Danny Donachie helps individuals and organisations to achieve peak performance in sports. A former professional footballer, Danny had to retire as a result of injury and has dedicated himself to helping others instead. He was part of the medical and sports science teams at Sunderland, Everton and Aston Villa before establishing his own practice - E…

We are publishing this episode on December 3rd, the International Day of People with Disability, which for 2023 has the theme: "United in action to rescue and achieve the SDGs (sustainable development goals) for, with and by persons with disabilities".We are delighted to be chatting to someone who embodies that theme every day, Australian Paralympi…

One of a new generation of culture-first sporting leaders, Kristof Vanhout is Technical Director of Rugby Netherlands and on a mission to get to the Rugby World Cup - and beyond. Kristof employs his considerable emotional intelligence to connect with the team and enable them to connect with each other. He brings them together in pursuit of their co…

Meredith Blackler is a hugely experienced people professional and a culture maker in every sense of the word. She has over 15 years of experience in the people space in the north island of New Zealand in places such as Levin, Palmerston North and now Wellington. Meredith was the winner of the 2015 HR Game Changer Award; the HDC's Chief Executive's …

Jane Poole has almost 20 years experience in the banking and insurance industry. She is a successful leader of multiple Business and IS Transformation Programmes, designing and executing global initiatives. She is also a genuine, progressive leader consistently demonstrating integrity, passion and fairness that inspires global teams to achieve both…

Mark Hooper is the Group CEO and Managing Director at Paragon Care. Mark is a former Chief Financial Officer, Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer for many different businesses in the Pharmacy, Consumer and Medical consumables business with a fantastic track record of leadership and culture building stretching almost 30 years. He has been…

Deb Cramb has had a fantastic and varied career in film, multimedia and technical industries, including stints with Walt Disney Studios, Industrial Light and Magic, Spinifex Group and in her current role with DNEG - a leading visual effects and animation studios for feature film and television - but also start ups and smaller creative organisations…

Bronwyn Clere is Operations Executive at InfraCo - the asset based business of Australian telecommunications company Telstra. Prior to joining InfraCo Bronwyn was head of growth platforms at TelstraHealth, Executive Director, Capital Planning and Delivery at Telstra. She has also been a managing partner at JP Morgan and worked for AIA in Hong Kong …

Matt Harrington is the CFO of Australian Super and has a fantastic career history having worked for organisations such as Royal and Sun Alliance, GE Capital, ANZ, Tabcorp, IAG and Arthur Anderson. He’s worked in London, Sydney, New York, Melbourne and Copenhagen and shares some fascinating insights into working in different social cultures.We talk …

Fiona Wright, Executive Group Manager, Climate Change and Energy at ACT Government, is a passionate advocate for women in STEM, a dedicated public servant and a tireless culture maker. She has been a trailblazer in her career since day one but continues to learn, develop and experiment in her pursuit of high performing, psychologically safe workpla…

Jeffrey Sumberg is a seasoned executive leader with deep experience helping organisations address their most difficult human capital challenges. From a legal role in labour relations and developing US government-wide policy and tools in all areas of human capital, to being a trusted partner for C-suite clients by helping them align people strategie…

Welcome to season five of the Culture Makers podcast with your host Colin D Ellis! We are kicking off this season with a fantastic guest who walks the talk when it comes to people and culture. Bhavya Misra is the Director & Head of HR - India, for Lenovo. A seasoned HR professional, Bhavya started her career with PepsiCo, took a leap into the start…

Trudi Mares describes herself as the accidental public servant but whether accidental or not, Trudi has carved out an impressive and impactful career and continues to learn, eveole and take the opportunities she rightly earns. She understands how to connect purpose and values and turn it into meaningful action and inspires the same in others. Trudi…

This week's Culture Makers episode is a replay of my 2019 (pre-pandemic!) interview with Didier Elzinga, CEO of Culture Amp a people and culture platform that helps companies around the world to gather insight and analytics on engagement and performance so that they can build and evolve high achieving teams. So while a lot has changed in the world …

Richard has been in the coffee industry for 16 years, beginning with his first cafe in 2006. His career has taken him from behind a coffee machine to coffee farms in Colombia, washing stations in Burundi to head judging the World Barista Championships. His work with growers as part of Raw Material has been some of the most rewarding; developing and…

Leanne is an award-winning CEO and Director with a demonstrated history of building vibrant cultures of success in the real estate industry. Skilled in Leadership, Negotiation, Property, Sales and Event Management, Leanne was recognised as the Most Influential Woman in Property at the 2021 AREA awards and Industry Thought Leader of the Year at the …

