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Workshop 2009

Speaker Biographies

Dr. Gene Moyle

Sam James

Jacqui Walters

Brian Donaldson

Kay Hallt

Christine Garden

Peter MacQueen

Marcus Champ

Jenny Krasny

Vicki Webster

Megan Peach

Steve Locke

Dr. Gene Moyle - Employer Panel Member

SENIOR PSYCHOLOGIST / BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Gene, an ex-professional ballet dancer, possesses experience in psychological practice and

business management cultivated within small through large public and private organisations

within Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom across health, sport,

safety, recruitment, mining, energy, transport, aviation, explosives, and engineering

industries.

She currently holds the position of Senior Psychologist / Business Development Manager for

Sarina Russo Vocational Health (SRVH) – joining the team in September 2008. Within this role,

Gene is responsible for assisting to grow SRVH into additional business streams, contribute to

the development of new products and services, and support the team in their service

delivery.

Prior to SRVH, Gene held the position of Global Business Leader for Sentis Assessments, a

start-up company she was responsible for establishing which formed part of Sentis – a global

organisational psychology company consulting to the mining and resource industry. During

her time at Sentis, she additionally worked as a Senior Consultant and Organisational

Psychologist and was responsible for the management of multimillion dollar projects and

servicing across both small government owned companies and large multinational, blue chip

and Fortune 500 organisations, in addition to business development activities and the

creation of products and services to meet client’s needs (e.g. organisational and cultural

change, executive coaching, psychological assessment, team building).

Within her specialisation of sport and performance psychology, Gene has held the position of

Sport Psychology Coordinator at the QLD Academy of Sport (QAS) since January 2006 to-date

having worked as the Assistant Sport Psychology Coordinator during 2004-2005. Gene is

additionally an Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) National Network Provider for the national

Short Track Speed Skating squad and national Skeleton team, assisting both teams with their

preparations since 2002 and performance at the 2006 Winter Olympics and leading into

Vancouver 2010. Furthermore, she has been an official provider for a range of sporting

organisations and programs within Australia, traveling both interstate and overseas with

sporting squads competing at State, National and World Cup/World Championship level, and

sees a variety of athletes (AIS/QAS/Non-QAS) and performing artists for individual

consultations in her private practice.

In 2008, Gene was invited to join as the QLD Advisor for the Securing Career Opportunities &

Professional Employment (SCOPE) program for dance artists – a joint initiative of the

Australian Sports Commission, Australia Council and Ausdance. She has been a Sessional

Academic in Performance Psychology at QUT Creative Industries since 2001, in addition to

having presented at various conferences and published articles both in Australia and

overseas.

Prior to Sentis, Gene held the positions of Health Services Coordinator, National Senior

Psychologist, National Job Seeker Assist Client Relationship Manager, Internal EAP

Coordinator, Subject Matter Expert – Employment Services/PSP, and Psychologist Team Leader

for MAXNetWork – an employment services provider. Additionally, she has worked as a

Counsellor at QUT Counselling Services. Gene is a member of the Australian Psychological

Society (APS), APS’ College of Sport Psychologists (CoSP) currently fulfilling the role of

Secretary on the National Executive Committee and QLD State Section, the British Association

of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES), the International Association of Dance Medicine and

Science (IADMS), the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and Ausdance.

What do you love most about your work?

I enjoy the variety of tasks and projects that I work on at SRVH from product development,

business strategy, marketing, P&P development, securing new business, support of staff, and

use of my psychological expertise within a business medium. Additionally, because of this

variety, I enjoy the great people I get to interact with – from other SRVH team members, other

colleagues within the Sarina Russo Group of companies, through to contacts at client

organisations. Furthermore, I get the opportunity to draw upon multiple aspects of my

psychological experience and expertise across various areas of psychological practice.

Career highlights

SRVH – Assisting in the internal development of infrastructure to assist SRVH grow as a

business and ensure our people can do their job efficiently and effectively.

Sentis – Being responsible for relationship managing a very successful multi-million dollar 4+

year rollout of a cognitive-behavioural safety and wellbeing program across a large Australian

company. The creation from scratch of products (i.e. culture surveys) that have developed into

highly profitable income streams.

