Speakers

Psychiatrist
University of Auckland

Tony is a psychiatrist, sleep specialist and academic. He has published in local and international research journals in sleep medicine and medical compassion, and has been awarded multiple teaching awards by medical students and the faculty of medicine in Auckland.

CEO
Health Futures Australia

Shelley is a population health system and community changemaker, transformer and disruptor. She designs and enables big thinking, practice and social change processes and transformative policy for better health and wellbeing outcomes. Her expertise is in population and preventative health, collaboration, innovation, scale, strategy and communication, and system design thinking. Shelley is Chief Executive Officer of Health Futures Australia and a Westpac Social Change Fellow.

Writer, Artist and Facilitator
Show Up Hard

Shannon Weber, MSW (she/her) is a serial social entrepreneur, having launched several sexual and reproductive health initiatives that have impacted tens of thousands around the globe. She is also an ephemeral artist creating public displays of affection at LoveYou2 and the author of Show Up Hard: A Road Map for Helpers in Crisis. Shannon believes we thrive at the intersection of empathy and resilience.

Senior Emergency Physician

Dr Shahina Braganza is a senior emergency physician at Gold Coast Health and Honorary Adjunct Assoc Prof at Bond University School of Health Science and Medicine.

She is passionate about “non-technical” skills in the health profession, including professionalism, communication and leadership, and has a keen interest in Wellness, particularly in how it relates to individual and team dynamics and performance, and ultimately to quality patient care.

Shahina is the founder of the oneED program and a founding member of wrapem.org.

Artist, Musician and Academic
Refugee Art Project

Dr Safdar Ahmed is a Sydney based artist, musician and academic who lives and works on Dharug country.

He is the author of the Walkley Award-winning documentary web-comic Villawood: Notes from an immigration detention centre (2015). That comic was expanded into the graphic novel Still Alive (2021), which is available through Twelve Panels Press.
Safdar is also a member of eleven, a collective of contemporary Muslim Australian artists, curators and writers.

Speaker, Writer, Researcher.

Dr Ruth De Souza is a highly experienced multidisciplinary educator, researcher and consultant, specialising in cross cultural engagement, cultural safety, and the interface of digital technologies within CALD communities.

Her background is in nursing where she has extensive experience as a clinician, researcher and academic in New Zealand and Australia. Ruth is a 2020 RMIT Vice Chancellor’s Fellow, based in the School of Art and a member of the Design and Creative Practice Enabling Capability Platform (ECP).

CEO
Common Ground

Rona is a proud Kaytetye woman from Central Australia who works with high impact organisations to create systems that centre First Nations people, knowledge and solutions. Rona is the founder of Common Ground, an Aboriginal-led not for profit that works to centre First Nations people and knowledge. Common Ground uses digital platforms and cultural storytelling projects to amplify First Nations voices and experiences, and educate wider Australia.

Creative Director
Centre for Stories

Dr Robert Wood is interested in innovation, change and stories, and how this helps us live a good life. He is the Creative Director of the Centre for Stories on Whadjuk Country where he mentors emerging storytellers, curates online and in-person words and sound, and has the best community ever.

In 2021, Robert is a Westpac Social Change Fellow undertaking mentoring with Wardandi Custodians and courses with Stanford, Akimbo and INSEAD.

Speaker, Trainer and Artist

Rachel Callander is a TEDx presenter, speaker, trainer, award winning artist and the author of two books- Super Power Baby Project and Super Power Kids. These exceptional books celebrate the lives and abilities of children with a range of disabilities and conditions, and have been inspired by Rachel’s late daughter Evie, who was born with a very rare chromosomal condition.

Coach
Human Periscope

Pete Shepherd is Founder and Director of Human Periscope. For over 10 years he has enthusiastically coached, trained and collaborated with leaders and executives right around the world from companies including Google, Slack, Westpac, TAC, Woolworths and Kraft Heinz.

His clients have built multi-million dollar companies and raised nearly that much for charities. They’ve performed on Broadway and written Best Sellers, been nominated for Australian of the Year and produced TV shows that have won international awards at Cannes.They’re the kind of clients that make him feel like an imposter, which he knows is right where he needs to be.

