Sandymcdonald.com and charity, CreateCare Global, Sandy McDonald is an author, a TEDx speaker, and a storytelling trainer, working with business and academia to improve and enhance communication through purpose-led story.

Artwords in started out in 1992 and Twenty two years later, it had become an award-winning marketing communication solutions destination for some of Australia’s most successful enterprises. In 2008, Sandy started her first charity Knit-a-square which led to her next career. She delivered a standing ovation TEDx talk about this extraordinary adventure in 2014.

 The intersection of these two experiences was to prove pivotal to the work she does now. In ArtWords, if they couldn’t get their clients clear on what they were positioning, why, and for whom, they’d failed. This became the single most important component of their work. During the formative years of Knit-a-square, they learned that online stories with a focused purpose touched lives everywhere.

They helped build a worldwide community of 20,000 people in 71 countries which is still growing. Sandy wrote the book, Get It Right Online to detail the framework for how this was achieved.

Throughout my career in New Zealand and Australia, my passion and focus have been working with organisations to achieve their strategic growth goals and hone their greatest competitive advantage – their people.

As an executive mentor and leadership coach, I have worked with other business leaders in their personal develop as they too contend with the challenges of leadership during uncertainty and on the journey of organisational change and service excellence.

 a business leadership perspective, many of the roles I have undertaken have come as the result of being appointed to lead organisational change – even during times of volatility and uncertainty.  I have learned that to achieve significant, sustainable success and growth you must focus on the customer experience and outcome – continually delivering a better service today than yesterday.

As an executive mentor and leadership coach, I have worked with other business leaders in their personal develop as they too contend with the challenges of leadership during uncertainty and on the journey of organisational change and service excellence.

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With over 30 years of experience in the retail industry, Deborah is a renowned executive coach and mentor supporting women navigate and build their retail careers and businesses. Deborah offers her clients a unique perspective for growth that is driven by self-reflection and goal orientation that is focused on developing the skills and capabilities to be the best person they can be for their team, their family, their friends, their customer, but more importantly, themselves. 

Starting her career in Fashion Design, Deborah developed and sustained the passion to be continually curious in understanding the evolving needs and desires of the customer and to be driven to continuously focus on delivering creative solutions that not only inspires but excites consistently customers.

Deborah evolved her retail career from Fashion Design to Executive leadership roles in Marketing, Finance, Buying, Merchandise Planning, Operations, Supply Chain and eCommerce in industry leading Specialty and ASX listed businesses including Kmart, Target, Officeworks and more recently Mecca. 

Throughout her extensive career Deborah has had an unwavering customer-centric approach which has enabled her to play an integral role in the industry leading transformation of multiple businesses through a focus on embedding a customer focused, results driven, collaborative culture within her teams. 

With customers and serving others being at Deborah’s core, she now uses her experience and expertise to support others through her coaching and mentoring business with her focus on supporting others be all that they can be for themselves and their customers. 

Lyly Greca, a Vietnamese immigrant lucky enough to arrive in Australia with my mother and older brothers at the tender age of 6. Today, I’m married to a beautiful Italian man whom I met at University whilst studying my Bachelor of Economics and Finance degree and together we’re blessed with 2 amazing children living in Australia’s most livable city Melbourne.

I am the 3rd child in our family of 2 older boys and a younger half-sister. My brothers and I were raised by an incredibly strong and traditional woman with amazing smarts, fantastic work ethics and greatest generosity. From a very young age, I knew what I wanted and often map out how I’d achieve those goals. Today I operate a premium flower and gift social enterprise called “Miei Fiori”. With more than 10% of Australian population living below the poverty line and just half of those are Children, Miei Fiori was created as a vehicle to combat poverty, serve our people, support our community and protect our planet.
We do that by that by:
Donating 100% profit to children’s charities within Australia
Commit to sustainable options
Complete transparency.

My entrepreneurship started at about 15 years of age when I was able to make my very own first dollar at McDonald’s. I mapped my path to owning my first property by 18, how I’d earn 6 figures by 25 and operating a Company that is dedicated to solving some world challenges by 40. Today I’m 37 years old and couldn’t feel luckier and more grateful for everything I’ve achieved thus far with my best-friend and soul mate.
Before taking the bold step to start my own company, I had an incredible Corporate career in varying roles across many industries practicing the lessons learnt from mentors, making many mistakes along the way, solving problems and pivoted through challenges whilst having a lot of fun along the way

Melissa Ellul is an experienced senior IT leader with 20 year’s industry experience across Australia and Asia, including IT consulting, with a passion for leading Digital IT transformations and fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration.   She is a strong values, team and results focused leader, earning a reputation for successfully leading transformational changes and being a leading authority in Agile, Lean and Design Thinking delivery approaches and practices.

Melissa led the Retail IT function at Telstra from 2012-2016. During this time she successfully delivered a number of challenging programs end to end, including an inspiring world-class future retail environment as showcased in Telstra’s Melbourne and Sydney Discovery Stores.

