About us
We have niche expertise in working with executive leaders to help navigate through some of the most complex challenges, threats and opportunities their organisations are facing. We do this by uplifting and enabling team-based critical thinking.
Embedding team-based critical thinking is done through:
- Access to Critical Thinking professionals, specialists and expert facilitators
- Access to the 7-Step Decision Support Tool through aide memoires
- Scenario-based training and experiential learning
- On-line learning and social learning
Our tools have been embedded into organisations in industries including: aviation; banking and finance; construction; education; emergency services; insurance; hydro; manufacturing; transport; telecommunications and utilities.
Who we work with
QANTAS
Head of Environment, Resilience and Workplace Transformation
“An organisation may have a clear strategy, exhaustive risk management processes, detailed plans and highly skilled individuals but if teams don’t come together – under pressure or significant change – and are unable to demonstrate ‘critical thinking’ they may not be effective in managing the situation or seeing the opportunities.”
Westpac
Head of Security
“Westpac executives were able to come together in a closed loop learning environment in a way that allows them to have engaging, open and robust discussions. Using a series of scenarios, they challenged preconceptions and uncovered blind spots.
The outcome of these activities is a deeper understanding by our business of the challenges and opportunities that we face from a broad group of stakeholders. The tools provided to the teams are used across the organisation internationally at all levels – and aim to enhance the critical thinking capabilities as an ongoing investment into building the organisation’s resilience.”
Comm Bank
GM Change
“The seven step process is really valuable when a project is pivoting between discovery and execution, it gives you the opportunity to think about the impacts and helps to identify the ‘gotcha’s’ early before you try to execute.”
Lendlease
Global Head of Risk
“In addition to effective systems and processes, training and behavioural leadership are key. An important aspect in the training is having a common set of tools that helps teams improve critical thinking skills so that they are second nature.”
Team-Based Critical Thinking Culture
Effective team-based critical thinking depends on a strong culture of trust, a willingness to listen, the courage to contribute and a commitment to following the process.
Key characteristics include:
- Leadership – ability to participate and lead ideas or themes
- Integrity – to behave in a way that builds trust and fosters collaboration
- Authenticity – to be willing to accept and share personal bias or constraints
- Self-awareness – to understand personal strengths and areas for improvement
- Effective communications – willing to listen and speak succinctly and respectfully
- Creativity – ability to bring fresh perspectives and new ideas
- Commitment to excellence – including attention to detail
- Commercial acumen – understand the key drivers for the business
When individuals and teams can exhibit these characteristics and skills, there is a greater propensity for the team to ‘cut through’, reach consensus and drive positive outcomes.
Meet our Experts
SCROLL THROUGH
Natalie works with executive leaders and boards to help navigate through some of the most complex challenges, threats and opportunities their organisations are facing. She is a leader in developing organisational resilience using a suite of world class frameworks and tools that have been embedded into many large and complex organisations.
Skills: Organisational resilience, transformational change, advanced stakeholder engagement, complex problem-solving, strategy design, project management and business advisory
Industries: Aviation, Bank and Finance, Education, Energy, Insurance, Manufacturing, Power, Transport and Water
Education & Accreditation: Critical Thinking Master Facilitator, Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE)
Examples:
Natalie has been a Director in Australia for 23 years and is currently overseeing all Janellis projects to help boards and executives to build capability to respond to a range of potential threats and opportunities they are facing.
As a Master Facilitator she enables the collaboration between executive leadership teams of complex organisations to ensure they have a co-ordinated capability.
Natalie has oversight of all Janellis projects to ensure teams can uplift and embed team-based critical thinking, at all levels in the organisation, to create enduring value.
John is experienced working with boards, executives and all layers of an organisation to facilitate, coach and uplift capability in the areas of strategic planning, strategy development, change management and organisational resilience.
Skills: Crisis leadership, organisation resilience, risk management, organisational development, eLearning and executive coaching
Industries: Financial Services, FMCG, Business Services, Professional Services and Manufacturing
Education & Accreditation: Bachelor of Business - Human Resources/Industrial Relations, AICD - Company Directors Program, Critical Thinking Master Facilitator
Examples:
John is a Critical Thinking Master Facilitator, having led many executive leadership teams and boards through scenarios-based workshops to uplift the capability of the incident and crisis management teams for several organisations.