OWIA/AIS – Implementing a team culture and development program into Winter Olympic

teams and seeing the ongoing successful impacts of this through the improvement in team

culture and dynamics. Also, assisting the athletes perform at World Cups, World

Championships, the Winter Olympics and the amazing places I get to travel to with this type of

work!

Dance – Being a regular writer on Performance Psychology for Dance Australia magazine since

2002 – the magazine I used to read as an aspiring dancer myself from 11 years of age!

Sam James - Early Psych Panel Member

HUMAN FACTORS CONSULTANT

Sam James is an organisational and performance psychologist with Human Motive. In

2000, Sam took up a graduate position with the Defence Science & Technology

Organisation (DSTO) as a Human Factors Consultant. Working extensively in corporate

and military field contexts, Sam led expert support to defence capability projects and

operational deployments of new technology. These projects included training and

simulation, combat helmets, marksmanship performance, reducing friendly fire and

support to Special Forces.

In response to a challenge and opportunity, Sam took a year off in 2004 to become an

adventure training instructor working with not-for-profit organisations. He then

concluded with Defence on a career highlight – leading a project in the United

Kingdom with international militaries and agencies, to evaluate technologies for

preventing friendly fire in Iraq.

In 2006 he commenced Masters studies at Griffith University. Whilst studying, Sam

convened Griffith undergraduate courses in Organisational Psychology & Training. He

established Human Motive as a part-time consultancy in 2006, conducting an

extensive usability evaluation of an Army battlefield command system. He has

worked in internal project roles designing cross cultural training, as well as

implementing a talent management strategy for Senior Executives at the Department

of Communities.

In late 2008 Sam partnered with associates to increase the scope of Human Motive.

Human Motive provides authoritative advice on safety, leadership and information

technology issues. The consultants at Human Motive have a deep understanding of

how people train for & work in high risk environments. Its services help clients

minimise human error & maximise productivity, support the performance & potential

of senior leaders, & develop IT products that are easy to learn & use.

Sam is certified in Lominger Leadership Architect 360 products and is a qualified

adventure-learning instructor and Workplace Trainer. Sam has expertise in training

simulation systems, human error and performance, usability, marksmanship

performance, adventure learning, leadership development and coaching. He has had

his share of life’s wobbles whilst an early career psychologist and is stronger for them.

He rarely writes in the 3

rd

person about himself, except for bios at workshops.

What do you love most about your work?

• The privilege of helping others across a diverse range of jobs and passions.

• Learning from my experiences, mentors and supervisors

• Helping people cope with the messy, unstable business of life & work and

leading better lives.

Career highlights

• Conducting interviews with soldiers parachuting down around him.

• Leading engagement with Culturally & Linguistically Diverse communities.

• Being restrained by soldiers whilst rioting in East Timor.

• Discussing the 'Inverted U' theory of stress and performance with a frightened

client whilst 25m up a tree.

• Working in the freedom and beauty of the Australian wilderness.

• Coaching leadership teams during major organisational change

Jacqui is a Principal with Evans & Peck in the Business Consulting service line. Jacqui is an

experienced management consultant specialising in working with organisations to align

operations to strategic objectives. Services she has provided to clients include strategy

development, performance management, organisation design and restructure, process

alignment and improvement, change management, and programme design and

management. She has worked across many industry sectors including utilities,

government owned corporations, rail, telecommunications and finance. Jacqui has

worked for multinational organisations in many countries in the UK, Europe, Asia Pacific

and North America. Jacqui holds a Bachelor of Commerce and is a CPA. Prior to joining

Evans & Peck, Jacqui worked as a management consultant for Deloitte, Compaq/Hewlett

Packard, IBM and Price Waterhouse.

Jacqui’s experience in delivering business consulting services over the past 15 years

includes:

• Reviewing Brisbane City Works to identify areas that can be improved to move from

a local government service provider to a more commercially oriented enterprise

• Reporting to the SunWater CEO and executive team, she was responsible for the

design and implementation of a new organisation structure which included designing

the new structure to deliver against strategic objectives, designing the

implementation approach and detailed plan, transitioning the existing work-force to

the new structure including job design, selection, and transition strategies process,

system, and other infrastructure changes occurring as a result of the restructure,

employee engagement and communications, benefit identification and reporting,

and change management including communications

• A review of the IT Strategy for Tarong Energy Company to determine the level of

alignment between the IT Strategy and business objectives. This included

consultation with key stakeholders and a series of working sessions with the IT team.

