A Modern Public Sector: The Reform Agenda with Kym Winter-Dewhirst

Kym Winter-Dewhirst commenced as the Chief Executive of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet in January 2015, relocating to Adelaide from Brisbane.

Prior to returning to South Australia, Kym was a senior Vice President within BHP Billiton, based between Melbourne and Brisbane.

In that role he was responsible for the corporation’s government and community affairs covering operations in Colombia, New Mexico, South Africa, Indonesia and the East Coast of Australia.

Kym was intimately involved in negotiations for the Olympic Dam Indenture Agreement and was a co-author of the Olympic Dam environmental approvals, which at 20,000 pages in length, was the largest document of its type ever produced in Australia.

Kym has spent a considerable part of his career working and negotiating with indigenous communities around the world and across Australia, including the Dayak people of Central Kalimantan in Borneo, the Wayu People of northeastern Colombia, the Navaho of New Mexico and a range of displaced tribal groups in the north east of South Africa.

Kym spent 10 years with BHP Billiton and was previously head of government relations with WMC Resources.

Before joining the corporate sector he spent three years as Chief-of-Staff to the South Australian Environment minister, John Hill, six years as a political lobbyist and seven years as an environmental and political adviser for Senator Cheryl Kernot in the Federal Parliament and Ian Gilfillan in the SA Parliament.

He holds a degree in journalism from the University of South Australia and studied politics at Flinders University. He was largely educated in Europe as a result of his Father’s work as an Australian diplomat with postings to London, The Hague, Paris, Bonn, Cape Town, Ankara and Canberra.

Appointed on 1 July 2014, Commissioner for Public Sector Employment Erma Ranieri works passionately towards creating a world-leading public sector that serves South Australians well, does what it says it will do, and to which every public servant is proud to belong.

With the role of the public sector being to serve and support South Australia to thrive, Erma leads sector-wide reform to modernise the public sector and continue to build on its value and service to the South Australian community.

Erma has worked for more than 30 years to help organisations optimise productivity and employee wellbeing. She was named a 2014 Telstra Business Woman of the Year as SA Winner of the Telstra Community and Government Award for her role in leading transformational change throughout the public sector.

With a key focus on flexibility, diversity and leadership development to ensure the public sector is positioned as an Employer of Choice, Erma continues to challenge cultural and structural barriers to drive innovative, collaborative and connected services for the community.