and deliver a suite of reform initiatives to make people’s interactions with government simpler, easier – and make life inside the public service understood and valued.

Over the previous four years, Rachel has worked for the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts as Deputy Secretary of the Regional, Cities and Territories Group, delivering place based policy and services for communities around Australia. Rachel has also spent time in the Department of Environment and Energy, running the Policy Analysis and Implementation Division, and as Deputy Chief Executive Officer with the Northern Territory Government’s Department of the Chief Minister.

Rachel has led a number of taskforces (many based in PM&C) to deliver whole of government priorities in areas such as environment regulation reform and Australia’s engagement with Asia, and has worked in teams to improve implementation capability, deliver strategic policy projects, and support government in areas such as counter terrorism, native title and refugee law. 

Rachel’s PhD focused on administrative law and organisation change.

Please tune in next week for part two of our episode with Dr Rachel Bacon, Deputy Commissioner, Integrity, Reform and Enabling Services at the Australian Public Service Commission.

Thriving in Uncertainty – Episode Three

Thank you for joining us for our new podcast series on Thriving in Uncertainty, where we spotlight leaders who have gotten comfortable in ambiguity and hear their professional stories of overcoming challenges to navigate change successfully.

For the past two weeks, we have spoken with two prestigious leaders, discussing growth and adaptability themes and creating future-ready workforces.

In today’s episode, we are steering off course - literally! Mandy Young, Chief Executive at the NSW State Insurance Regulatory Authority or SIRA, joins us to discuss ‘Taking the path less travelled.’

Mandy has diverse leadership and public sector experience, with a background in social work at the Department of Communities and Justice. She has also worked as the Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer for the NSW Department of Customer Service during COVID-19.

Over this 30-minute conversation, you will hear Mandy provide specific examples from her time during these roles and the significant involvement and subsequent impact of the initiatives that Mandy has driven and been responsible for.

This inspiring chat showcases a leader who exemplifies authenticity and resilience. Mandy has been involved in some amazing transformation and reform projects, and we hope that you will find this episode as engaging and refreshing as we did!

Listen to episode three:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Mandy Young

Chief Executive

State Insurance Regulatory Authority

Mandy is a proud Aboriginal woman whose mob is Gamilaroi (Quirindi in north west NSW).

Mandy Young was appointed the Chief Executive of the State Insurance Regulatory Authority in June, 2024. Prior to this, Mandy was the Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer for the Department of Customer Service responsible for enabling 14,000 staff in multiple portfolio agencies with responsibility for a $4b budget. She drove significant reforms across corporate functions to better enable portfolio agencies to deliver to the citizens of NSW.

With a NSW Public Sector career spanning over 20 years, Mandy has dedicated her career to driving better outcomes for people and communities, improving service delivery, and implementing large-scale socioeconomic and justice changes for the citizens of NSW.

Mandy has diverse leadership and public sector experience, having held Executive Director and Deputy Secretary roles within the NSW Departments of Customer Service and Communities and Justice and its predecessor agencies.

Mandy holds a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of New South Wales.

Tune in next week as we speak to a new trailblazer in another episode in our series on Thriving in Uncertainty.

Thriving in Uncertainty – episode two

Thanks for joining us for another episode in our new inspiring weekly podcast series, Thriving in Uncertainty, where we spotlight leaders who have gotten comfortable with ambiguity and hear their professional stories about overcoming challenges to navigate change successfully.

In today's episode, Jody Grima, Chief People Officer at the NSW Department of Customer Service, joins us for an open and compelling conversation as we talk about leading change and preparing workforces for the future.

Listen in as Jody shares how there is no 'rinse and repeat' process for approaching change and that the first step is to be on the ground, understand the environment in which you're working with, what the culture is, and sensing the appetite for change. She also talks about other critical success factors, such as transparency and communication, and how without these, you risk losing trust very early on in the change process.

Over just 30-mins, you'll hear Jody share her experience in gauging the success of change programs working for Service NSW in the early days when they were establishing the three channels for service delivery in the state, how mindset and EQ play pivotal roles in preparing the workforce for the future, the biases that organisations need to overcome to ensure our workplaces are inclusive and equal for all, and how leaders throughout her career have inspired her to become the leader she is today.

It's a great episode that will leave you with some great takeaways to reflect on, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Listen to episode two:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

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Jody Grima

Chief People Officer

NSW Department of Customer Service

As Chief People Officer for the Department of Customer Service (DCS) Jody is focused on growing a diverse and inclusive workforce to build out the experiences we offer for both our people, and our 8million+ customers across NSW. With extensive experience in transformation, service delivery, governance, and people development, Jody is committed to driving initiatives that foster transparent ethical behaviours, enhance employee engagement, and equip teams with future-ready capabilities. 

Jody has a wealth of experience across the NSW public sector, where she has been instrumental in championing transformation, supporting workplace wellbeing, and promoting an inclusive, speak-up culture. Jody’s background is leading significant reform in service provision and running large multidisciplinary teams in complex environments, including in Family and Community Services, and Service NSW, and more recently as Chief Operating Officer of DCS. 

Jody oversees strategic people initiatives that align with the Department’s commitment to delivering exceptional customer service. In 2020, Jody was recognised with a NSW Public Service Medal for outstanding public service to the community. 

Please tune in next week as we speak to Dr Rachel Bacon, Deputy Commissioner, Integrity, Reform and Enabling Services at the Australian Public Service Commission, as she joins us in discussing a growth mindset approach to change.

Thriving in Uncertainty – episode one

Thanks for joining us as we kick off our new weekly series of Trailblazing with CorbettPrice!

Each week, we will spotlight senior, inspirational leaders from across the public sector who have gotten comfortable in ambiguity as they share personal experiences throughout their careers around the importance of adaptability for growth, developing the next generation of leaders, taking the path less travelled and learning from failure to achieve success. They also reflect on the key leaders who inspire them and have helped them become the leaders they are today.

In today’s episode, Janet Schorer, a senior public sector leader and Chief Delivery Officer at TAFE NSW, joins us to discuss growth and adaptability.

In this uplifting chat, Janet shares her experiences from her early career, how other leaders helped her grow and develop, and how she leans on these experiences to help others grow and develop today. She also explains how important it is for leaders to put themselves in someone else’s shoes, acknowledging that the world is now different from what it was, that workplaces themselves are different too, and that it’s through a connection with purpose that you can keep yourself, and your team, motivated through times of continuous change and uncertainty.

Listen to episode one:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Janet Schorer

Chief Delivery Officer

TAFE NSW

With 20 years of senior public sector experience, Janet has led educational and community transformation programs, including the National Disability Insurance Scheme, workforce strategy, and the Families NSW strategy for the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet. Janet has a passion for children and young people, with a background in nursing and child and adolescent psychology, previously serving as the NSW Children’s Guardian and receiving a Public Service Medal for outstanding service, particularly through the protection of children. She is a National Fellow of IPAA and the Vice President of IPAA NSW.

Trailblazing with CorbettPrice - Series 4

Our new podcast series “Thriving in Uncertainty,” is where we get comfortable in ambiguity, talking with leaders as they share their personal experiences in overcoming challenges and navigating change effectively to propel their workforces forward into the future.

Together, we discuss topics including growth and adaptability, next-generation leaders, and taking the path less travelled with an impressive line-up of trailblazers from across the Australian public sector. Episodes drop weekly are available to listen to from our website or across Apple podcasts and Spotify, helping you gain fresh and unique perspectives at a time that’s most convenient for you.

Our new series takes on a more personal lens, exploring what it takes to be resilient and persevere through significant reforms, which our trailblazers have been inspired by in their own career and professional journey, and how their influencers have helped shape them into the leaders they are today.

Our Trailblazers

Sandy Pitcher

Tania Rishniw

Damian Green

Deb Jenkins

Steve Vamos

Amanda Cattermole

Tim Beresford

Josh Thomas

Marie Boland

Marina Bowshall

Sue McCarrey

Liz Tydd

David MacLennan

Sam Palmer

David Thodey

Tim Bullard

Dr Ivan Williams

David Coltman

Tess Bishop

Judith Formston

Gina Dolan

Martin Hehir

Maree Bridger

Erma Ranieri

Kate Driver

Dr Rachel Bacon

Mandy Young

Jody Grima

Janet Schorer

Found out more about our Trailblazers:

• Sandy Pitcher, Chief Executive, Department of Human Services, Government of South Australia

  Sandy is an accomplished public-sector leader, with experience leading agencies to make significant contributions to public policy and deliver outcomes that improve people’s lives.

  As Chief Executive of the South Australian Department of Human Services, Sandy is dedicated to promoting inclusion, independence, community support and modern services.

  Prior to this role Sandy was Deputy Under Treasurer with the South Australian Department of Treasury and Finance. 

  She was the inaugural Secretary of the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing in Victoria, an agency which includes child protection and women’s policy.

  Throughout 2020 Sandy led the Victorian COVID-19 response, returning the state to COVID-19 zero.

  Sandy has also held roles with the SA Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, the UK’s Commission for Racial Equality and the South Australian Office for Women.

  In 2012, Sandy won the Telstra Businesswoman of the year ‘Community and Public Sector’ category, and in 2013 she was inducted as an IPAA National Fellow.

  Educated at the University of Adelaide, Sandy has degrees in law and the humanities.

• Tania Rishniw, Deputy Secretary of Employment and Workforce at the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations

  Tania is the Deputy Secretary of Employment and Workforce, in the Department Employment and Workplace Relations in the Australian federal government. She leads a range of programs that enable services to support and help people overcome barriers and develop skills to gain employment.

  Prior to commencing with DEWR, Tania worked in the Department of Health from 2015-23 delivering primary and community care policy and programs. She has worked for over 20 years in public administration, across areas of social, environmental, and economic policy.

  Before being appointed as Deputy Secretary in May 2020, she held senior positions in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Department of Finance, Department of Education and Employment, and Department of Environment.

