Working Outside the Square: flexibility, innovation and technology

Katrine lives with her family in Morphett Vale and is an active member of the southern community.

Growing up in a single parent family, in the south western suburbs of Adelaide, Katrine understands the values of being part of a caring community and supporting and working with others to make a difference. She is passionate about achieving fairness and opportunity for everyone and believes that sustainable communities are strong, fair and inclusive.

Katrine has fought to better the lives of South Australians for most of her working life. During her time as Secretary of the Australian Services Union, for South Australia and the Northern Territory, Katrine engaged with employers and workers in a range of industries including community services, local government, energy, finance, airlines, information technology and the legal industry to strive for equity and a fair go in the workplace and for strong and sustainable industries for the future.

In particular, Katrine is proud to have collaboratively led ground-breaking work to strengthen the community sector and to achieve equal pay for 200,000 community workers around Australia and funding for it.

Katrine is also proud of having been the Chief Executive Officer of Together SA – a community organisation that seeks to engage the community and all stakeholders to collectively achieve solutions to complex social issues the community wants to resolve.

Community engagement for Katrine includes being a member of the Christies Beach Surf Lifesaving Club and the Morphett Vale and Districts RSL, and volunteering with the Sammy D Foundation, Fred’s Van at Christie Downs and the YWCA. She is also a Director of the Southern Football League and an Ambassador for Welcome to Australia.

Katrine is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and of the Flinders University of South Australia and a Fellow of the Governor’s Leadership Foundation programme.

In recognition of her dedication to achieving strong, connected and sustainable communities in South Australia, Katrine received the 2012 Australia Day Award Women Hold up Half the Sky.

Anne Gale is South Australia’s Commissioner for Equal Opportunity. She has statutory powers to assess and conciliate complaints of discrimination and to inform the community about their rights and responsibilities under Equal Opportunity laws. Ms Gale’s 5 year appointment began on 17 September 2012.

Ms Gale was previously Deputy Commissioner for Consumer Affairs in Consumer and Business Services. Before being appointed Deputy Commissioner for Consumer Affairs in 2009, Ms Gale was Deputy Chief Executive of the Department for Families and Communities, with responsibility for Disability, Ageing and Domiciliary Care.

Ms Gale has also served in a range of other roles in other agencies over nearly two decades, including the Office for Ageing, Department of Premier and Cabinet, Human Services and the South Australian Housing Trust.

During her career Ms Gale has developed strategic plans and policy, and programs and services that promote people’s rights and assist people to live independently and develop self reliance and resilience. Examples include the South Australian Ageing Plan Improving with Age and implementation of the state Homelessness strategy. She has participated in many Commonwealth State negotiations and forums in Consumer Affairs, Ageing, Disability and Housing.

Ms Gale is a member of the South Australian Ministerial Advisory Board on Ageing and has been a member of the National Occupational Licensing Authority Board and a member of a number of community service and sport associations.

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.

Eva Balan-Vnuk is based in the Microsoft office in Adelaide, and with her team works with SA Government agencies to help them gain business value from technology. Eva has an undergraduate degree in international management and marketing from the University of South Australia, and prior to this role spent nine years working for Microsoft in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia, in a variety of sales and strategy roles. She then completed a PhD in innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of Adelaide, where she is a Visiting Research Fellow. Eva is passionate about helping the SA Government to identify ways to become more innovative, and to assist in the transformation of business strategies and practices.

Delfina Lanzilli is South Australia’s first female Valuer-General.

This position is appointed by the Governor and is primarily responsible for delivering annual property valuations, both site (land only) and capital (land and improvements) which are used by the statutory authorities for the levying of rates and taxes. In addition to this, Delfina also provides valuation advice to any Minister, government agency or local government upon their request.

Since her appointment, Delfina has delivered an extensive reform agenda for her business unit, the State Valuation Office including enhancing advisory services to the government and incorporating flexible working arrangements.

Delfina brings to the role over 25 years’ experience in the areas of property valuations, rating and customer service principles. Prior to her appointment, she was a senior adviser to the former Valuer-General on managing valuation enquiries across the state and managing stakeholders and customer expectations.

Delfina considers herself to be a very energetic and self-motivated professional who apart from her statutory responsibilities, enjoys developing the skill sets of her staff and providing career progression and mentoring opportunities wherever possible.