Coach in Residence

John began coaching in 1995 and has been described as a pioneer of coaching in Australia. He established the Institute of Executive Coaching (IEC) in 1999 as a regional centre of excellence, where he now works as a Master Coach. Today he is one of Australia’s best known executive coaches, having accumulated over 11,000 hours experience working with senior executives from some of the world’s most prominent organisations. On a daily basis, John works with senior executives across a range of industries, questioning assumptions and acting as a catalyst for change and performance. Clients include the Asian Development Bank, NAB, Centrelink, Telstra, ANZ, Ernst & Young, Barwon Water and OneSteel.

John continues to contribute to the field of coaching by training hundreds of professional coaches each year in the IEC’s Accredited Coach Training Program. Through these programs has equipped coaches and leaders with the skills to coach teams and contributed to broader cultural transformation within organisations.

His passion is to help individuals, teams, and organisations to unlock their potential for change and his integration of western performance models with eastern philosophy give him a rare ability to interface across cultures…

John’s coaching challenges people to think differently and creatively; it is transformative. “After working with John people are different. He has a way of combining tough with tender, rigor with compassion and intelligence with respect. He delivers without offence and creates in others the desire to continually become greater.” John embodies the attributes of an exceptional coach through his insight, empathy, business acumen, flexibility and credibility.

Founding CEO of The Australian Centre for Social Innovation

Brenton Caffin is the founding CEO of The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI), which exists to identify and support the innovative ideas, methods and people that will contribute to and accelerate positive social change.

Brenton began his career in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, later consulting to Australian and British governments on public policy, performance improvement and change management. He returned to South Australia to pursue his passion for public sector reform through executive positions with the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Government Reform Commission and WorkCover.

Brenton is an innovative and strategic thinker, advisor to the Adelaide Festival of Ideas and Board member of the global Social Innovation Exchange, and regularly presents to national and global audiences on a wide range of issues relating to social innovation and public sector reform.

General Manager Business Development, Landgate

Jodi Cant is The Ring Leader of a variety show known as Business Development at Landgate, WA’s land information authority. Landgate launched its celebrated innovation program in 2008 and strives to embed creative thinking in all areas of the business.

The innovation journey is never dull. In 2012 innovation led Landgate to launch earthmine Australia, a partnership using the image capture technology developed for NASA’s Mars rover.

Landgate takes a lead role in the public sector and offers guidance and encouragement to others who want to make a difference by harnessing the imagination of their people. Check out stuff that you may find useful at landgate.wa.gov.au/innovation.

In her spare time Jodi is a horse riding, dog walking, playwright which can be difficult to do all at once. Like most things it’s about balance.

CEO and Founder of Lateral Economics

Trained in History, Statistics, Law and Economics, Nicholas Gruen is CEO and founder of Lateral Economics and Peach Financial. He is Chairman of:

• The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI),
• Online Opinion and
• Kaggle, an online community crowdsourcing predictive analytics.

He is a board member of Sustainability Victoria and Patron of the Australian Digital Alliance.

He has taught in schools, at ANU and Melbourne University and has been a cartoonist. He is a prolific blogger, essayist and columnist, most recently for the Australian Financial Review and has been published in Best Australian Essays and Best Political Writing. He has published in international academic journals on a variety of topics and is a prolific blogger at a group blog Club Troppo.

Dr Gruen was a member of the Cutler Review into Australian Innovation leading the Review’s deliberations on the importance improving

information flows, innovation in government and improving the design of tax concessions for R&D and in 2010 he was the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) Thinker in Residence.

Lateral Economics has been involved with the Commonwealth, Victorian, South Australian, NSW and Western Australian governments to improve innovation in government and with the World Bank on better regulation.

In 2009, Dr Gruen chaired the Federal Government’s Government 2.0 Taskforce producing a report which garnered high praise from leading international figures. The Federal Government has essentially accepted its recommendations.

Since the Taskforce, Dr Gruen has spoken on Government 2.0 in every Australian State and on three continents.  He is recognised as a strong public advocate for economic reform, innovation and open government all in the context of grasping the extraordinary opportunities which burgeon online.

Australian public policy commentator

Morning Master Class:
‘The Change Lab: solving complex social problems through design thinking’ (November 28, 9.00am-12.00pm)

Tim Wilson is an international public policy analyst and commentator. He’s currently Director of the Intellectual Property and Free Trade Unit at the Institute of Public Affairs – the world’s oldest free market think tank. Tim also serves on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s IP industry consultative group as well being a Senior Fellow at New York’s Center for Medicine in the Public Interest.

He regularly appears on Australian and international television programs such as ABC1’s Q&A and The Drum, Sky News’ The Nation, radio on 3AW and ABC774 and in the print media, particularly The Australian. He currently hosts the Talking Policy segment on 3AW. In 2009, The Australian newspaper recognised him as one of the ten emerging leaders of Australian society, and is a recipient of an Australian Leadership Award from the Australian Davos Connection.

Tim is currently a Director of Alfred Health and formally served on the Board of Monash University as well as a number of service companies in the tertiary education sector.

He’s worked in international development across South East Asia, consulting and politics, including delivering Australia’s aid program for the Vietnamese government to host APEC and advising State and Federal politicians.

At University Tim was twice elected President of the Student Union. Tim is currently completing a Graduate Diploma of Energy and the Environment (Climate Science and Global Warming) at Perth’s Murdoch University. He has a Masters of Diplomacy and Trade and a Bachelor of Arts from Monash University, a Diploma of Business and has completed Asialink’s Leaders Program at the University of Melbourne.

He has also completed specialist executive education on IP at the WIPO Worldwide Academy and international trade and global health diplomacy at the Institut de Hautes Études Internationales et du Développment, Geneva.