  Tania has delivered policy reform at the federal level in environmental and financial regulation, First Nations' employment and education, primary care and mental health, and service delivery. She led the response to the Montara oil spill, has represented the Australian Government at the United Nations, and successfully negotiated with states and territories in areas of hospital funding, mental health and suicide prevention, primary care COVID arrangements and wider health reform.

  Tania has a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, as well as holding an Executive Master's Degree in Public Administration.

• Damian Green, Deputy Director-General, Corporate Services, Queensland Health

  Damian Green is the Deputy Director-General, Corporate Services in Queensland Health. The Corporate Services Division partners with the Department of Health and Hospital and Health Services to provide contemporary expert advice and specialist corporate services. The Division works across the health system to deliver services such as Business Services, Corporate Enterprise Solutions, Finance, Governance, Assurance and Information Management, Human Resources, Legal, Supply Chain and System Procurement.

  Previously Damian was Deputy Director-General, eHealth Queensland and led Queensland’s public health digital modernisation agenda, including Queensland’s ICT response to the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual healthcare, digital hospitals and digital uplift in rural and remote Queensland.

  Damian has held the role of Executive Director, Digital Transformation & Chief Information Officer, Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service. Damian led the delivery of Gold Coast Health’s two-year journey to become a fully digital hospital and was pivotal in driving continuous improvement in health service delivery and quality.

  Prior to working with the Gold Coast HHS, Damian worked in professional services organisations for sixteen years specialising in managing implementation of strategic organisational change within the public sector.

  Damian’s qualifications include Bachelor of Economics (Hons), Bachelor of Arts, Change Management Qualification (AGSM). He is a Fellow of the Australian College of Health Service Management, Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health and an Adjunct Professor of the School of Business Strategy and Innovation, Griffith University. Damian is also a Board Director of the Gold Coast Primary Health Network and Board Chair of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health.

• Deb Jenkins, Deputy Secretary of Corporate Enabling Services and Chief Operating Officer, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations

  Deborah is Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer at the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) in a broad ranging role supporting the enterprise covering everything from HR, legal, communications, parliamentary, data and finance through to IT and digital solutions.

  Her career has spanned the public and private sector in Australia and overseas, including most recently senior APS leadership roles at the Australian Taxation Office and the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission.  Prior to joining the APS, Deborah was a partner at KPMG where she held various domestic and international leadership positions with multinational experience in Australia, New Zealand, Asia Pacific and Europe. In Aotearoa/New Zealand she worked in both the public and private sectors, starting her career as a graduate with Inland Revenue before joining a law firm.

  Deborah loves executing well designed client and staff experiences to achieve organisational outcomes.  Passionate about communicating and connecting with people, she enjoys developing strong relationships and collaborating with stakeholders.  She works hard to build inclusive teams that value diversity and takes being an active ally seriously. She inspires, leads and motivates those around her through her authentic and engaging leadership.

  Her true passions outside of work (apart from her family) are rugby union, travelling and music. She particularly enjoys giving back to the community supporting grass roots rugby.

• Steve Vamos, Author, Global Executive, and former CEO

  Steve Vamos is a former CEO and Global Executive with more than 40 years’ experience in information technology and digital media.  Steve served as CEO of Xero from 2018 to 2023. 

  Steve has lived and worked in Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Asia at the frontline of every significant technology shift and economic shock since the 1980s with companies such as IBM, Apple, Microsoft, and ninemsn.   

  Steve has also been a non-executive director of ASX listed companies such as Telstra, Fletcher Building and David Jones and several start-ups and emerging businesses. 

  Steve also founded and ran a not for profit called the Society for Knowledge Economics (SKE) from 2005 to 2014. The SKE was a cross industry collaboration aimed at improving the quality of workplace leadership in Australia.

  In his newly released book, Through Shifts and Shocks: Lessons from the Front Line of Technology and Change, Steve shares eight Must-Do actions that represent the most important lessons he has learnt about how leaders need to think and act in the face of uncertainty and change. 

• Amanda Cattermole, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Digital Health Agency

  Ms Amanda Cattermole PSM is the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Digital Health Agency, a role she commenced in September 2020.

  Auspiced by the governments of Australia, the Agency is the steward for digital enablement of Australia’s health system, with a lead role in coordinating national engagement, delivery and adoption of digital health to enable person-centred, connected healthcare.

  The Agency also builds national health infrastructure and delivers national digital health products and services that make it easier for healthcare providers and Australian healthcare consumers to access, manage and share health information and that support a sustainable health system delivering safe, high-quality health services for all Australians.

  Prior to this Amanda held several senior roles at Services Australia, including interim Chief Executive, Chief Operating Officer, and Deputy Secretary, Health and Aged Care Group, where she was responsible for the delivery of payments and services to Australians under Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits scheme and in the aged care sector.

  Amanda has previously held senior roles in Commonwealth departments, including Treasury, the former Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Department and Prime Minister and Cabinet.  She has held senior State government roles in the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services and the Western Australian Department of Indigenous Affairs. In her earlier career Amanda worked as a lawyer in Victoria, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

  Amanda holds a Bachelor of Laws, a Bachelor of Commerce, a Master of Laws and a Master of Business Administration. In 2013, she received the Public Service Medal for outstanding public service leading reform in providing housing for Indigenous people in remote communities and the National Gambling Reform laws.

• Tim Beresford, Chief Executive, Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA)

  Tim Beresford is the Chief Executive at the Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA), having joined the agency in mid-2022.

  AFSA’s role is to support a strong credit system for Australia and is a visible, modern and contemporary regulator. The agency administers and regulates the personal insolvency and personal property securities systems and manages criminal assets.

  Tim is a Board member of the St George Community Housing (SGCH) and the immediate past Chair of the Benevolent Society (TBS), Australia’s oldest non-Indigenous not for profit. Previously, Tim has held the roles of Acting Chief Executive of the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade), Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University and First Assistant Secretary of the Social Policy Division in Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

  He has significant leadership experience in the higher education, government, not-for-profit, financial services and professional services sectors. His areas of expertise include strategy, governance, public policy, change management and organisational design. He holds a Bachelor of Economics (Honours), Bachelor of Laws, a Masters of Philosophy (International Relations) and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

• Josh Thomas, Chief Executive Officer, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park AuthorityGreat

  Josh has over 20 years’ experience in the public and private sector in Australia and overseas. He has helped shape and lead environmental policy and programs for the Great Barrier Reef and in terrestrial natural resource management.

  Josh has worked in a number of senior public sector roles and across the environment, agriculture and finance portfolios, as well as in federal Ministerial offices. He has a strong track record of public engagement on matters affecting Australia’s World Heritage sites, and through major environmental programs such as the Biodiversity Fund and Caring for our Country.

  Josh’s policy experience in the marine environment extends across the Great Barrier Reef and its catchments, migratory and endangered species, whaling matters, marine parks and Antarctica. He is committed to enhancing Australia’s natural environment and has been a strong advocate for incorporating both contemporary science and Indigenous traditional knowledge into environmental management throughout his career.

  Josh lives in Townsville and holds a Master of Business Administration, Master of International Affairs, Bachelor of Science, and Bachelor of Arts (Honours).

• Marie Boland, Chief Executive Officer, Safe Work Australia

  Marie Boland has been the Chief Executive Officer of Safe Work Australia since 1 November 2023.

  Marie is a Member of Safe Work Australia and its subsidiary committees and a Commissioner of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission. She is a member of the Respect@Work Council and the G20 Occupational Safety and Health Expert Network, and an observer on the Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities and the Heads of Workers’ Compensation Authorities.

  Before joining Safe Work Australia, Marie offered independent work health and safety and workplace relations consultancy services.

  Marie’s work health and safety experience spans many roles, including completing the 2023 review of the Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner, the 2022 Review of the Conduct of Work Health and Safety Prosecutions in the Australian Capital Territory, an independent review of the South Australian local government sector's One System WHS Management System in December 2020 and the 2018 National Review of the model work health and safety laws (Boland Review). Marie was the 2021 Inaugural Thinker in Residence at the University of South Australia's Psychosocial Safety Climate Global Observatory. Marie has held senior roles at SafeWork South Australia as an Executive Director, Policy and Community Engagement Director and Chief Policy Officer.

  Marie holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) and Master of Arts from University College, Dublin, and a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) from the University of Adelaide.

• Marina Bowshall, Chief Executive, Preventive Health SA

  Marina commenced as Chief Executive, Preventive Health SA in September 2023.

  Marina led and collaborated on national and state health policy, strategy, and programs throughout her career. This has included leading legislative change; implementing state-wide and community-based programs; developing, implementing and evaluating whole of government strategies; partnering with agencies to implement evidence-based prevention approaches; and implementing business systems to support effective governance and the achievement of measurable outcomes.

  Marina is the Co-Chair of the National Tobacco Officials Group, Presiding Member of South Australia’s Controlled Substances Advisory Council, a member of the Suicide Prevention Council, and works collaboratively across Australia with a range of research, policy, and service organisations.

• Sue McCarrey, Chief Executive Officer, National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Authority (NOPSEMA)

  Sue Joined NOPSEMA as the Chief Executive Officer in February 2023 following eight years as the Chief Executive and National Rail Safety Regulator at the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator. 

  A career of over forty years in Government, Sue has held a range of roles across Education, including time as a school principal, the Public Transport Authority and as Deputy Director General of Policy, Planning and Investment at the WA Department of Transport. In these roles, Sue developed experience and expertise in government policy and regulatory frameworks and risk management in safety and environmental management, which she applies in her current role. 

  Sue holds a Bachelor of Law from Murdoch University, a Masters of Education from Edith Cowan University, and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.  Sue is a member of the National Association of Women in Operations, National Women in Transport, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration. 

• Liz Tydd - Australian Information Commissioner

  Elizabeth Tydd took up the position of Australian Information Commissioner in August 2024 for a 5-year term.