Senior Fellow and Professor
The King's Fund and Lancaster University

Prof. Michael West CBE is a Senior Fellow at the Kings Fund, UK. He is Professor of Work and Organisational Psychology at Lancaster University, Visiting Professor at University College, Dublin, and Emeritus Professor at Aston University. He has authored, edited and co-edited 20 books and has published more than 200 articles on teamwork, leadership and culture, particularly in healthcare.

Michael’s most recent book: Compassion Leadership was published in 2021.

CEO
Future Social Service Institute

Micaela Cronin is the Director at the Future Social Service Institute in Melbourne. Prior to that, she spent three years living in Cambodia as the global CEO for Hagar International, working across Asia and building global service delivery and strategic partnerships to tackle human trafficking and human rights abuses.
She is also a past CEO of MacKillop Family Services and has extensive leadership and governance experience including being President of both the Victorian Council of Social Services, and the Australia Council of Social Services.

Nurse Practitioner and Designer

Matiu Bush is a Nurse Practitioner and Designer who over the past 19 years have developed experience in a range of healthcare settings both locally and internationally. Their Masters of Public Health has given them a grounding in population health, which led Matiu the front line in COVID Pandemic response.

Matiu was responsible for infection prevention at The Australian Open and was the longest standing clinician working in the complex Hotel Quarantine environment.

CEO
Oxfam Australia

Lyn Morgain is the CEO of Oxfam Australia. As leader of Oxfam Australia, Lyn oversees the delivery of a broad range of long-term development programs, advocacy campaigns and humanitarian responses.

Lyn has spent her career advocating for the rights of structurally disadvantaged people and communities. She is passionate about peer-based activism and community mobilisation. Lyn is a member of the Australian Council for International Development Board and the Trust Board for Oxfam in the Pacific.

Author and Facilitator

Lucy Mayes is an author, facilitator, presenter, story catcher, wisdom collector, space holder, team builder, purpose finder, consultant & coach. Lucy has a background as a lawyer, company director and social worker, having worked across multiple settings including corporate, education, local government and not for profit.

She is author of Beyond the Stethoscope: doctors’ stories of reclaiming hope, heart and healing in medicine, inspired her doctor husband’s journey with burnout.

Consultant and Coach
Kim Koop Consulting

Kim Koop AM has enjoyed a successful career managing and leading hospital and community mental health services in Victoria and nationally, Kim now works as an independent coach, facilitator, and compassion educator.

She is passionate about cultivating more compassionate mental health services, the development of compassionate organisations, and supporting compassionate managers and leaders.

Death Literacy & Compassionate Communities Practitioner and Researcher
Death Literacy Institute, Macquarie Health Collective

Dr Kerrie Noonan is the director of the Death Literacy Institute. She is a clinical psychologist and an adjunct social researcher with the Caring at End of Life Research Group at Western Sydney University. Kerrie was the founding executive director of The GroundSwell Project and national initiatives such as Dying to Know Day, FilmLife Project, and ComComHub. She is active in the Compassionate Communities movement internationally.

Assoc Dean, International Studies
University of Wollongong

Assoc Prof Kate Bowles is Assoc Dean International at University of Wollongong Australia. She is also in the Faculty of Law Humanities and Arts, teaches narrative professionalism, research methods and media geography, and writes online at Music for Deckchairs.

Palliative Care Consultant, Author, and Podcaster

Dr Julian Abel is the Director of Compassionate Communities UK. since 2016, Julian has worked with Frome Medical Practice in Somerset to develop a new model of primary care combined with compassionate communities. The health outcomes of this model have been dramatic and include the reduction of emergency admissions.

Julian is a joint author of The Compassion Project, along with the prize-winning novelist Lindsay Clarke. His podcast, Survival of the Kindest, documents the presence and absence of compassion and the consequences of both.

Co-founder and Spokesperson
HALT - Hope Assistance Local Tradies

Jeremy Forbes is a tradie, who lives in Castlemaine, Central Victoria. In 2013, Jeremy founded Hope Assistance Local Tradies (HALT) after the tragic suicide of a local tradie. HALT is a grassroots charity, focussing on tradies and blue collar workers. HALT holds talks on building sites, in factories and industrial estates, at TAFE for apprentices and for council depot workers. Jeremy’s global TED talk has had over 1.5 million views.