John was the Crisis Director for the Christchurch earthquakes which directly impacted 200+ employees and their extended families across New Zealand for a global FMCG business.
Watch John’s video
Rosalie is an organisational change professional specialising in transformation and technology with a drive to create new and increasingly efficient ways of working. She is hands-on and passionate about delivering sustainable change.
Skills: Change management, project management, Scaled Agile, advanced stakeholder engagement, business transformation, Agile and Waterfall delivery.
Education & Accreditation: BA - Social Sciences, MSc - Business Administration, Prince2 Practitioner, SAFe and Critical Thinking Professional.
Industries: Banking & Financial Services
Examples:
Rosalie was a change lead for the Application Services Transformation (AST) Program. This program was a 3-year strategic initiative making significant improvements to the sustainability and productivity of the leading Australian bank’s Group IT function.
Rosalie was the Change Portfolio Lead for a leading Australia bank which oversaw and managed a portfolio of five large digital and non-digital change initiatives from inception through to delivery. These included: the launch of a new property app, a new low-rate home loan, a simplified online home loan application, new home loan calculators and e-Delivery of home loan documents.
Rosalie led change for Scaled Agile and Waterfall Project Delivery for a Big 4 Bank. The OCM team was involved in the initiatives from the stage of inception through to delivery. The team established a working rhythm with the 8 Scrum teams which allowed the OCM team to achieve business readiness. Rosalie supported the Agile Coach in the up skilling of the project teams on Agile and creating an understanding of Minimal Viable Product (MPV) concept amongst stakeholders.
Phil is an expert facilitator, speaker and consultant who is experienced in leading complex stakeholder groups through risk and opportunity-based challenges. Phil combines strong intuitive facilitation skills with proven techniques and professional speaking capabilities to help people and organisations exceed their objectives.
Skills:
Phil is an expert in aligning individuals, teams and organisations around a common purpose to drive performance improvement, including ideation, innovation, co-design, strategy and stakeholder engagement, as well as designing and facilitating sessions that deliver on pre-defined client objectives.
He has proven collaborative skills, having worked on a vast number of project, partnership and capability building challenges across most sectors and industries.
Education & Accreditation:
Janellis - Critical Thinking Master Facilitator
Professional Speakers Australia - Professional Member
Shared Value Initiative - Shared Value Consultant Training
University of Tasmania - BSc (Hons), MathematicsBSc (Hons)
Industries:
Since leaving his corporate role where he was heading up a financial research team, responsible for assessing and monitoring $50 billion of global investments, Phil has worked with individuals and small-medium enterprises through to multi-national corporations.
His clients include Australian Unity, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, Bendigo & Adelaide Bank, EQ Resources, QBE, NRMA, IAG, GPT, JLL, and Challenger Group. Phil also assists not-for-profits, peak bodies, associations and all levels of government in areas such as multi-stakeholder projects, tackling complex social problems and methods for increasing collaborative success.
Examples:
Phil is the facilitator of APCO's Collective Action Group, a quarterly forum that helps in aligning large companies with the federal, state and local government commitments to the 2025 National Packaging Targets.
Phil facilitated a multi-stakeholder dialogue and engagement process for the NSW Department of Premier & Cabinet, tasked with developing an economic inclusion strategy for citizens of Bourke (NSW), and ensure alignment with a major commercial project.
Phil co-led a program of work within a major cemetery operator to develop strategy, leadership and cultural improvement which led to greater alignment across all levels of the organisation.
Phil led a critical stakeholder engagement process for a major financial institution that resulted in the creation of joint ownership and accountability for a major risk that was distributed across many internal stakeholder groups.
Melissa is an experienced change professional with a successful track record supporting organisations through all aspects of business transformation. She brings both a strategic and technical change capability and is able to draw on a significant body of knowledge to develop creative and pragmatic change strategies.
Skills: Advanced stakeholder engagement, business transformation, change management, organisation design, culture and behaviour change
Education & Accreditation: Masters in Organisational Change and Management Consultancy, Lean Change Agent, Prosci and Critical Thinking Professional
Industries: Banking & Financial Services, Property & Construction and Professional Services
Examples:
Melissa was responsible for developing the change management strategy and plan to enable successful implementation of FoFA legislation for a leading Australian Wealth Manager.