  Elizabeth joined the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner in February 2024 as Freedom of Information Commissioner after two 5-year terms as the Information Commissioner at the Information and Privacy Commission (IPC) of New South Wales.

  Elizabeth’s role at the IPC was to promote public awareness and understanding of the right to access government information in NSW, as well as providing information, support, advice, assistance and training to agencies and the general public.

  Elizabeth has occupied a number of statutory decision‑making roles in NSW commissions and tribunals, including deputy president of the Workers Compensation Commission and deputy chairperson of the former Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal.

  Elizabeth has extensive regulatory and governance experience at an executive and board level in a range of jurisdictions and industries, including commercial, not for profit and public sector oversight.

  She holds a Bachelor of Laws and Master of Laws from the University of Technology Sydney, as well as postgraduate certificates in executive management and governance together with post graduate qualifications in leadership and policy from Harvard University. Elizabeth possesses expertise in digital government and has written extensively on this subject.

• David MacLennan, Chief Executive Officer, City of Vincent

  David MacLennan is the CEO of the City of Vincent and Chair of the Australian Urban Design Research Centre at the University of Western Australia.

  He has extensive public policy and strategy experience at local, state, federal and international levels.

  David was previously Assistant Director General at the Department of Planning.

  He is a former diplomat with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade with overseas posting experience in the UK, Peru, Mexico and Papua New Guinea.

  David is a graduate of UWA and has a Masters of Management from ANU.

  His passions are family and fitness.

• Sam Palmer, General Manager, Visitor Economy and Client Programs Division Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade)

  Samantha Palmer is temporarily seconded from her position as General Manager of Austrade’s Visitor Economy and Client Programs Division to work with the Australian Public Service Commission as a Senior APS Reviewer on the Capability Review of the Australian Government Department of Education. She is also a Diversity and Inclusion Champion.

  
  Samantha brings 35-plus years of diverse experience with more than 25 in senior executive service roles. She has led policy, programs and corporate transformations in the Queensland, WA and Commonwealth governments in many areas relevant to the visitor economy. These areas include fair trading and consumer protection, environmental protection and national parks, land transport and road safety, housing, disability, and Indigenous communities. She has also run businesses and worked in the arts, university and community sectors.

  
  Career highlights include achieving a 79.5% response rate for the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey; leading the development of the 10-year Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan policy framework; and being appointed the ‘cleanskin’ inaugural Deputy Director General Governance, Integrity and Reform following Australia’s largest public service corruption incident at the WA Communities Department.

  Samantha is a National Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA). She was one of the 2013 Australian Financial Review/Westpac 100 Women of Influence, and the 2013 Australian Human Resource Institute Diversity Champion of the Year (HR).
  Samantha was elected Secretary of the National Institute of Public Administration Australia (the professional body for public servants) in 2024 having served on both National and ACT IPAA Councils for some time. She has a Master of Public Administration and a Bachelor of Business (Communication).

• David Thodey AO, Business Leader, Chair of Xero, Chair of Ramsay Healthcare, Chancellor of The University of Sydney

  David Thodey is a business leader with a career active in business, healthcare, public policy, innovation, tertiary education, the environment and corporate governance. 

  He is currently Chair of Xero, a global cloud-based accounting solution and Ramsay Health Care, a global hospital group.

  He was appointed as the 19th Chancellor of the University of Sydney in July 2024.

  Mr Thodey also co-chairs the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, an Australian non-profit established to help preserve the Great Barrier Reef and was recently announced as a member of the Reserve Bank of Australia Governance Board.

  Previously, Mr Thodey was Chair of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and Tyro, Australia’s largest independent payments company. 

  Active in public policy, he led an Independent Review of the Australian Public Service (APS). He also chaired an NSW Government appointed Panel to lead an independent review of Federal Financial Relations and led a user audit of the myGov government services digital portal.

  In 2020, Mr Thodey was Deputy Chair of the Federal Government’s National COVID-19 Coordination Commission (NCC) Advisory Board, supporting the Government to navigate the challenges faced during the early stages of the pandemic.

  Prior to his non-executive career, he had a successful career as CEO of Telstra, and before that, CEO of IBM Australia and New Zealand.  

  Mr Thodey was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Science and Technology from Deakin University and Honorary Doctor of Business from both University of Technology Sydney and the University of Sydney.

  He was made an Officer (AO) in the General Division of the Order of Australia for ethical business leadership.

• Tim Bullard, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL)

  Tim graduated from the University of Tasmania in 1994 with an Arts/Law (Hons) degree. He initially worked as a lawyer in the Office of the Solicitor-General, before transitioning into policy whilst working in the United Kingdom.  

  From 2004 to 2016, Tim held various policy roles for the Department of Premier and Cabinet and commenced as Deputy Secretary Policy in 2014. During this time, he played a key role in education initiatives, leading the development of Tasmania’s Child and Family Learning Centres, and negotiating the ‘Gonski’ schools funding agreement.

  Tim joined the Department of Education in 2016 as Deputy Secretary Strategy and Performance and was appointed as Secretary in 2018.

  In 2022 Tim was appointed as Secretary of the Department for Education, Children and Young People. In this role Tim oversaw the bringing together of child safety, youth justice, and education into a values-based organisation that provides all children and young people with a bright life and positive future, through being known safe, well and learning.

  Tim has been appointed to the role of AITSL CEO for a 5-year period, commencing 21 October 2024.

• Dr Ivan Williams, Chief Medical Radiation Scientist at The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA)

  Dr Ivan Williams is an internationally recognised and nationally certified expert in radiation oncology medical physics and medical radiation protection. Ivan trained as a radiation oncology medical physicist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, Melbourne, Australia and has worked internationally.

  Ivan started with the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency as the inaugural Director of the Australian Clinical Dosimetry Service which he planned and built to be a nationally impacting service with international recognition.

  In 2021, he was appointed to the International Commission on Radiation Protection’s committee on medical radiation protection. In 2024, he represented Australia at the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation.

  Ivan is particularly passionate about the appropriate use of science, data and information to improve patient and public health with national impact.

• David Coltman, Chief Executive, TAFE SA

  David Coltman is the Chief Executive of TAFE SA. Prior to joining TAFE SA in April 2019, David was Deputy Vice Chancellor at Swinburne University of Technology and Chair of the National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA). 

  David is a New Zealander who made Australia his home in 2014. 

  David holds postgraduate qualifications in Adult Education and Public Administration. His early career work focused on the delivery of programs that sought to increase participation in higher education of underrepresented communities.

  More recently David’s work has focused on the use of digital technologies to improve access and participation in post-compulsory education.

• Tess Bishop, Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Secretary of Enterprise, Strategy, and Engagement at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry

  Tess has over 20 years' experience across the public, private and not for profit sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom. Since January 2017, she has held Deputy Secretary roles at both the state and federal level, achieving major outcomes with lasting positive impact. This includes leading priority projects such as founding the Office for Rural and Regional Queensland, establishing the Priority and Delivery Unit for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and delivering the Transformation Action Plan for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

  Tess is currently the Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Secretary of the Strategy, Enterprise, and Engagement Group in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. It is a pivotal role overseeing the full suite of corporate and assurance services, as well as navigating high risk, complex and varied policy and enterprise strategy.

  An experienced Non-Executive Director, Tess has recently been appointed to the Council of the Institute of Public Administration Australia ACT. She previously served on the Board of Screen Queensland, the Queensland Chapter of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, the Board of the Townsville Port Authority, and the Pathways to Resilience Trust.

  Tess holds a Master of International Relations, a Graduate Certificate in Business Management and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Political Science and Public Policy.  She has also completed the Australia New Zealand School of Government Executive Fellows Program and is a graduate of the AICD Company Board of Directors program.

  Professional memberships include the Institute of Public Administration Australia and IAP2 Australasia.

• Judith Formston, Deputy Chief Executive of Corporate Services at the Department of Health and Wellbeing SA

  Judith is a Deputy Chief Executive of Corporate and Infrastructure, at the Department of Health & Wellbeing, where she has Executive responsibility for Workforce, Finance, Procurement and Contracting and Infrastructure Projects. Judith has worked in Government over 20 years and has held Executive and Senior Management positions across a number of Government agencies in South Australia.

  Judith is leading the project delivery team, in delivering the new Women’s and Childrens Hospital to the South Australia, being the State’s largest health infrastructure project.

  Judith has a passion for reform and project delivery, leading a number of reform projects across Corporate Services, driving change and innovation across systems and processes. Judith has a key focus on the Employee Value proposition and embedding diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace.

• Gina Dolan, General Manager, People and Culture, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

  Gina is the General Manager of People and Culture at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission or ACCC. Gina is an accomplished HR professional with extensive global transformation experience in the private and public sectors. With a keen understanding of workplace culture and leadership, she excels in leading teams to achieve operational excellence and streamline processes, with the ability to simplify complex HR challenges and provide practical solutions.

• Martin Hehir, Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer for the Governance and Corporate Group within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet

  Martin is the Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer for the Governance and Corporate Group within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, where he is responsible for the administration of the Executive Branch of Government, the management of Cabinet and Cabinet Committees, Ministerial Support, and the department's internal Corporate functions.

  Before joining the Department in January 2024, Martin was the Deputy Secretary of Workplace Relations where he lead a range of industrial relations policy and programs. During his time in this role, Martin successfully delivered key legislation for the Government in relation to workplace relations, family and domestic violence leave, protecting worker’s entitlements and work health and safety measures. This included deep engagement and liaison across a variety of key stakeholders. Martin was awarded a Public Service Medal in June 2023 for outstanding public service in relation to workplace relations policy and employment services.

  Prior to his role in the Workplace Relations space, Martin has held several deputy secretary positions in federal government during his career. He has been responsible for areas including developing a new employment services model; work, health and safety policy; and small business and industrial relations policy. Before this, Martin Worked as Deputy Secretary for Schools and Youth in the former Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and the former Department of Education, dealing with the Australian Education Act, and associated funding mechanisms.