The outcome was an updated IT Strategy that has been endorsed by the executive

team. The recommendations made in the review have been accepted in full and the

first project has commenced

• An environmental scan for the Queensland Health innovation strategy unit of their

Innovation Program resulting in the design of a process for managing

commercialisation

Jacqui Walters - Employer Panel Member

PRINCIPALOF BUILDING CONSULTING

and intellectual property, providing an assessment of 12 possible commercial

opportunities and advising on the way forward for the program. Recommendations

included strengthening the program and sponsorship structure, improving clarity on

alignment of program to strategic objectives of the department, and improving the

developmental paths that should be followed in developing commercial opportunities.

• Leading the design and deployment of a new single services model for Compaq Global

Services worldwide. She reported directly to the VP Compaq Global Services. Jacqui

was responsible for organisation design, change management and country liaison and

readiness across Europe.

• Working with the Executive Team of Thomson/Marconi Sonar to address deteriorating

business performance and lack of cohesion within the management team by

articulating the strategic goals of the organisation and driving those goals down into

objectives for each executive’s specific area of accountability. She also worked with

them to achieve better communications and team work – starting with the CEO and

his leadership approach and working with the entire team as individuals and as a

whole.

What have you loved the most about your work?

• Working with a vast variety of clients and teams

• Being thrown in at the deep end and helping solve problems that are unique and

complex

• Having to rapidly figure out how an organisation works and how to engage within it

• Developing my team as a business and individuals is very satisfying too

• Exciting, challenging, travel, pretty good pay, great people generally!

A career highlight includes

• Working on a team which assisted Lego in turning their first ever loss around to save

the company – culture change to support new product introduction processes (and

living in the LegoLand hotel!)

• Working with Indian Railways which was the biggest employer in the world improve

the way they ran their business – it was a huge and enjoyable challenge to fit

culturally in a very different corporate culture – lots of personal learning!

I am an organisational psychologist with a specific interest in building organisations that

are intimately aligned with their vision, values and behaviours. The 8 years has seen me

present at a number of conferences, facilitate workshops and develop a series of

initiatives to the mining and resources sector, such as mentoring programs, safety and

cultural programs, leadership and coaching sessions:

• To create organisations that understand and practice the qualities and behaviors that

lead to the creation of enjoyable and successful businesses

• To assist in the creation of an enhanced quality of work life for employees

• To encourage attraction, participation and retention of women in the mining and

resources industry

• To inspire and support the future leaders of organisations to be the best they can be

• To be an inspiration for people to reach their goals in the face of adversity

• To develop role models for females and lift the level of awareness, acceptance and

visibility of women in the industry

I have spent much of my professional life in the mining industry and as a result, have an

intimate understanding of the many challenges facing the industry in creating safe,

innovative and performance oriented cultures. Interaction with my colleagues and fellow

associates indicates that many of these issues mirror that of finance, banking and other

industry sectors. Over the years I have also developed a reputation for being able to

engage with a variety of individuals, ranging from the people at the coal face through to

those within management. I have a strong background in aligning behaviour with

organisational objectives, particularly in the areas of supervision, leadership and safety

within the mining and construction industries. Specialities include: safety and

organisational cultural change management, building high performance teams,

outplacement, executive coaching, mentoring, superintendent/supervisor leadership

development, and performance management.

What have you loved the most about your work?

It's a discipline that offers so much diversity and the opportunity to work with people

from the conception to the death of an organisation in a variety of different situations.

A career highlight includes

My career highlights come from the supervision that I do. Meeting some

amazing students, helping them grow and develop into competent

psychologists.

Jenny Krasny - Early Psych Panel Member

ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST—EMBRACING POTENTIAL

Vicki Webster - Career and Market Overview

PRACTICE LEADER– HUDSON TALENT MANAGEMENT

Vicki is an organisational psychologist, who has over ten years experience in general

management and the delivery of professional organisational development services.

