Speaker Profiles

AIRCDRE Smith was promoted to AIRCDRE rank on 13 Jan 03 and took over the duties of the Director General Aerospace Materiel Management (DGAMM). In this position he was responsible for overseeing planning, coordination and the provision of business and divisional support for Aerospace Systems Division (ASD) within the DMO. He was also Chief of Staff to Head Aerospace Systems Division (HASD). In the 2007 Queens Birthday honours list, AIRCDRE Smith was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for exceptional performance of duties as a senior Air Force Logistics Officer and his contributions to the strategic development of Australian Defence Force Logistics.

On 4 Jun 07, AIRCDRE Smith was posted to the newly-created Logistics Branch within Air Force Headquarters as Director General Logistics -Air Force (DGLOG-AF). As DGLOG-AF he is responsible for the oversight of Air Force logistics and maintenance capability which is managed through the Directorates LSA-AF and DMPP-AF.

On 4 May 10, he was promoted to the rank of AVM to take up the role of Deputy Head Strategic Reform and Governance. AIRCDRE Smith has post graduate qualifications in logistics management, strategic studies and administration.

Stephen Grech is a Lean master in the deployment of Lean in Government. He initiated and is leading Lean and Six Sigma deployment in the Victorian Department of Human Services. He is developing a Learning to See and problem-solving culture based on the principles of Lean Thinking. The way he is doing this is through targeted executive Lean briefings. Stephen teaches executives and organisations to "See" process waste and non-value adding activity; he then builds the internal capability to solve business problems. Stephen is a Lean and Six Sigma practitioner and Lean coach.

Sebastian established and manages the Continuous Improvement area within Centrelink. He has over 22 years in both the private and public sector. Sebastian began his worklife in the construction industry as a qualified Carpenter and has worked extensively within IT development and architecture, business strategy and most recently Business Process Management and Continuous Improvement.

In 1999, William left the Army to accept an offer to join the international career transition and change management company, Drake Beam Morin, as an Executive Director. In the four years with DBM, he focussed on acquisitions and mergers - leading the people side of the change process. His work took him to the USA, Canada, New Zealand, India, Pakistan and Dubai as well as extensively throughout Australia.

Subsequent to DBM, he spent three years in the welfare to work sector as a senior executive with the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and then with his own change leadership and executive transition business, where he worked in Australia, Indonesia and Thailand.

In 2006, the Secretary for Defence offered him a senior executive position in the newly formed Personnel Services Division within the Department of Defence. His portfolio included responsibility for honours and awards; housing and relocation services to Defence members, and transition support services to members of the ADF leaving Defence. He held this role until May 2010 when he elected to change his work lifestyle. Bill now resides on the Gold Coast providing consultancy services from his own business, JobsGoldCoast.

Kathy joined the City of Melbourne as Chief Executive Officer in April 2008 bringing with her over 20 years experience in leading service organisations. As CEO, Kathy heads up an organisation responsible for the workings of a dynamic and cosmopolitan 24-hour city that consistently rates top or near top of international surveys on liveability and well-being. Since taking up the position, Kathy has focused on improving the City of Melbourne's operational efficiencies through initiating Toyota's famous "lean" approach to process design and customer satisfaction, and a comprehensive community engagement approach to policy development. Kathy has also launched COM Green, a program of staff-lead sustainability initiatives, and the Future Melbourne Community Plan which saw 15,000 individuals contribute to the vision for Melbourne as a bold, inspirational and sustainable city by 2020.

Prior to Kathy's appointment at Council, she ran her own management consultancy company and was well known as the former CEO of Women's & Children's Health which governed two of the world's leading teaching hospitals - the Royal Children's Hospital and the Royal Women's Hospital. There Kathy lead the development of a successful capital bid to build the new $250m women's hospital (which opened last year) and initiated planning for the long-awaited redevelopment of the children's hospital.

Peter is a Deputy Australian Statistician at the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Peter is responsible for a diverse range of subject matter, including labour, demography, industry, agriculture, rural and regional and environment statistics. He is the Program Head for the Australian Population and Housing Census, with responsibility for the planning and delivery of the successful 2011 Census. Peter has an Economics Degree from the Australian National University and has worked at the ABS for almost 30 years. He also worked for three years at the International Monetary Fund on balance of payments issues.

He was a member of the Government 2.0 Taskforce in 2009; and is currently a member of the State of the Environment 2011 Committee; and, the Tourism Research and Development Advisory Board.

Peter is actively involved in international statistical issues, including chairing the United Nations Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting.

Simon Lynch is an Executive Manager with Research Support Services for Australia's scientific research organisation the CSIRO. The role is responsible for the relationship management between the enterprise service support functions and the wider CSIRO community. CSIRO operates a tiered approach to support services using online self help, contact centre, in-business and specialist resources to deliver HR, Finance, Legal, Contract Administration, Record Services, Property and Information Management & Technology services to 6,500 employees throughout Australia and overseas.

Prior to taking on this role in June 2006, Simon was part of the initial team establishing the IT shared service centre for the Victorian Government. Simon started his career in the public sector as the Customer and Web Services Manager for the Department of Sustainability and Environment, Victoria.

Simon has held various director roles with one of Australia's leading industry bodies the Customer Contact Management Association (CCMA).

Simon has degrees in Theology, Sociology and a Masters in Applied Social Research from Monash University. Simon is currently undertaking his PhD at Melbourne University in the area of public sector contact centres.

Heather has worked in a range of public and private sector organisations and is currently Manager, Strategic Planning & Business Excellence at the Department for Families & Communities in South Australia. As an improvement facilitator with over 18 years experience, Heather is passionate about involving and skilling people at all levels of the organisation to participate in generating and implementing improvement initiatives. As a Business Excellence evaluator, Heather also has a keen interest in organisational culture, improvement of leadership and management systems and change management.

Guy has been working in the Victorian Public Service Career for over 30 years in varied positions in accounting and budgeting, business management, and senior management roles.

Guy has a Master of Business Administration.

Most of Guy's experience and knowledge is in the use of computerised processes to support service delivery. Guy has been involved in number of implementations and upgrades of major ERP's.

Guy has been in his current role for almost 5 years where he is General Manager of a Shared Services provider to a number of Victorian Government Agencies with approximately 8500 paid staff, and around 2,700 users per day.