  He has also held a number of positions in ACT Government, including as the Director-General of the Community Services Directorate, ACT Government. Martin also holds an Economics Degree from the Australian National University and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment.

• Maree Bridger, Chief Operating Officer at the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, and the Arts

  Maree has worked in the APS for 16 years across a range of policy, program, regulatory, corporate and service delivery functions and she has held senior roles at Services Australia, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the Australian Customs Service.

  Prior to the APS Maree had seventeen years in the private sector and held roles at the Shell Company, Osborne Computers and Austar United Communications. Prior to her move to the public sector, Maree worked as a consultant for eight years, with a specific focus on organisational change, strategic planning, maximising competitive advantage and building organisational capability.

  Maree has a Bachelor of Economics from ANU, Executive MBA from the AGSM at UNSW and is a Certified Practicing Accountant.

• Erma Ranieri, Commissioner for Public Sector Employment, South Australia

  Appointed as Commissioner for Public Sector Employment in 2014, Erma Ranieri is driven to create a world-leading public sector that makes a difference for the South Australian community through an agile, flexible, and inclusive workplace.

  Throughout her extensive career in the public and private sectors, her dynamic and inclusive leadership style has helped organisations optimise productivity while also enhancing employee wellbeing.

  Erma was awarded the Public Service Medal in the 2021 Australia Day Honours list, for her long-standing advocacy of gender equality, diversity and disability employment and her commitment to public sector reform.

• Kate Driver, Chief Executive Officer IPAA ACT and Co-founder and board member of the CoRE Learning Foundation

  After starting her career as a private practice Barrister and Solicitor, Kate realised that she was destined to follow a less “planned” but more “intentional” path, with careers and roles that better aligned with her personal and professional values.  So she left behind the view of Sydney Harbor and unfulfilling hours at the desk, and returned home to Canberra where she began an eclectic career working in the Commonwealth Public Sector. Kate was appointed as the CEO of IPAA ACT in January 2024.

  Kate describes herself as the quintessential “accidental public servant”. After she took a 6 month contract in the APS, she found herself in a rewarding public sector career spanning almost two decades.  Her career mantra has been “good things with good people”.  She has worked across a variety of roles as a senior executive in public policy and programs, HR and corporate services, property and security, policy implementation and National Cultural Institutions.

  In addition to her professional executive career, Kate is a philanthropic leader, working across a variety of Australian charities and not-for-profit enterprises, including co-founding the CoRE Learning Foundation. Kate is a proud Auntie and Auntie Mother to some wonderful First Nations young people, and is a passionate advocate for inclusion and belonging.

• Dr Rachel Bacon, Deputy Commissioner of Integrity, Reform, and Enabling Services at the Australian Public Service Commission

  Dr Rachel Bacon is currently the Deputy Commissioner Integrity, Reform and Enabling Services at the Australian Public Service Commission. Rachel has also been appointed to the IPAA ACT Council where she works to promote excellence in public administration.

  Prior to this Rachel worked at the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet (PM&C), as Deputy Secretary Public Sector Reform, helping to shape and deliver a suite of reform initiatives to make people’s interactions with government simpler, easier – and make life inside the public service understood and valued.

  Over the previous four years, Rachel has worked for the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts as Deputy Secretary of the Regional, Cities and Territories Group, delivering place based policy and services for communities around Australia. Rachel has also spent time in the Department of Environment and Energy, running the Policy Analysis and Implementation Division, and as Deputy Chief Executive Officer with the Northern Territory Government’s Department of the Chief Minister.

  Rachel has led a number of taskforces (many based in PM&C) to deliver whole of government priorities in areas such as environment regulation reform and Australia’s engagement with Asia, and has worked in teams to improve implementation capability, deliver strategic policy projects, and support government in areas such as counter terrorism, native title and refugee law. 

  Rachel’s PhD focused on administrative law and organisation change.

• Mandy Young, Chief Executive, State Insurance Regulatory Insurance Authority

  Mandy is a proud Aboriginal woman whose mob is Gamilaroi (Quirindi in north west NSW).

  Mandy Young was appointed the Chief Executive of the State Insurance Regulatory Authority in June, 2024. Prior to this, Mandy was the Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer for the Department of Customer Service responsible for enabling 14,000 staff in multiple portfolio agencies with responsibility for a $4b budget. She drove significant reforms across corporate functions to better enable portfolio agencies to deliver to the citizens of NSW.

  With a NSW Public Sector career spanning over 20 years, Mandy has dedicated her career to driving better outcomes for people and communities, improving service delivery, and implementing large-scale socioeconomic and justice changes for the citizens of NSW.

  Mandy has diverse leadership and public sector experience, having held Executive Director and Deputy Secretary roles within the NSW Departments of Customer Service and Communities and Justice and its predecessor agencies.

  Mandy holds a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of New South Wales.

• Jody Grima, Chief People Officer, NSW Department of Customer Service

  As Chief People Officer for the Department of Customer Service (DCS) Jody is focused on growing a diverse and inclusive workforce to build out the experiences we offer for both our people, and our 8million+ customers across NSW. With extensive experience in transformation, service delivery, governance, and people development, Jody is committed to driving initiatives that foster transparent ethical behaviours, enhance employee engagement, and equip teams with future-ready capabilities. 

  Jody has a wealth of experience across the NSW public sector, where she has been instrumental in championing transformation, supporting workplace wellbeing, and promoting an inclusive, speak-up culture. Jody’s background is leading significant reform in service provision and running large multidisciplinary teams in complex environments, including in Family and Community Services, and Service NSW, and more recently as Chief Operating Officer of DCS. 

  Jody oversees strategic people initiatives that align with the Department’s commitment to delivering exceptional customer service. In 2020, Jody was recognised with a NSW Public Service Medal for outstanding public service to the community. 

• Janet Schorer, Chief Delivery Officer, TAFE NSW

  With 20 years of senior public sector experience, Janet has led educational and community transformation programs, including the National Disability Insurance Scheme, workforce strategy, and the Families NSW strategy for the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet. Janet has a passion for children and young people, with a background in nursing and child and adolescent psychology, previously serving as the NSW Children’s Guardian and receiving a Public Service Medal for outstanding service, particularly through the protection of children. She is a National Fellow of IPAA and the Vice President of IPAA NSW.

Our latest episodes:

This episode offers an honest reflection on how our values and aspirations, even from an early age, can guide us throughout our careers. It also demonstrates that knowing your strengths and recognising strengths in others around you can help you all work towards a shared vision with the authorising environment to achieve great outcomes.  

The benefit of hindsight is that you can see how things from your past have carefully placed the pieces together to create the path that you’re on. Our next trailblazer, Sandy Pitcher, Chief Executive at the Department of Human Services for the South Australian Government, joins us in our latest episode to talk about this as she reflects on her career. Sandy shares her experiences in growing up in a small country town, how having the desire to change the world led her to the public service, how she rises to the task of many challenges she has been given, and the important lessons she has learned along the way in knowing what your strengths are, using them, and letting others step up in using their strengths towards a shared vision and authorising environment.

Listen now

This episode showcases an engaging and authentic leader whose experience in crises and uncertainty offers excellent advice on overcoming challenges, managing risk, innovating, and building resilience.

Do your employees operate with a license to innovate? It's an interesting concept. When you have a real problem to fix where usual solutions haven't worked, understanding the benefits and risks of innovating and articulating that to others around you gives you a licence to try a new and different way forward. But you have to be prepared for failure to be a part of that. Tania Rishniw, Deputy Secretary of Employment and Workforce at the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) joins us in our latest episode to talk about this and much more about how failure can lead to your biggest success.

Listen now

This episode is a masterclass in leading transformations. It will provide any leader with expert advice on leading change, fostering agility and adaptability in teams, and delivering successfully.

Having worked on several significant transformation projects across Queensland Health, eHealth Queensland, and Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service, Damian Green knows a thing (or ten) about what factors are critical in leading successful transformations and delivering them in uncertain times. Damian is currently the Deputy Director-General of Corporate Services at Queensland Health, and he joins us in our latest episode to discuss fostering adaptability in teams.

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This episode affirms that to create great teams, you have to work hard at it. Deb shares that the cornerstones of great teams are built on relationships, a clear and shared purpose, and a diverse makeup, and these factors will always be fundamental in leading high-performing teams now and in the future.

Deb also discusses the pivotal role that recruitment plays in ensuring you have the right fit for your team and how evolving your hiring approach to recruit talent can help you succeed in filling key skills gaps.  

What makes a team great? It may seem like a simple question, but the reality is that great teams don’t form and work well together by chance; there is a lot of investment required in making them high-performing. Deb Jenkins, Deputy Secretary of Corporate Enabling Services and Chief Operating Officer for the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, joins us in our latest episode to talk about fostering adaptability in teams.

Listen now

Our next Trailblazer has over forty years of experience in information technology and digital media in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, and Asia, leading companies such as IBM, Apple, Microsoft, ninemsn, and Xero, and as a result, has been on the frontline of every significant technological shift and economic shock since the 1980s. Steve Vamos, Global Executive, and former CEO, joins us in our latest episode to discuss this further as he reflects on his career and provides insights from his book, “Through Shifts and Shocks – Lessons from the Front Line of Technology and Change.”

Steve’s experience on the frontline of uncertainty has provided him with a unique ability to get straight to the point of what leaders must do today: establish great teams, maximise the potential of individuals in their workforce, effectively achieve alignment of aspirations at every layer of the organisation, and approach challenges with the right mindset.

This episode is a must-listen for leaders today who face increasing uncertainty and volatility.

Listen now

This episode is a great example of a leader who is passionate about creating an organisational culture that’s focussed on stewardship, built on deep collaboration, and comprised of leaders at every level who add to the culture by enabling stewardship and innovation and creating a convening role with the broader ecosystem.  