She has undertaken projects that include strategic planning, succession

management/career pathing, attraction and retention strategies, assessing and

selecting talent, implementing leadership development interventions, executive and

career coaching, conducting cultural surveys and increasing the effectiveness of

performance and career development initiatives. She specialises in leadership

development interventions, including leadership profiling and development centres

that assess managers’ leadership behaviours and attributes that are key to effective

performance. This includes providing feedback to organisations on the key themes on

the capability of senior management teams, as well as individual in depth

developmental feedback for participants, including individual reports with suggested

development strategies.

Vicki has consulted to organisations across a wide range of sectors including

education, energy and resources, financial services, government, health, information

technology, manufacturing and tourism. As well as presenting at Hudson events, Vicki

has facilitated sessions at conferences and professional events for a range of

organisations, including Australian Human Resources Institute, Australian

Psychological Society, Business Women's Network, Women in Super, College of

Organisational Psychologists, Interest Group of Coaching Psychologists.

Areas of Professional Competence

• Leadership Development

• Leadership Profiling

• High Potential Programs

• Development Centres

• Executive and Career Coaching

• Competency Profiling

• Attraction & Retention strategies

• Assessment Centres

• Performance Management

Prior to joining Council I was a senior lecturer in the Business School at QUT where I

managed and coordinated subjects such as Management and Industrial Relations (this

included several topics on workplace health and safety), Organisational Communication

and Consulting for Organisational Change. As the director of a management consultancy

organisation I provided change management, leadership development and organisational

development to a range of public sector and not for profit organisations.

Throughout my career I have had a passion for enabling and ensuring that people work in

organisations that are established as effective businesses.

Prior to joining Council my career comprised of training and development, internal

consulting, organisational change management and the facilitation of teams provision of

supporting people through change for work redesigns, merges of branches and closures of

organisations.

I have worked in Council for 14 years and have led and been part of many significant

organisational wide change processes be they strategic planning, policy reviews, work

redesigns and most recent the relocation of over 3000 employees to a new open plan

working environment. This outlines my key achievements prior to Council:

• I have led a change management program including the Zero Harm / Safety First

culture in the design of the new work environments for over 3000 Council employees

• I used influence, collaboration, consultation and partnering to design and implement a

new organisational structure for Council ensuring that all HR policies and guidelines

were followed – including sponsoring ‘supporting people through change program”

• I have developed and promoted best practice in absenteeism management (Improving

Attendance), working in open plan, modes of employment and organisational

capability

• I have managed and developed a diverse range of teams including HR, IT professionals,

medical and nursing, administrative, engineers, planners and “workplace warriors” –

including managing the People Services section which consisted of WorkCover,

Occupational Health, Workplace Health and Safety, Employment Programs and HR

Information.

• I have several qualifications including specialising in marketing, organisational

communication, adult learning, business management and company directorship.

• Lastly, I have had significant experience with a range of professional and field

employees with the most recent being with building maintenance, park maintenance,

Local Laws officers etc who relocated to Green Square.

Kay Hallt - Employer Panel Member

CHANGE MANAGER —BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL

Megan has specialised in organisational development and strategic HR solutions across a

range of client sectors including State and Local Government, Mining and Construction,

Finance, Telecommunications, and Health. Together with her contagious sense of

Enthusiasm, her qualifications in Psychology and Education help her to work with people

at all levels to gain their commitment toward organisational initiatives.

Before joining Assure Programs, Megan has been engaged to deliver solutions in large-

scale systems implementation, organisation and process design, workforce

transformation, culture enhancement, recruitment and new joiner integration, employee

engagement and retention, training and performance support, building leadership

effectiveness and change capability. At the centre of this work, Megan works

collaboratively with employees in order to align their motivations and behaviour toward

organisational goals.

In addition to her experience as a strategic change practitioner, Megan has published

research in the area of employee change readiness and is keenly interested in fostering

sustainable organisational well-being. She is passionate about delivering return-on-

investment to stakeholders with regard to enhancing existing human capital initiatives

and enjoys design and implementation of organisational development strategy that

fosters a positive culture and strong employee engagement. In particular, Megan enjoys

facilitating capability development sessions and coaching for individuals, groups and

teams. Her adaptability in conjunction with a passionate and encouraging style ensures

she gains respect and can build employee confidence in their ability to attain objectives,

whilst still enabling a sense of fun within the workplace.