Tamara Ryf is an experienced executive with 20 years’ experience in Australia and Europe providing staffing, consulting and technology solutions to Private and Public Sector organisations. Her strength is in building vibrant cultures that work collaboratively with clients to achieve their business objectives through the attraction and retention of …

As Second Commissioner and CIO, Ramez Katf provides leadership and strategic direction on information and communications technology in the ATO and ensures the delivery of technology services to support staff. He also ensures that the organisation is leveraging the most innovative trends in technology, to improve the experience of staff and clients.…

Born in Italy and educated in Milan, Matteo started his own photography business at an early age and spent 10 years shooting and exhibiting his work around the world. After starting their own family, Matteo and his husband became entrepreneurs in the healthcare sector when they opened the pionnering South Slope Pediatrics in New York City. Matteo f…

Narelle Burke's full job title is as big as her experience and passion for people: Chief Human Resources Officer, Insights for Asia Pacific and Head of Diversity and Inclusion Global for Kantar. Narelle is an award winning international Human Resources (HR) leader with more than 20+ years’ experience working in strategic HR Business Partnering and …

Brisbane-based Martin Holzworth has worked at BoQ, EDS, Hewlett-Packard, Ernst & Young, Fujitsu, Griffith University and now VMware in a mix of CTO and cyber roles that have seen him share his expertise and knowledge in 35 countries and territories. In this conversation, Martin shares his leadership and culture insights around cyber security, build…

As you'll see from this bio, Dr Siew Fang Law has qualifications and experience a-plenty but what really stands out for me is her understanding of people, the unique human experience and how who we are, where we come from, what we believe, influences how we create meaning in the world. Being able to tap into this is a great skill for building cultu…

Guillermo Diaz is a transformative global business leader and champion of diversity, equity and inclusion. He serves as the Chairman of the Hispanic Technology Executive Council (HITEC), he is on the board of directors at Blue Shield of California and also at Kloudspot Inc., an innovative predictive analytics platform provider, where he was previou…

Welcome to Season 4 of the Culture Makers Podcast where Colin D Ellis finds more culture makers out in the world of work and gets them to share their stories, insights and tips for creating a great place to work. In this episode Colin is talking to a leader who thrives on getting things done! Hassanah Rudd is the Head of People and Culture at Brigh…

The future of HR is here and it's bright! Erin is a dynamic young HR professional on a mission to make employee experiences positive and meaningful. She's already got great experience, insights and ideas and I have no doubt she will take the profession by storm. Erin shares her career path so far, what she loves about HR, the importance of inclusio…

Matt Defina is an organisational psychologist and program manager at The Man Cave - a preventative mental health and emotional intelligence charity that empowers boys to become great men.Through extensive study and work, Matt has explored how to create organisations and communities that bring out the best in people and now he does that at The Man C…

Callum Morrison is a commercial and solutions focused HR generalist who is passionate about building great leaders, creating engaged teams and vibrant workplace cultures. He grew up around business with entrepreneurial parents and knew early on that his 'sweet spot' would involve developing people, building cultures and delivering change and he set…

Dr Rachel Nowak wanted to be a farmer. She studied agricultural science, then fell in love with research and recognised that a lot of great research never made it out into the world, to become really useful and have an impact on our lives. So she set about changing that, becoming an award-winning investigative journalist. Now, as Director, Research…

John Salamone's epic job title of Chief Human Resources Officer at U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Chief Administrative Officer, is the culmination of more than 25 years in people capital leadership. In some capacity or other, John has been in service to his community and constituents since he was in High School! One of the US Governme…

Check out my new podcast where I'll be discussing a different element of culture every week. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/culturemakers/message

Jocelyn Hunter is one of Australia’s most respected PR professionals. With over 20 years PR experience working for some of the world's top technology-driven companies, in both agency and in-house roles, today Jocelyn runs her own successful PR consultancy, Bench PR, through which she is dedicated to building a vibrant workplace culture that values …

Carey McIntyre is passionate and deliberate about people and culture, developing teams and building future leaders while always listening to the needs of the community. Starting out at Kmart in his student days gave Carey a grounding in customer service, studying and working as a civil engineer gave him another perspective - and now he combines the…

From manning a candy stall at the local market to projects and change, by way of hotels and prisons, Lani is passionate about empowering people and teams to achieve great things. Currently helping to transform the legal sector with her role as Innovator at the multinational, award-winning law firm King & Wood Mallesons, Lani is a trusted trailblaze…