Executive Director
Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health

Jarrard O’Brien is an anthropologist with a passion for putting people at the heart of healthcare design. His career spans 20 years in the public health sectors in Britain, New Zealand and Australia. His background in innovation stems from working with patient experience and consumer/community engagement, staff engagement, leadership and organisational development.

His role in the Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health (CEIH) is to build capability for human-centred design so that all of their work is centred on the needs of staff, patients and the community.

Paediatric Rheumatologist
Royal Children's Hospital

Assoc Prof Jane Munro is a paediatric rheumatologist at the Royal Children’s Hospital and Lead of Rheumatology Research at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. She was the Head of Rheumatology for nearly ten years and stepped down from that position in 2020. Last year she co-founded Pandemic Kindness Movement during COVID.

Jane is passionate about improving healthcare worker wellbeing and strongly believes in the role of building community, storytelling, spreading kindness and the need for health systems change.

Activist Scholar
Auckland University of Technology

Dr Heather Came is a seventh generation Pākehā New Zealander who grew up on Ngātiwai land. She has worked for nearly 25 years in health promotion, public health and/or Māori health and has a long involvement in social justice activism in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Heather is a founding member and co-chair of STIR: Stop Institutional Racism, a fellow of the Health Promotion Forum, longstanding member of Public Health Association and an active member of Tāmaki Tiriti Workers. She currently embraces life as an activist scholar. She was lead author of Te Tiriti-based practice in health promotion (2017) and has led shadow reports to various United Nations human rights committees around institutional racism. She is a Senior Lecturer based in the Taupua Waiora Māori Health Research Centre within Auckland University of Technology.

Disability Rights Lawyer

The first Deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School, Haben Girma is a human rights lawyer advancing disability justice. President Obama named her a White House Champion of Change. She received the Helen Keller Achievement Award, a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and TIME100 Talks. President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Chancellor Angela Merkel have all honored Haben.

Academic
Monash University

Debbie is a Lecturer in the Department of Social Work, Monash University and a Research Fellow in the Epworth Monash Rehabilitation Medicine Unit. Debbie’s research area is the relationship between the perception of common humanity and compassion in healthcare workers. Debbie developed, trialled and evaluated a single session compassion training intervention which has attracted interest from around the world.

Debbie is also an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker in private practice and a senior clinician social worker at Epworth HealthCare. Debbie sits on the Australian Compassion Council, Charter for Compassion Australia and she is also a member of the Australia21 Mindful Futures Network Advisory Group.

Former Socceroo and Human Rights Activist

Craig Foster AM is an Australian retired soccer player, human rights activist and sports analyst for the Stan Sport streaming service in Australia. Following a celebrated football career as Australia’s 419th Socceroo & 40th Captain, Craig enjoyed an 18-year, triple Logie winning career with Australia’s multicultural broadcaster, Special Broadcasting Service (SBS).

Craig’s humanitarian activism extends to several high profile, global campaigns including: #SaveHakeem to free Bahraini refugee Hakeem al-Araibi from a Thai prison for which he was a Finalist for the Australian Human Rights Commission Medal.

Manager
Office for the Health and Community Services Complaints Commissioner

Catherine Whitington currently manages the Assessment Service at the Office for the Health and Community Services Complaints Commissioner, SA. She has academic qualifications in Psych/Clinical Neuroscience, Public Health, Human Rights and Law. Catherine is also a disabled woman whose lived experience of cerebral palsy combined with the lived experiences of her children has led her to work more closely in the area of lived experience leadership at all levels of care system design and implementation in voluntary roles and on Board settings.

Academic
Macquarie University

Professor Bronwyn Carlson is an Aboriginal woman who was born on and lives on D’harawal Country in NSW Australia. She has been awarded numerous Australian Research Council (ARC) Grants for her research on Aboriginal identity,Indigenous help-seeking on social media and Indigenous experiences of online violence.

She is the author of The Politics of Identity: Who Counts as Aboriginal Today (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2016).

Emergency Physician & Co-founder “Don’t Forget The Bubbles”

Dr Andrew Tagg works in Melbourne’s west as an emergency physician, he looks after patients from their first days through to their last and is the co-founder of Don’t Forget The Bubbles, a paediatric educational resource that has gained global acclaim, both through its website and its innovative and engaging conferences.

He speaks very candidly about his own experience with mental ill-health and has worked with AHPRA, Safer Care Victoria and the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine to help promote joy at work.