What do you love most about your work?

People. Working to support them to move forward on a key goal. People’s responses to

work and life experiences are fascinating - I love working behind the scenes or directly

with people to support these endeavours.

Career Highlights

Working within an international project team as Australian lead for the workforce

transformation efforts and implementation new Supply Chain organisation design for a

mining client.

Representing Accenture to present to Australian Computer Society Conference in 2006

on the topic of Career Strategy (a raging extrovert let loose in an audience of

technicians!)

Megan Peach - Career Strategy Planning

ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANT—

ASSURE PROGRAMS

Brian leads the boutique-sized consulting practice in Brisbane with a small team of senior

consultants. DCG frequently partners other firms nationally with common values, skill

sets and methods for assisting our clients.

Brian has been actively involved in large scale organisational change and business

strategy (and its implementation) for twenty five years, first in large government

organisations and then with Ernst and Young, until forming the Group in 1994. Prior to

this time he worked as a line executive, a consultant and leadership development

specialist and a counselling psychologist. He has formal qualifications in economics,

psychology and business management. He and the team work with clients in wide a

range of sectors and industries including energy, health, transport, finance, water, ICT,

human resources, land management, human services, engineering, project management

and all levels of government in Australia.

The business strategy and organisational change work enables Brian to engage with

senior executives around matters of governance, strategy, corporate priorities, the

sponsorship of change and major transformation.

Assignments commonly include new business models and large scale change projects;

integrating business systems, processes and people; the development and

implementation of business strategy; organisational learning, agility and knowledge

sharing strategy; project start up, management, recovery and benefits management;

partnering and alliances, and the development of leaders and professional consultants.

Some recent projects include:

• Large scale organisational change management assignments in banking

• Project recovery assignments

• Facilitating due diligence work in an engineering industry acquisition.

• Large scale organisational change management assignments in insurance

• Reframing the partnering relationship between a purchaser and provider before

renegotiating an annual services contract in rail

• Conducting three projects to prove the business value of “complex adaptive

thinking”

• Operational benchmarking in the rail industry and

• Management of long term capability in a large rail organisation

• Program managing a suite of initiatives in transport

• The resolution of complex business issues with clients in engineering, and

Brian Donaldson - Employer Panel Member

MANAGING DIRECTOR: DCG

Christine Garden - Employer Panel Member

HR MANAGER —ERNST & YOUNG

Christine Garden is a HR Manager with the Ernst & Young People team in Brisbane. She

is responsible for delivering undergraduate and graduate recruitment strategies, as well

as performing a HR Manager role. Christine commenced with Ernst & Young in 2005,

holds a Bachelor of International Business and completed her Graduate Certificate in

HRM 2008. Christine has over five years' previous experience in recruitment within the

professional services and information technology industries.

Christine enjoys the diversity of her role and the opportunity to add value to the

practice from a People perspective. He career highlights include being a Director of the

Australian Association of Graduate Employers (AAGE) a not for profit organisation

assisting Australian companies with their graduate programs and implementing a

Diversity strategy in Ernst & Young Brisbane.

Peter has operated as a self-employed organisational psychologist and management

consultant for several years. Prior to this, he worked as a Senior Psychologist for both a

national and boutique consultancy, specialising within the human resource and

psychological services fields. Previously, after finishing fourth year, Peter worked in the

resources sector and thus gained valuable internal consulting experience with a large

mining operation. Peter’s prime focus is in the area of psychological assessment, from

operatives to senior executives. In addition, Peter offers outplacement, advertised

recruitment and related services.

A graduate of the University of Queensland (including postgraduate qualifications in

business administration), Peter has lectured in psychological assessment, on an ad hoc

basis, to postgraduate students at Griffith University. An advocate for ongoing

professional education and skill development, Peter also recommends that

organisational psychologists gain a good appreciation of organisational and business

issues beyond the field of psychology. He has assessed graduates from various

disciplines for several clients.