Tam C. Nguyen is a man of many skills! He is an advisor, speaker, adjunct professor, associate professor and is currently Deputy Director of Research at St Vincent’s Hospital. He is also on the board of directors at a start-up and is at the forefront of culture building in the world of artificial intelligence. Bi-lingual, multi-disciplined and comm…

Géraldine Fauville is Assistant Professor in Education, Communication and Learning at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She specialises in research that focuses on the role that immersive technologies can play in promoting ocean and environmental literacies. Géraldine is currently engaged in a collaborative project with Stanford University re…

Sharon Gray is a people leader dedicated to creating safe, productive vibrant workplace cultures. She has been working in the people, learning and development space for almost all of her career in the retail, hospitality, pharmaceutical and disability industries and she is currently People and Culture Manager for OzHarvest, Australia’s leading food…

The Culture Makers Podcast is back for 2021. Reflecting on the changes in the workplace as a result of 2020, looking ahead to the future of work, talking to the people who creating and evolving great cultures because of and despite the challenges. Culture has never been more important - tune in to season three to find out what's worked - and not wo…

Karen shares incredible insights from a career that started out in nursing - where Karen gained a unique understanding of the human condition - and evolved into senior roles in HR, Culture and Transformation for organisations including SAP, Philips Lighting and Nordea. She has achieved incredible success through her people-centric approach to trans…

Oren Seliger joins me on the phone from Israel where he is the IT Theater Leader for Cisco which means he is responsible for implementing, supporting and showcasing Cisco's IT infrastructure in Southern Europe. Cisco was recently celebrated by Fortune magazine as having the best workplace culture IN THE WORLD! And Oren is a great example of how the…

Sneha Sanghrajka Shah has lived and worked in Africa and America building successful teams and growing businesses as a trader, through a series of senior roles over 17 years with Thomson Reuters, and now as Managing Director, Business Accelerator, at Refinitiv - one of the world’s largest providers of financial markets data and infrastructure. She …

Otti Vogt, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Transformation Officer of ING's Challenger and Growth business based in Amsterdam, is passionate about organisational transformation - especially the human-centric type. He combines high performance with making work a happy place to be and believes: "There is a lot to be done if people can have the coura…

Andy Murray has a major background in project excellence and team building so it's only right he recently took up the role of executive director at the Major Projects Association in London. Andy was the lead author of project management method PRINCE2® 2009 edition and has worked extensively in project and program review and delivery. He knows all …

Steven Pereira is a leader, doer, mentor, collaborator and culture maker with many years of experience in building high performing teams and executing transformation for Coles Group and GS1 in Australia - where he recently marked 24 years of service for the global barcode and supply chain organisation. In this episode we talk about the benefits of …

Clare Brown embarked on a career in technology sales 20 years ago when it was very much a boys club and the movements and support for women and diversity were not even a whisper in the staff room. As she has climbed the ranks of companies such as Hewlett Packard, Dell and Experian, Clare has built support networks, created highly successful sales t…

Damien Mu has been with AIA for more than 11 years - with just over six of them as CEO - so it's fair to say he knows the business and the insurance industry inside out. That doesn't stop him from being energised and excited about what he and his team can achieve every day. From burning out to bouncing back, bringing his family values and work ethi…

Jo Broadbent might have started her cricket career relatively late at age 21, but by age 23 she was in the Australian team and wasted no time in becoming one of the most successful female cricketers and coaches of all time - culminating in titles at every level of the game, including a triumphant world cup campaign in 1997. In 2018 Jo was awarded t…

Nick Blinco has parlayed a passion for anthropology into a highly successful career in Advancement - first at the University of Oxford and Birmingham University in the UK and now at the University of Melbourne in Australia. (If you're not familiar with it, Advancement is a role mainly seen in Universities that oversees alumni relations and philanth…

Bianca Ilibasic is the Chief Transformation Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Manulife Insurance, Malaysia - last year recognised as one of the country's best places to work. Bianca is a project and delivery powerhouse whose brand is 'getting stuff done' and she builds exceptional teams and cultures in order to do this. She left behind the sex…

Welcome to Season Two of the Culture Makers Podcast! We are committed to bringing you stories of culture building from the people who are out there doing the work. In this episode we're delighted to be talking to Alicia Aitken - who cannot easily be summed up such is the diversity of her skills, experience and passions. Alicia is an entrepreneur, t…

I sought out Mohan Aiyaswami after hearing him speak at conference because I was blown away by his breadth of experience in delivering huge pieces of work, his humility and humour. Mohan's perspective on successful transformation - and the importance of culture in that - was shaped by an early role at Indian Railways working on a complex and ambiti…