It also conveys a powerful message of the impact that leaders can have in seeing things and pathways for others that they can't necessarily see for themselves and how, with the right encouragement, it can profoundly impact their career journey in a really positive way.

When our next Trailblazer took up the challenge to take on the role of CEO and lead the Australian Digital Health Agency at the height of the pandemic, she felt that it was a near-impossible place to lead from, considering the limitations of not being able to be in the same physical space as most of the staff. But on reflection, Amanda Cattermole now sees how this has shaped the flexible and hybridised work environment that’s now fundamentally everywhere. In our latest episode, Amanda joins us to talk about taking the path less travelled and leading in uncertainty.  

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This compelling episode offers great advice to other leaders on shifting from knowledge organisations to learning organisations and on how important it is to be open, adaptable, and resilient to foster a continuous learning mindset in your workforce.

When you've had a thirty-five-year-long career that spans industries and sectors as our next Trailblazer has, you have the benefit of seeing how organisational learning has changed and if it's changed for the better or worse. Tim Beresford, Chief Executive at the Australian Financial Security Authority, or AFSA, joins us to talk about this and much more in our latest episode on becoming a learning organisation.

Listen now

This episode is an excellent example of a learning organisation that is curious and generous with its knowledge sharing and a leader who is passionate, authentic, and respectful in helping his workforce work in uncertainty.

What does learning look like in an organisation when a high proportion of your workforce is already doctorate-level educated, formally trained marine scientists and former teachers? Josh Thomas, Chief Executive Officer at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, talks about this and much more as he joins us to discuss becoming a learning organisation in our latest podcast episode.

As CEO, Josh explains how risk is a key element that drives their organisational strategy and how they approach learning and development, as understanding risks in your environment is critical in understanding what you need to learn and lean into, and if an organisation is calibrated to understanding medium to long term risks, it will be more proactive in addressing challenges and returning value to stakeholders.

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Our next Trailblazer’s interest in history and learning from it, particularly the history of labour movements and work, has been a common theme that has led her throughout her fascinating career. Marie Boland, Chief Executive Officer at Safe Work Australia, discusses this further in our latest episode on Taking the Path Less Travelled.

Listening to Marie's story of growing up in Ireland and how her dad used to take them around to see the statues and tell the stories of famous people, including great union leaders, helped to fuel her interest in history. Marie talks about moving to Australia and how working in museums ultimately led her to study law and work in industrial relations.

It's an episode that cements how your interests and passions can lead you to be on the path you're meant to be on, no matter which twists and turns it includes.

Listen now

For many leaders in the public sector, there are very few times in your career when you have the opportunity to develop a new agency for a state government entity. Our next Trailblazer, Marina Bowshall, had the chance to do just that as she took on the Chief Executive of Preventive Health SA role in September of 2023. Marina joins us in our latest episode to talk about her experience in leading through a machinery of government change.

Listen in as Marina shares how the biggest challenge in leading this MoG change was the cultural change and bringing people along with the change to see themselves in it, and the strategies she used to build an open door policy and establish rapport with teams, which involved meeting with every team, regardless of size, to understanding each teams priorities and passions, and how she used the fascinating insights she gleaned from these meetings to offer further support, increase collaboration and deepen engagement across the workforce.

It’s a great episode for anyone who is leading change or experiencing change in their organisation. Through engagement and consultation, you can achieve strategic alignment, improve collaboration, encourage knowledge sharing, and bring a little more laughter into your organisation, too.

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Tuesday 1 April

As an experienced leader who has worked across multiple industries and now is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Authority (NOPSEMA), our next guest, Sue McCarrey, has certainly seen her share of times when things haven’t gone according to plan or achieved an unexpected outcome. Sue joins our latest podcast to discuss how challenges can lead to your biggest success.

 Sue provides an honest reflection from earlier in her career when she was younger, and how, like many of us, she would often perceive things that didn’t go to plan or when things went wrong as failures and take them to heart. Sue shares that as time goes on and you build your experience in your career, you develop the ability to look at things more critically, observing what’s occurred and distinguishing if it was really a failure, if it was potentially inevitable, or if it’s something you can look at to see then the opportunity to do it differently.

 It’s a great episode that will challenge your thinking about failure and how you can support and encourage younger members of your workforce to be resilient, courageous, and confident.

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Monday 24 March

It was a privilege to talk with Liz Tydd, the Australian Information Commissioner, as she shared the future of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or OAIC with us and how their postural organisational changes over the past year have positioned them to be at the forefront of being a contemporary regulator.

In this special broadcast edition of our podcast series on Thriving in Uncertainty, Liz takes us through the latest figures on data breaches from their recent report. She explains how an additional dimension of misinformation (e.g.,  deepfakes) can become an accepted truth in the mind of the audience, highlighting how even the human brain is grappling to adjust to this very real and growing threat and its manifestations.

In this enlightening episode, you’ll also learn the OAIC’s latest thinking on the eight key elements in ensuring there is a human-rights-centred approach in the AI space and how essential it is for their workforce to be committed to preserving human rights, be curious and work collegially, and how the organisation has developed four pillars to manifest in their culture and operations which are proactive, proportionate, purpose-driven, and people-focussed.

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Thursday 20 March

Serving as a diplomat in Mexico City, Lima in Peru, and London, David MacLennan, CEO, City of Vincent, describes himself as a student of cities, and that interest was deepened in joining the Western Australian Department of Planning and being involved in the planning of metropolitan projects. Serving as CEO of the City of Vincent for the past five years, David has come full circle, being directly responsible for delivering projects on the ground that directly impact the community.

We often talk about leaders inheriting existing work cultures, but for many CEOs coming into an existing organisation, they also inherit existing ‘to-do lists’ as well as projects and processes on service delivery too. David shares his journey of learning how he got comfortable in his new role, how important it was in determining priorities and what to tackle first, and how he developed a structured way to allocate his time and energy to deliver on what his stakeholders wanted, and what he needed to improve internally with his workforce to do it.

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Tuesday 18 March

We know that there are many modes of learning. One that has been spoken about in recent episodes as critically important is on-the-job learning and how, knowledge sharing between peers, even from different areas of an organisation, can help fuel new ideas and ways of working.

Another important learning and development opportunity in the APS is mobility. In our latest episode, Sam Palmer joins us to discuss this and so much more on the topic of learning organisations. Sam is Secretary and a Fellow of IPAA and currently serves as APS reviewer on the independent capability review of the Commonwealth Department of Education on secondment from Austrade.

If you're thinking about taking on a new or different opportunity or how, as a leader, you can help your staff grow and develop, this is definitely an episode that you won't want to miss.

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Tuesday 11 March

We are thrilled to present our exclusive broadcast with David Thodey, who joins our podcast to discuss Innovating in Uncertainty. David is a Business Leader with a career active in business, healthcare, public policy, innovation, tertiary education, the environment, and corporate governance. He has over 30 years of experience, including previously being the CEO of Telstra and CEO of IBM Australia and New Zealand.  

In our latest episode, we catch up with David to discuss the concept of "Innovating in Uncertainty." Together, we discuss the continued importance of driving innovation in a rapidly changing world that brings uncertainty with it and how great leaders are those who can adapt to the ambiguity that surrounds them.

David has the unique ability to provide pragmatic advice intertwined with examples throughout his career, spanning industries. Through his experience and knowledge of the APS, he also offers specific perspectives for the public sector, acknowledging the unique and strong position that APS leaders have in their ability to lead in ambiguity.

Listening to David inspires you to approach things new and differently, not just because you should, but because you feel compelled to do so to make a difference.

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Thursday 6 March

Tim Bullard, Chief Executive Officer at the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), joins us in our latest episode to discuss adaptability. Tim knows too well how adaptability can directly influence your engagement at work, having managed the Department of Education and then the Department of Education, Children, and Young People in Tasmania through tremendous amounts of change, including COVID-19, a merger of two organisations, and other significant events.

Tim also provides his perspectives on how to develop adaptability within the workforce, the importance of having a growth mindset to always be learning and looking at how things can be done differently, how organisations need to inject some fun back into the workplace, how crucial it is to leverage the skills and talents of every generation in your workforce, and how essential it is to be responsible for your own wellbeing in taking time out for yourself which then, in turn, will make you more available for others.

This 30-minute episode is packed with practical, knowledgeable, and encouraging advice from an energetic leader in the education industry.

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Tuesday 4 March

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) 's work is incredibly important. ARPANSA is  Australia's primary authority on radiation protection and nuclear safety, regulating all aspects of Commonwealth activity in the radiation space. Its mandate is to assist in maintaining the safety of Australia's people and biota in the face of potential radiation risks. Dr Ivan Williams, the Chief Medical Radiation Scientist at ARPANSA, joins us in our latest episode to discuss the topic of becoming a learning organisation.

Due to the nature of the work that ARPANSA delivers, there is an expectation that staff invest in their own learning and development. In this compelling chat, Ivan outlines the vast range of methods that they use to galvanise learning across the organisation, and the modes of learning which are most important to them.

It's a great conversation that provides an understanding of the critical work that ARPANSA provides to Australia and how, as an organisation, they prioritise learning while delivering their huge and essential remit.

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Thursday 20 February

We often speak about the importance of everyone continuing to learn. After all, learning, in its essence, is about being alive. While some may approach learning with curiosity and be open to the possibilities it may provide for us, others may find it overwhelming to be able to decide in the direction to go. David Coltman, Chief Executive of TAFE SA, joins us to discuss this and much more in our latest podcast episode on change resilience.  

David shares his perspectives on the role of leaders going forward in helping people find pathways through what can feel like a dense forest at times.

He’s also no stranger to leading in challenging times, having come into TAFE SA at a time when the organisation needed to transform and be led in a new direction. David reflects on that time, having moved from Victoria to Adelaide for the role, and how he used that journey in becoming South Australian to humanise himself with his new workforce rather than it just being about becoming the new Chief Executive of TAFE SA.

