Into the Unknown: Dealing with Change and Uncertainty

John is the CEO of Emotous, LLC in the USA and brings over 30 years experience transforming and building businesses and cultures to thrive in accelerating change. Prior to Emotous, John was a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, including co-founder of Dissero Partners, a world-class transformation consultancy, which later sold to Ernst and Young. Earlier, John founded Positive Communications, a pioneer in consumer paging, growing the business to $50M in only 4 1/2 years. John is a regular speaker on leadership, strategy and transformation. He has served on numerous Boards, including the Association for Corporate Growth, and holds an International MBA with Honours from Saint Mary’s College of California.

Lisa was Secretary of federal government departments from 2004-2016 serving Prime Ministers Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott and Turnbull. She left in 2016 to pursue new interests including consulting and Board Directorships. She Chairs the Audit Committee of the Australian Academy of Science and is a Director of the Future Battery Industry Cooperative Research Centre, the Australian American Leadership Dialogue and a Counsellor for Bond University. She advises an employment services company and two private equity firms. She was Chair of headspace, the National Youth Mental Health Foundation from 2018-2021, has served on the Government's Naval Shipbuilding Advisory Board, been a director of Social Ventures Australia, High Resolves, Schools Plus and other not for profit boards and has been a Director of two listed companies and one unlisted all of which sold successfully. In 2020 she led a new initiative of the Business Council of Australia to help bushfire affected communities recover under Sir Peter Cosgrove's leadership. In 2021 she Chaired a review into the Quality of Initial Teacher Education and also Chaired a Review of a program in the Defence portfolio. She consults on change management and is often found mentoring or coaching people or talking about leadership tough times."

Cathy commenced as Chief Executive to lead the new Department for Child Protection (DCP) in South Australia in October 2016.

Cathy joined the department from Queensland, where she was Deputy DirectorGeneral, Child Family and Community Services, Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services from 2013 to 2016.

Cathy brings more than 15 years of experience as a senior public servant in Queensland, working in and across strategic policy, legislative reform, planning and service delivery roles in the areas of child protection, youth justice, disability services and domestic violence.

Cathy has undergraduate qualifications in law and postgraduate qualifications in law and public administration, including an Executive Masters of Public Administration (EMPA), ANZSOG.

She has previously been a Director of ANROWS - Australia’s National Research Organisation on Women’s Safety and is currently Chair of, National Forum for Protecting Australia’s Children.

In 2018 Cathy was appointed to the ANZSOG Alumni Advisory Council.