Melissa is currently the Global IT Leader Enterprise at Aurecon, a global consulting, engineering design, management and specialist technical services firm that works across a broad range of markets and sectors fostering innovation, harnessing disruption and bringing ideas to life. Reporting to the CIO, she is the trusted IT partner for the business across the enterprise. She is responsible for executive/business engagement, shaping and co-creating business strategies, strategic roadmaps and is accountable for the delivery that drives strategic value for Aurecon and delivers a foundation for continuing and sustainable innovation.

Melissa is accountable for the Workday platform and building upon our established HCM capability and embarking on the delivery of a fully integrated Workday Finance, Projects, Procurement and People Platform…taking the opportunity to truly innovate how we work at Aurecon.

Cassandra Goodman whole-heartedly believes that it’s not enough to love what we do – unless we also love who we’re being while we do it. Through her coaching, training, speaking, and writing. Cassandra empowers leaders to be true to themselves at work as the catalyst for the co-creation of workplaces where people can thrive, perform, play and belong. 

Cassandra has three decades of business experience having held many different senior leadership roles, including being appointed as Bupa’s first Global Director of Employee Experience. In this role she was focussed on the activation of the organisations’ purpose ‘Longer, Healthier, Happier Lives’ for their 86,000 employees around the world.

Today, Cassandra enjoys a portfolio career. She is the founder of The Centre for Self-Fidelity, the Chief Talent Activator at Think Talent, and a facilitator and executive coach for Thrive Global. Following the success of her first self-published book Self-Fidelity in 2020, her second book Being True was published by Hardie Grant in 2023.Cassandra was born in Sydney, but currently lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband and two young sons

Kathryn Harper brings over 20 years’ experience in executive search and consulting, building her career with boutique agencies and large international Executive Search firms.  She joined Amrop Carmichael Fisher as Partner in 2019.

Specialising in the Government sector, Kathryn has provided Executive Search services for senior level appointments including CEO, Deputy Secretary, Executive Officer, General Manager and Director mandates for various State Government departments and agencies.  Additionally, she has also managed Chair and Board appointments for several Statutory Authorities.  As a result, she brings a strong understanding of the sector and its specific requirements, including diversity, to the search and engagement of executives and non-executive directors.

Relationship management has been a major focus for Kathryn and she is passionately committed to understanding the ever-changing needs of clients and candidates, carefully assessing the capabilities of candidates to ensure a good cultural match between the two. She has a strong understanding of the importance of building lasting relationships with clients and candidates alike. Providing career advice and mentoring is an aspect of her role which she finds particularly enjoyable and rewarding.

Malaysian-born Jocelyn Chong is an award-winning, #1 International Best-Selling Author, CEO and Founder of Seed to Sequoia. After a successful twenty-year career at Australia’s leading banks (where she generated over $200 million in revenue), she changed paths to pursue her true passion as a Certified Life and Business Coach.

Utilising her MBA and background in high-level sales, leadership and management, she has worked with over 500 entrepreneurs to date, teaching them how to earn with ease, attract dream clients, and create a life by design. Her mission is to help business leaders tap into their true purpose while scaling their business with feel-good strategies and intuitive guidance.

Her clients love her instinctive ability to uncover the core problems stifling their growth — and the practical tools she provides to unlock their full potential. She’s known for her fun, bubbly attitude and unapologetically ambitious dogma.

Jocelyn has been featured in Thrive Global, Digital Journal, FOX, Ask.com, The Times and Finance News World. When she’s not empowering her clients, you can find her working on her own self-development, enjoying nature and planning her next getaway.

Jo is an entrepreneurial thought leader and business builder with 25+ years in corporate sales, marketing, operations, management, human resources, cybersecurity, cloud, digital transformation; and running her own small business in technology/cloud/cyber/business for small businesses.

Jo is currently a mentor at Wipro, and has mentored through her own small business & the Australian Small Business Advisory Services helping small start ups with GTM, digital, technology & business solutions; completed an MBA, and won a scholarship for the Women’s Entrepreneurs program through AICD.  Areas where Jo adds great value:

• Small Business start up
• Cloud Hosting & Cybersecurity
• Technology & Digital Transformation
• GTM strategies
• Sales & Marketing
• Business Coach

Nabila is a digital marketing communications expert with over 15 years of extensive experience in paid, owned, and earned communications having worked in consulting agencies and client-side. She has driven and implemented digital strategies for Australian ASX-listed companies such as BHP and Telstra and US-listed companies like Intel, LVMH, Mastercard and Cushman & Wakefield.

She is highly experienced in digital marketing and communications for industries such as mining, technology, finance, consumer, and government.

Nabila recently completed a Certificate in Cybersecurity, where she now adds python coding and cyber-attack management to her expertise. In her spare time, Nabila enjoys mentoring others in the marketing and communications field while consulting start-ups on the best practices for digital marketing.  

Nabila is a strong advocate of inclusion and diversity matters. She is a committee member for the women’s group at BHP, a platform for women in the business to advocate for each other. Additionally, Nabila is also a strong LGBTQIA+ ally and is a global committee member of Jasper, a BHP employee-led group that champions LGBTQIA+ policies and issues.

Nabila earned her Communications degree from Richmond, the American International University in London. She regards herself as someone dynamic, agile, and highly motivated.