This episode isn’t just a masterclass in leading change, it’s also a great example of how to lead authentically and with kindness.

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Tuesday 18 February

An open-minded approach to leadership and working with others is a highly desirable attribute that staff look for in a leader. After all, if you have a new idea or want to give feedback on a change or a project, knowing that you can approach these leaders, have a constructive dialogue, and work together to solve it is helpful.

Tess Bishop, Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Secretary of Strategy, Enterprise, and Engagement at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry (DAFF), is one of these leaders. She joins us in our latest episode to discuss a growth mindset approach to change.

Tess is a passionate and energetic leader with an open-minded approach to leading others. We hope that you will feel as uplifted as we did after listening to our conversation.

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Thursday 13 February

Judith Formston, Deputy Chief Executive of Corporate Services at the Department of Health and Wellbeing SA, joins us in this episode to discuss authentic leadership. Judith shares her experience leading others by showing her human side, which helps her team realise she is just like everyone else.

She also provides strategies for how her organisation fosters connections to create a safe space where everyone is invited and feels that they can express themselves freely through a range of initiatives, that help workers to disconnect from the workplace, but connect with each other, including coffee breaks, Friday night wines, groups, and communities of practice.

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Tuesday 11 February

Gina is the General Manager of People and Culture at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), and she joins us in this episode to share her experiences of grit and the ability to persist and lead others through uncertainty. Together, we break down the stigma attached to making mistakes and how courageous leaders can pause and reflect when the emotions are running high and admit to their workforce that they don’t always have all the answers.

Gina also shares her perspectives on managing a hybrid and geographically dispersed workforce, including how working together has changed the importance of how contact with people remotely has to be more deliberate than in the office and how creating rituals and ways of working can encompass individual needs and embrace the needs of a diverse workforce.

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Thursday 6 February

Martin Hehir, the Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer for the Governance and Corporate Group within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, joins us to share his experiences in the public sector of Taking the Path Less Travelled.

As an experienced public servant, Martin has led teams in the Commonwealth and ACT governments. In this episode, he takes us back to the start of his senior leadership career by providing us with invaluable insights into how he has adapted his leadership style to take on a new role in a new department, and how the importance of communication helped him to navigate unfamiliar territory where his team increased by a factor of 20.

Martin also shares the importance that a couple of mentors played at this time in his career in helping him to stay real and honest with himself, which are invaluable attributes today for leading authentically. He also shares his key learnings from experiences in putting together multi-disciplinary teams and how fostering creative tension respectfully and engagingly can contribute to making sure that the right outcomes are achieved.

This open and honest conversation with Martin has many great takeaways, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Listen now

Tuesday 4 February

Failure is often regarded as a bad word in the workplace. No one wants to fail or intentionally sets out to, and it can make you feel pretty terrible when something you are working on goes wrong. Reframing failures positively by rallying around those colleagues and helping them work through them can turn failures into successes, and importantly, it can build resilience in a team, which is essential for embracing challenges, turning them around, and thriving in uncertainty.

Joining us to discuss this further is Maree Bridger, Chief Operating Officer at the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, and the Arts.

In this compelling chat, Maree shares experiences from her career from times when things haven't gone to plan and how she has kept moving forward and turned things around through active listening and engagement. She also offers a different perspective on how organisations view innovation and how often, when you are in the trenches, you don't necessarily look around you to realise how far you've come.

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Tuesday 28 January

Developing, supporting, and guiding this next generation of leaders is imperative. Erma Ranieri, Commissioner for Public Sector Employment for South Australia, joins Andy this week to discuss the topic of next-generation leaders and offer her lived experiences of being an authentic leader who’s driven to support others through a whole-person approach and provide fairer opportunities for all.

Erma shares examples of some of the numerous mentoring programs that she’s led, detailing what it means for leaders to take a whole-person approach to support their workforce’s mental health and how she’s used her past setbacks to forge a new path for others in avoiding the disadvantages that she encountered earlier in her career.

It’s a powerful conversation that will leave you wanting to make a difference in supporting those around you.

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Tuesday 10 December

You often hear about 21st-century leaders in government, but what about 22nd-century leaders? It’s an intriguing concept to ponder, especially considering that Gen Alpha, children born between 2010 and 2024, will play an pivotal role in stewarding our community, country, and world into the next century.

Join us in exploring this topic and much more with Kate Driver. Kate is the CEO of IPAA ACT and the co-founder and board member of the CoRE Learning Foundation, linking education, industry, community, and government to meet the needs of students and deliver future sustainable workforces for the Australian Industry.  Listen in as Kate moves beyond the excitement of science fiction hype to provide pragmatic insights on the jobs and industries of the future, framing the importance of sustaining and improving life for humans at scale.

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Tuesday 3 December

In part two of our conversation with Dr Rachel Bacon, Deputy Commissioner of Integrity, Reform and Enabling Services at the Australian Public Service Commission, we discuss the APS Reform, which she has been heavily involved with, and how she keeps herself and others motivated on long-term projects that are hugely significant, have many initiatives attached to them, and require enormous patience and perseverance.  

Listen in as Rachel shares the details of the design approach for the APS Reform Agenda, including how they determined the six guiding implementation principles using extensive research they conducted into global best practices on similar-scale projects. She also provides an introspective look at how she remains resilient and perseveres on long-term change projects .

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Tuesday 26 November

This is part one of our two-part episode on a growth mindset approach to change with Dr Rachel Bacon, Deputy Commissioner of Integrity, Reform, and Enabling Services at the Australian Public Service Commission.

In part one, we delve into the components of a growth mindset and integrity within the APS with Rachel. She explains how the literature on high-potential leaders has evolved over the past decade: once focused on high IQ as the primary predictor of leadership potential, the emphasis has shifted toward the importance of a growth mindset. Rachel discusses how a growth mindset is closely tied to learning agility, which involves curiosity, openness, and a willingness to continuously learn. This openness to new experiences transcends culture, age, and gender.

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Tuesday 19 November

In episode three, we are steering off course - literally! Mandy Young, Chief Executive at the NSW State Insurance Regulatory Authority or SIRA, joins us to discuss ‘Taking the path less travelled.’

Mandy has diverse leadership and public sector experience, with a background in social work at the Department of Communities and Justice. She has also worked as the Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer for the NSW Department of Customer Service during COVID-19. During this episode, Mandy provides specific examples from her time during these roles and the significant involvement and subsequent impact of the initiatives that Mandy has driven and been responsible for.

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Tuesday 12 November

In our second episode, we are joined by Jody Grima, Chief People Officer at the NSW Department of Customer Service, for an open and compelling conversation as we talk about leading change and preparing workforces for the future.

Jody shares how there is no 'rinse and repeat' process for approaching change and that the first step is to be on the ground, understand the environment in which you're working with, what the culture is, and sensing the appetite for change. She also talks about other critical success factors, such as transparency and communication, and how without these, you risk losing trust very early on in the change process.

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Tuesday 5 November

In our first episode, we are joined by Janet Schorer, a senior public sector leader and Chief Delivery Officer at TAFE NSW, to discuss growth and adaptability. In this open and inspiring chat, Janet shares experiences from her early career of how other leaders helped her grow and develop and how she leans on these experiences to grow and develop others today. She also explains how important it is for leaders to put themselves in someone else’s shoes, acknowledging that the world is now different from what it was, that workplaces themselves are different too, and that it’s through a connection with purpose that you can keep yourself, and your team, motivated through times of continuous change and uncertainty.

Listen now

Series three – Solving the Capability Gap – episode five

Thank you for listening to our third podcast series on Solving the Capability Gap. We hope that you found the insights that our trailblazers have shared valuable in helping your organisation to build skills capability and develop future-ready, high-performing workforces.

Our final episode today is the perfect conclusion to our series, providing advice and insights on how to maintain an ongoing connection with your employees that helps to fuel a culture of continuous learning in your organisation.

In the series' opening episode, we spoke to Subho Banerjee about continuous learning and how organisations must adopt it to develop a high-performing workforce ready for the future.

Equally crucial to adopting a continuous learning culture is maintaining one. This involves ensuring that employees have an ongoing connection to their organisation, which sometimes is more easily said than done. Globally, there are alarmingly high rates of disengaged employees who are 'quiet-quitting,' and it takes leaders with an EQ approach to navigate the often uncomfortable conversations to reconnect employees to their organisation.

Maeve Neilson is a highly respected and experienced leader in New Zealand. In this episode, she joins Andy to discuss how she has developed and led teams in New Zealand, drawing on her direct experience in creating a cross-functional team from the Mosque Shooter sentencing event in 2020 to create a great workplace culture.

Listen to episode five:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

Download the full transcript of episode five:

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Maeve Neilson is the former General Manager – Health, Safety and Security for the Ministry of Justice, New Zealand. Maeve is a senior leader with unique and broad experiences that enable her to bring an innovative and fresh approach to any opportunity.

Maeve has substantial depth and breadth of experience having worked in diverse sectors and functions to deliver commercial and sustainable outcomes whilst lifting productivity and engagement. This includes a range of challenges from managing large operational functions, organisational transformations, and significant incidents and workplace fatalities, including the operational response to COVID-19.

Maeve’s ability to successfully communicate organisational vision and priorities across multiple levels sees her frequently called upon to translate the "complex" into a language all can connect and engage with, transforming both leadership behaviours and organisational cultures. She has managed teams through significant change, complex disputes and negotiations that have enabled organisations to deliver against strategic goals, and aligned teams to the direction, significantly shifting engagement. She comfortably interacts with Boards and executive teams and maintains strong networks across public and private entities.

Maeve is passionate about Aotearoa, New Zealand, particularly organisations doing great things within their communities to enable tamariki and mokupuna to thrive. She welcomes the challenge of solving “wicked problems” and enjoys aligning the operational delivery and people capability to the strategic direction. Her commercial acumen and operational management expertise allow her to quickly adapt to any environment and bring value and different thinking to support organisational growth.

