Shaun McCarthy – Leadership Impacts Culture, Culture Impacts Leadership
This this presentation at the 2016 Australian Conference, Shaun McCarthy talks about the interrelated nature of Leadership and Culture. Leaders have both a direct and indirect impact on Culture through the things they do and the decisions they make. At the same time they are also shaped by the Culture in which they are in.
Shaun established Human Synergistics in New Zealand and Australia and brings with him wealth of knowledge, experience and anecdotes from a long Consulting Career. If you have a question about leadership or Culture – Shaun will have a story or example to answer it. Shaun has worked with leading multi-national operators from the factory floor to the Executive suite.
Katie Kelly – Paratriathlon Paralympic Champion
Fresh back from Rio after winning gold in the first ever Paratriathlon at the Paralympics, Katie talks about her own road to Rio as well as challenges she has faced in her professional career.
Katie was born with impaired hearing and two years ago was told she had Usher syndrome and was going to go blind. The next day she was on the phone to Triathlon Australia to enquire about competing as a vision impaired athlete. A lot of hard work later Katie has brought home gold.
Katie has an amazing attitude and outlook on life and is the embodiment of the Achievement Style. Katie continues to give back to the community by promoting healthier lifestyles. She has set up fun runs around the country and is currently creating the ‘Sport Access Foundation’, which serves to remove barriers for children with a disability to play sport.
Robert A. Cooke, Ph.D. – Culture for… it’s just Culture
In this talk at the 2016 Australian Conference, Rob Cooke talks about the trend of ‘Culture For’ – Culture for Risk, Culture for Safety, Culture for Diversity – and how they are all just sub parts of Culture.
Dr Cooke is the CEO and Director of Human Synergistics International and Associate Professor Emeritus of Management at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Cooke was previously an Associate Research Scientist at the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center (Institute for Social Research) and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the Kellogg School of Management.
As the lead researcher behind most of our diagnostics – you might have noticed Rob’s name on the bottom of your last report! Rob’s interest is in being able to measure what actually matters to organisations – to answer the questions: why are some organisations or leaders are able to perform at a high level and why don’t others? We are delighted to have Rob share his insights on what science says about organisational culture and leadership.
Jen White – Being a Courageous Leader
“Sometimes you need that 20 seconds of insane courage”. Jen White talks about how working inside different organisational Cultures shaped her as a leader and how she sometime had to make hard decisions. Jen Challenges us to do the same:
If not you, then who?
If not now, then when?
Jen White is a passionate HR business leader with experience in the Professional Services, Finance, FMCG, Not for Profit and most recently, IT distribution having recently commenced at Avnet TS as their ANZ HR Director. In this role, Jen is responsible for helping Avnet attract, engage, develop and reward a diverse and highly-skilled team to support Avnet’s business objectives.
Throughout her career, Jen has been critical in creating and implementing strategies that have transformed organizational effectiveness. She has an outstanding record in leading teams through change, leveraging commercial insights and providing pragmatic solutions to improve business outcomes.
The challenges of being responsible for leading organizational culture whilst at the same time being part of it are familiar territory to Jen. She candidly shares her personal story and her own leadership insights on how she has navigated this road.
Michael Combs – Diversity is Just Good For Business
In this talk at the 2016 Human Synergistics Australian Conference, Michael Combs, Founder and CEO of CareerTrackers, talks about the three principals he had when starting the business; being tested on those principles; tapping into the pool of talent otherwise locked out of professional careers as well as his own challenges as a leader particularly knowing when to get out of the way.
Michael is a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado where he earned a degree in Business Administration with a major in finance, marketing and a minor in legal studies. As a participant in the INROADS internship program for ethnic minorities in the United States, Michael was awarded an internship with Hewlett-Packard for five consecutive summers. He later utilised this experience to establish the CareerTrackers Indigenous Internship Program in 2009. Over the past 7 years, that program has supported 1,138 Indigenous university students into professional careers.
In 2000 Michael was named a Gates Millennium Scholar, in 2003 was awarded the United States Congressional Medal of Service for community outreach and development. In 2013 he was recognised in the inaugural Westpac Community Leaders Award for Social Entrepreneurship and in 2015 was named a True Leader by the Financial Review.