Peter McQueen - Employer Panel Member

PRINCIPAL — COMPASS CONSULTING

Steven Locke - Honing Your Applications: Activity

STRATEGIC RECRUITMENT UNIT — MAIN ROADS QLD

Following completion of his Honours year at Griffith University in 2002 , Steven has

enjoyed an extremely varied career. His initial training as a psychologist at Centrelink

provided exposure to some of the most varied and challenging populations in society.

During this time, Steven developed a keen interest in all aspects of psychological

assessment and testing. The advent of Job Capacity Assessments saw Steven take a role

managing this process for a private rehabilitation provider. This role offered the

opportunity to manage a large group of allied health professionals delivering assessments

across the whole of Queensland. This role also exposed Steven to occupational

rehabilitation and he worked on intervention projects with several large government

agencies, private sector companies and the Defence Force.

Steven moved back to specific psychological practice through work with several

consulting agencies. As a consultant Organisational Psychologist, he was fortunate to

work with a variety of sectors including the mining and energy, infrastructure, financial,

retail and pharmaceutical industries. Steven has developed substantial experience in

individual assessment, assessment / development centres, graduate recruitment

processes, organisational surveys and salary reviews. Currently, Steven works at the

Department of Main Roads within the Strategic Recruitment Unit. His team is responsible

for a range of services to the Department comprising:

• A recruitment and selection consultancy service

• Career development counselling and

• Recruitment and selection of some 130 Graduate, Cadet and Scholarship

positions.

What do you love about being an Organisational Psychologist?

The ability to identify patterns in individuals and teams. Being able to explain things that

are going on around you when everyone else sees chaos and disorder.

Being provided with the opportunity to influence organisations’ directions at the very

highest level.

Career highlights:

My experiences in conducting assessments with people who are chronically unwell and

have never worked right through to successful CEOs. I have conducted assessments

sitting under trees in Indigenous communities as well as in steel mills and board rooms. I

have been fortunate to work with a phenomenal range of individual differences.

Marcus Champ - Early Psych Panel Member

PRINCIPAL ADVISOR—MAIN ROADS QLD

Marcus completed undergraduate and post graduate studies in Applied Psychology and

Organisational Psychology in Canberra. His first role was in Workforce Planning and

Human Resources for the Canberra Institute of TAFE and progressed into strategic and

business planning in a large public sector health organisation in the federal public service.

Marcus then transitioned into HR consulting for a small federal public service agency

where he gained experience across a wide range of HR activities from performance

management to interpreting employment legislation, terms and conditions of service and

even payroll. Marcus then secured a role in a small boutique consulting company

specialising in graduate recruitment, learning and development and individual

development programs. During this period Marcus completed further post graduate

studies in Managerial Psychology.

Pursuing a desire to further his studies Marcus moved to Brisbane started a PhD in

Organisational Psychology at Griffith University and worked in HR consulting for a

Queensland Government agency. Marcus then secured a role in the newly formed

Workforce Information and Analysis Unit in the Department of Main Roads. The

Workforce Information and Analysis Unit is tasked with providing managers the

information they need to make informed decisions about workforce strategy and Marcus

is involved in a wide range of organisational research activities such as workforce

planning, workforce profiling and reporting, exit interviews, new starter survey, retention

survey and the whole of organisation staff survey.

What do you love about your job?

Every day I get to directly apply the learning I have undertaken in my professional

studies. I get to make decisions in regard to the strategy, design, and administration,

analysis and reporting of an integrated organisational performance framework in the way

I think it should be done. Furthermore I have access to a large diverse Workforce who

teach me something new about organisational behaviour on a daily basis. Lastly I have

opportunities to present my work to an international audience and develop my

knowledge, skills and expertise in an area that I have devoted my life to. This is not a job,

it is my calling. What is there not to love?

Career highlights?

• Facilitating a whole of organisation review of the service delivery model for the Family

Court • Developing the Strategic and Business Planning Process for the Family Court

Administering the graduate selection process for the Department of Finance (2000

applications, 250 selected for assessment centres conducted across Australia) •

Supporting the development and evaluation of a remuneration strategy for the

Department of Main Roads • Visioning, creating, and building the Workforce Information

Framework at the Department of Main Roads •