Maeve holds a Masters of Arts (Psychology), and subsequent qualifications in Innovative Thinking and Dispute Resolution. She is also accredited in several leadership development tools, including the suite from Human Synergistics.

That now concludes our third series on Solving the Capability Gap. Thank you to our trailblazers and all our listeners for tuning in!

Due to popular demand, Trailblazing with CorbettPrice will soon return in a regular and ongoing format. Follow us on LinkedIn to stay updated on the latest information.

Missed an episode?

Series three – Solving the Capability Gap – episode four

We hope that you have been enjoying our podcast series on Solving the Capability Gap.

Already, we've had the pleasure of being joined by three phenomenal trailblazers who have shared their insights and top tips on how leaders can build workforce capability in their organisations to prepare for the future.

In today's episode, we hone in on arguably one of the most important skills everyone will need to learn, regardless of their position, going forward: AI.

According to LinkedIn's Workplace Learning Report for 2024, 4 in 5 people want to learn how to use AI in their profession. But in the public sector specifically, there has been much trepidation about where to use it, how to use it, and, importantly, ensuring that it is used safely with the proper guardrails in place.

James Christie, Director of Artificial Workflow, and a guest instructor on our Elevate course on Enhancing Processes with AI, joins Andy to discuss the increasingly popular and in-demand skill of AI. Listen in as James answers the fundamentally essential questions on learning AI skills, including if having a technical background is necessary in learning AI, what the best use cases are in getting started, what other skills are complementary to learning AI skills, and the five critical success factors in implementing AI in an organisation. You will also want to take advantage of James's checklist to get going with AI in your organisation, which is provided as a download below.

Listen to episode four:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

Download the full transcript of episode four:

Download James’s AI Adoption Checklist:

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

James Christie is a co-founder of Artificial Workflow, an AI solutions firm that has developed a flexible AI platform called Echobase, that can support a range of consulting and business use cases.

James has spent a significant proportion of his career working for an international FMCG company and in consulting with EY and boutique firms practicing in the areas of corporate, organisational and customer strategy. 

Please tune in next week as we conclude our series on Solving the Capability Gap with Maeve Neilson, General Manager of Health, Safety, and Security for the Ministry of Justice in New Zealand, as she shares her unique perspectives and advice for leaders on how to foster a culture of continuous learning in your organisation.

Missed an episode?

Series three – Solving the Capability Gap – episode three

Over the past two episodes, we’ve discussed critical dimensions of capability building, including adopting continuous learning models and using skills-based approaches in your talent strategy. A resonating sentiment from both these episodes has been the concept of future readiness, equipping and preparing workforces to meet future challenges.

In today’s episode, we unpack this further, discussing the role that skills play in workforce agility and how leaders can be purposeful and holistic in their approach to achieving organisational agility.

So far in our series, we’ve spoken to two highly experienced trailblazers who have given their insights into critical success factors of creating high-performing teams. These have included the importance of becoming a learning organisation and the need to be comfortable in ambiguity.

Sandra Lerch, Executive Director of Strategic Workforce Futures at the Public Sector Commission for the Queensland Government, joins Andy in this latest episode to explain how organisations can create workforce agility. She shares her experiences and learned lessons from her direct involvement in the recently released Even Better Public Sector for Queensland Strategy for 2024-2028.  

Listen in to hear Sandra explain how organisational agility is a change process and how, by putting people at the centre, you can achieve the agility you need to be fit for the future. Sandra also shares the three important ingredients for being purposeful and holistic in your approach to developing and embedding workforce agility in the way you work.

Listen to episode three:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

Download the full transcript of episode three:

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Sandra Lerch is the Executive Director, Strategic Workforce Futures at the Queensland Public Sector Commission.  In this role, she has responsibility for a suite of initiatives that help create a workforce that is agile, inclusive and fit for the future.

Sandra has worked in both the state and federal public sectors, in a wide variety of roles, spanning strategic policy, organisational performance, and service delivery. Much of her experience is in central agencies during periods of significant workforce change.

Sandra and her team played a major role in bringing the Even better public sector for Queensland strategy 2024-2028 to fruition. The strategy’s first two-year action plan sets out 18 actions that aim to inspire trust in government, build a workforce that is ready to meet any challenge, and create workplaces that support employees to serve their community.

Sandra holds a Masters degree in Public Policy and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.  She has a long-standing interest in public sector reform, having contributed to a number of independent reviews in this area. Other areas of interest include employee engagement and how the Queensland public sector can position itself as an employer of choice.

Please tune in next week as we talk with James Christie, Director of Artificial Workflow, as he joins us to discuss developing AI skills in the public sector in our fourth episode in the Solving the Capability Gap series.

Missed an episode?

Series three – Solving the Capability Gap – episode two

Welcome back to the second episode of our new podcast series on Solving the Capability Gap.

In today’s episode, we dive deep into the current skills landscape, outlining the skills that are becoming increasingly important and discussing proven strategies that can help organisations become more skills-based in how they attract, develop, nurture, and retain their workforce.  

Across the world, organisations are grappling with skills shortages. According to LinkedIn data, on an individual level, the skills needed for a given position are shifting and are expected to double by 2027, leaving a high number of employees who require training and capability development.

However, the potential of untapped latent or adjacent skills within the workforce is intriguing, presenting organisational leaders with an excellent opportunity to identify, develop, and nurture these skills to create an engaged workforce capable of driving their organisation forward.

Listen in as Julie Tickle, Chief People Officer at TAFE NSW, joins Andy to share her extensive experience in how organisations can become more skills-based in their talent strategy. Listen in as Julie answers compelling questions covering important topics such as skills versus qualifications, human skills versus technical skills, how TAFE uses skills-based approaches in its talent strategy, and how to measure skills initiatives.

Listen to episode two:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

Download the full transcript of episode two:

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Julie Tickle is a respected educational leader, with over two decades of experience in the VET sector as teacher, mentor and executive. In her role as Chief People Officer for TAFE NSW Julie oversees the attraction, development and retention of a capable, engaged, and adaptable workforce of over 15,000.

She is responsible for ensuring TAFE NSW operates in a safe, diverse, and inclusive work environment, and her team ensures TAFE NSW has the capability to deliver the best outcomes through effective people and safety processes, policies, and programs.

With TAFE NSW since 2002, Julie was initially a part-time casual teacher of Business based out of the Taree campus and remains dedicated to regional employment and educational outcomes throughout NSW.  She has held a wide range of positions including Head Teacher of both online and on-campus faculty teams, Business Development Consultant, Manager Curriculum Development, Faculty Director, Leader Organisational Workforce Development and Head of Organisational Development and Talent Management.

Remaining dedicated to supporting individuals to reach their potential, Julie holds a Masters in Adult Education and Training, Bachelor of Arts (Psychology), Graduate Diploma of Education, Leadership and Sustainability and the current Cert IV Training and Assessment qualification in order to remain connected to teachers. She is an Alumni of the NSW Public Sector Leadership Academy and a keen mentor of emerging leaders in the sector.

Julie is a member of the DEWR VET Workforce Blueprint Steering Committee, TAFE Director’s Australia Workforce Network and the National VET Educator Development Network. Her team designed and implemented the successful Paid to Learn teacher attraction and retention program to support an ongoing commitment to solving the VET teacher shortage in NSW, which has become the benchmark for innovative attraction strategies across the sector.

Julie is passionate about Diversity and Inclusion and is a member of the NSW Public Service Disability Steering Committee, Co-chair of the TAFE NSW Diversity & Inclusion Council and executive sponsor of the Aboriginal Strategic Leadership Group and Aboriginal Employment Strategy. She has strategic oversight of the inaugural TAFE NSW Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Plan which launched in 2023 as well as TAFE Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan, Disability and Inclusion Action Plan and Multicultural Action Plan.

Please tune in next week as we talk with Sandra Lerch, Executive Director of Strategic Workforce Futures at the Public Sector Commission for the Queensland Government, as she joins us to provide insights on workforce agility and the agile enterprise in our third episode of this series on Solving the Capability Gap.

Missed an episode?

Series three – Solving the Capability Gap – episode one

Thanks for joining us as we kick off our third series of Trailblazing with CorbettPrice!

Our exciting new series explores critical dimensions of capability building across five insightful and thought-provoking episodes. This series is designed to help leaders instil continuous learning into their organisation’s DNA and develop high-performing workforces that are equipped and ready to embrace the future.

As the perfect start to our series on Solving the Capability Gap, Subho Banerjee, Deputy Commissioner of the Australian Public Service and Head of the APS Academy and Capability, joins Andy to discuss continuous learning.

Listen in as Subho provides his unique perspectives, drawing on his vast experience across the public and private sectors. In this episode, he explains what continuous learning looks like and outlines some of the fantastic learning opportunities he has experienced that have benefited his career. Subho also provides an overview of the components of the APS continuous learning model, the importance of building adaptability skills across all levels in the public sector, and how to overcome challenges he has seen in becoming a learning organisation.

Listen to episode one:

Also available through Apple podcasts and Spotify:

Download the full transcript of episode one:

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Dr Subho Banerjee is the Deputy Commissioner, Head of APS Academy and Capability at the Australian Public Service Commission.

He has previously held Deputy Secretary roles in the Education, Industry and Climate Change portfolios, focusing on vocational education and skills, science and climate change adaptation and negotiations.

He has also been responsible for finance, human resources and governance functions in a number of departments, as well as contributing to whole-of-APS efforts on public service reform and Indigenous employment.

Subho has also worked in the private and not-for-profit sectors. Prior to his current role, he worked at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government on public sector reform issues at the intersection of practice and academia. He has also worked for a private sector management consultancy and an Indigenous policy think tank. 

Subho’s initial disciplinary background was in physics, which he studied as an undergraduate and postgraduate at the ANU. He also holds qualifications in economic and social history, and environmental change and management, from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Tune in next week as we talk with Julie Tickle, Chief People Officer at TAFE NSW, as she provides her experience and perspectives on becoming a skills-based organisation, in our second episode in this series on Solving the Capability Gap.

Check out our full listing of episodes and trailblazers:

Brand new series starting 13 August

Join us for our ground-breaking new podcast series, "Solving the Capability Gap," where we delve deep into the evolving skills landscape. Together, we'll explore how organisations can pivot towards a skills-based approach to their talent strategy, enhance their workforce's adaptability and agility, develop AI skills in the public sector, and nurture a culture of continuous learning.

Series three will feature five impactful, thought-provoking episodes as Andy explores critical topics in solving capability gaps using skills-based approaches with a fresh line-up of Trailblazers. For the first time, we will also include a complete series wrap-up at the end.

Weekly episodes will be available on our website and on your preferred podcast platforms, including Apple, Google, and Spotify, starting Tuesday, 13 August.

Read a synopsis for each of our episodes:

Episode one:

Adopting continuous learning models for developing and preparing workforces for the future.

Featuring:

Subho Banerjee, Deputy Commissioner and Head of APS Academy and Capability

Organisations today face many challenges. With high levels of Australian employees reporting that they feel burnt out at work and the skills needed to perform current and future roles significantly shifting, learning and development can help organisations develop and prepare their workforces for the future.

In the first episode of our new series, we will be joined by Subho Banerjee, Deputy Commissioner and Head of the APS Academy and Capability. Together, we will visualise what a continuous learning culture looks like, and formulate a strategy for how organisations can foster learning and development to develop and prepare their workforces for the future.

Episode two:

Becoming a skills-based organisation 

Featuring:

Julie Tickle, Chief People Officer, TAFE NSW

Are the skills people have or could develop more important than their original qualifications? We’ll explore this intriguing question in the second episode of our series on solving the capability gap. Joining us is Julie Tickle, Chief People Officer at TAFE NSW. Together, we'll discuss how organisations can adopt a more skills-based approach to their talent strategy, covering everything from recruitment to mentoring, coaching, and the role of collaboration and cross-functional teams in skill identification. We’ll also delve into best-practice strategies for measuring these skills and more.

Episode three:

Workforce Agility & The Agile Enterprise 

Featuring:

Sandra Lerch, Executive Director of Strategic Workforce Futures, Public Sector Commission, Queensland Government

In times of constant uncertainty, employees may face higher burnout levels and become disengaged. Thriving amid such ambiguity, though challenging, is achievable. In the third episode of our series on solving the capability gap, we'll explore this theme with Sandra Lerch, Executive Director of Strategic Workforce Futures at the Public Sector Commission, Queensland Government. With extensive experience in managing change and preparing agile, inclusive workforces for the future, Sandra will shed light on the pivotal strategies she developed for the 'Even Better Public Sector for Queensland' initiative. We’ll discuss collaborative approaches and identify key skills needed for future readiness.

Episode four:

Developing AI skills in the public sector

Featuring:

James Christie, Director of Artificial Workflow

According to LinkedIn's Workplace Learning Report for 2024, 4 in 5 people want to learn how to use AI in their profession. In the public sector, there is considerable uncertainty about how and where to best utilise AI, and whether existing technical skills are necessary to acquire AI competencies.  We will tackle these crucial questions and more in the fourth instalment of our podcast series on solving the capability gap, where we will be joined by James Christie, Director of Artificial Workflow and guest instructor on our Enhancing Processes with AI Elevate course.

Episode five:

Fostering a culture of continuous learning 

Featuring:

Maeve Neilson, General Manager of Health, Safety and Security, Ministry of Justice, New Zealand

In the concluding episode of our series, we are joined by Maeve Neilson, General Manager of Health, Safety, and Security at the Ministry of Justice in New Zealand. A seasoned leader, Maeve excels in building cross-functional teams and will share her valuable experiences from coordinating the team for the Mosque Shooter sentencing event in New Zealand. Together, we will delve into the importance of skill acquisition, examine how learning and development vary across multi-generational teams, discuss the components of effective learning experiences, explore how leaders can re-engage employees with a human-centric approach, and discuss strategies to foster a culture of continuous learning within an organisation.

More in our Solving the Capability Gap series:

Skills-based transformation

This article explores the opportunity that skills-based transformations bring to organisations in solving capability gaps, how to get started by rethinking workforce risk, getting skills intelligence right, and the pivotal role leaders must play in navigating change.  Read now

Frequently Asked Questions

Listen in as Maeve Neilson, General Manager, Health, Safety, and Security at the Ministry of Justice New Zealand, answers key questions about the role that learning and development play in fostering a great culture and how leaders can build and maintain a continuous learning culture within their organisation.

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Embracing organisational change - episode 5

Thanks for listening to our second podcast series on embracing organisational change. We hope you’ve found the insights our trailblazers shared valuable.

In our fifth and final episode of this series, we are tackling a significant change that’s on the minds of most public sector leaders today: how to adopt new technologies responsibly.

According to a recent McKinsey report, more than half of global survey respondents on AI said that they had adopted AI in at least one of their business units, and nearly two-thirds expected that their company’s investments in AI would increase over the next few years. Yet according to Boston Consulting Group, Australia lags globally, with around 70% of Australian organisations yet to succeed in delivering digital transformation, a critical first step to succeed in AI.

Pia Andrews, a global expert in open government and digital government transformation and former public servant, joins us to navigate this important change and provides her unique global and local perspectives on how public institutions can approach the responsible adoption of AI. In this episode, Pia shares her six fundamental questions that the public sector must answer when designing for trust, which are part of The Trust Framework for Government Use of AI and Automated Decision Making whitepaper she developed and her top tips on getting started.

Listen to episode five:

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Pia is a prolific global expert in open and digital government, and a former public servant. Pia has spent the last 20 years trying to make the world a better place, working within and around the public sector to transform public services, policies, and culture through greater transparency, democratic engagement, citizen-centric design, open data, emerging technologies, and real, pragmatic actual innovation in the public sector beyond.

Pia was one of the global top 20 most influential in digital government in 2018 and 2019, and now works as a strategic advisor to the public sector at AWS as well as a member of Apolitical’s Advisory on 21st Century Government. 

That now concludes our second series on embracing organisational change. Thank you to our trailblazers and all our listeners for tuning in!

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Embracing organisational change - episode four

We’re glad you could join us for another great episode in our series on embracing organisational change.

Our fourth episode focuses on the pivotal transformational change that organisations must embrace, which is playing the new talent game. This episode will dive into the essential factors in what it takes to attract, retain and reduce employee attrition in the public sector.

With more than a third of Australian Public Service employees reported as wanting to leave within the next two years, according to the June 2022 APS Census, one correlation you can draw is that leaders need to look for ways to bridge the gap between employee expectations and employer needs. In this episode, Andy talks with Tina McAllister, Acting Director of People and Culture at the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for the Queensland Government, as Tina provides her Queensland lens to questions on what it is that employees want, how leaders can respond, ways to to managing flexibility within the workforce, and the role that internal mobility plays for employee retention and ways of addressing it.

Listen to episode four:

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Tina is Human Resource (HR) /People and Culture professional with 28 years of experience across an array of human resource focus areas.  For the past two decades she has committed her energy to Public Service with Queensland Government and within that time she has served in HR leadership roles for over 15 years. 

Tina is passionate about enabling organisational performance through the development of people at all levels via the creation and implementation of initiatives, processes, policies and frameworks that contribute to positive organisational culture, capability and employee experience.  

Please tune in next week as we talk with Pia Andrews for the fifth and final episode in our series, which will be about adopting new technologies responsibly.

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Embracing organisational change – episode three

Welcome back to another episode in our series on embracing organisational change.

Today in our third episode, we cover the critical change that all workplaces must progress and move forward on, and that change is realising diversity, equity, and inclusion aspirations.

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What does it take for organisations to create an inclusive workplace where staff feels valued, safe to contribute, and to be their authentic selves? Has progress been made in the public sector, and how can all leaders acknowledge and act accordingly to close the gaps with their employees, especially those from diversity groups? Please tune in to hear Julie Etchells, Chief Human Resources Officer at the Department of Child Safety, Seniors, and Disability Services for the Queensland Government, provide her valuable perspectives based on her experiences working for the Queensland public sector over the past twenty-four years.

Download the full transcript of episode three:

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Ms Julie Etchells (pronouns are she/her/hers) is a long-term public servant, out lesbian, person with a disability, and mother to two beautiful human beings who are now adults, starting their own families.

Julie has dedicated 24 years to serving the Queensland Public as a public servant. Julie’s career has developed through her time predominately in service delivery and through time in state-wide services. Julie wears many hats and since 1999 has undertaken multiple service delivery, practitioner, leadership, and Senior Executive roles. Julie is currently utilising her leadership skills in the Chief Human Resources Officer role which highlights her diversity as a leader and commitment to supporting staff to ensure they have what they need to deliver services to children and families.

Julie’s extensive knowledge of service delivery, her passion for leadership and care for people combined with an interest in strategy, partnering, and diversity enables her to positively influence desired outcomes. Julie’s leadership, commitment and dedication to Queensland communities was officially acknowledged when she was awarded the 2020 Public Service Medal for her leadership and outstanding public service to children and families in Queensland.

 Julie’s ongoing career aspiration is to “Make it Count”. That is, whatever role she is in, she acknowledges her privilege and makes the most of the opportunity for those she is there to serve. This includes her role as an out public servant modelling the way and showing others “it is okay to be who you are; in fact, it is brilliant – we need you to be you” and we are richer for it.

Please tune in next week as we talk with Tina McAllister, Acting Director, People and Culture for the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for the Queensland Government, for our fourth episode on playing the new talent game – attracting, retaining, and reducing employee attrition. 

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