Melissa designed and delivered a change management framework to support adoption and drive behaviour change for a new digital learning platform for a leading Australian Bank.
Melissa also led the design and delivery of the change strategy for a next-generation strategic communications platform and intranet to support the rollout of the site to over 40,000 employees globally for a Global Bank.
Michelle leads the delivery of complex projects, establishes and manages traditional and Agile PMO’s and supports strategic change. She is highly regarded by all her stakeholders and viewed as an articulate, well-rounded project leader.
Skills: Advanced stakeholder management, process improvement, project management, PMO leadership Agile and Waterfall delivery
Industries: Banking & Financial Services, Technology and Utilities
Education & Accreditation: BA - Psychology, Prince2 Practitioner and Critical Thinking Professional
Examples:
Michelle led the implementation of a regulatory reporting IT platform spanning across global entities in line with SDLC and other project methodologies for a Global Bank.
Michelle has set up and led a PMO for an enterprise ERP program, developed project plans, led program governance and led program portfolio activities for an Australian energy provider.
Moreover, Michelle has established and led an Agile PMO which was responsible for the Systems and Services Release train made up of Systems/Platform Product Owners and Scrum Masters, Robotics, Engineering Productivity and Service Performance for a Global Bank.
Mukul has demonstrated success in achieving market leading customer experience and business growth objectives within rapidly changing environments. He has led and executed major transformations, delivering new business operating models as well as taking to market, new products and services with proven market changing results.
Skills: Strategy development, transformation leadership, customer cantered design, leadership development and executive stakeholder management
Industries: Banking & Financial Services, Telecommunications, Federal Government, Pharmaceuticals and Professional Services
Education & Accreditation: MBA, Bachelor of Commerce (Honours in Accounting), CPA, Graduate of Australian Institute of Company Directors and Critical Thinking Professional
Examples:
Mukul worked as the Director Customer Experience for a major telco, responsible for end to end customer experience management. This included leading a companywide transformation including online transformation. This transformation delivered $300m in benefits through business programs.
Furthermore, Mukul has led the design and set up of a companywide cost reduction program for a major telecommunication business which delivered +1bn in benefits.
Mukul was the Chief Experimentation Officer for a large federal government agency which was responsible for driving continuous improvement and an experiment driven culture. Mukul by leveraging core public engagement principles set up customer insight centres, experiential learning laboratories with technology accelerators as well as live ethnographic testing and observation centres. Mukul also successfully integrated a behavioural economics approach with rapid technology and design validation.
Watch Mukul’s video
Kara is a security risk management professional specialising in strategic planning, vulnerability assessment, and the development of strong security culture thus mitigating the risk of trusted insider threats. She has extensive experience in security risk management across multiple high risk and complex industries.
Skills: Risk based security advice, developing security plans, development of strong security culture and mitigating trusted insider threats
Industries: Aviation, Finance, Education, Health, Federal Government and Nuclear
Education & Accreditation: UNSW Business School GM Program, B.A Policing/Investigations, Advanced Dip. Public Safety, Critical Thinking Program
Examples:
Kara developed, implemented and managed security strategies for Australia’s only nuclear reactor which included a training and awareness strategy, security culture strategy, trusted insider threat mitigation strategy and internal scenario-based training strategy.
Kara led a 12-month complex fraud investigation for a leading aviation organisation. This project resulted in a major change in workplace security culture.
Kara led a review of security processes for the merger of two leading financial institutions. She developed several risk mitigation strategies after reviewing internal processes in consideration of investigation findings.
Paul is an experienced delivery and program office leader who has set up and transformed large project and program portfolios for both IT and Business. Paul ensures appropriate methodology throughout the full project life cycle management experience to ensure a successful outcome. Paul understands the demands of change and transformation and is a commercially astute executive manager with good understanding of business drivers across several industries.
Skills: Stakeholder management, project portfolio management, project delivery, change management, business strategy and governance and transformation
Industries: Financial Services, Telco, FMCG, New Media, Media, Resources and Professional Services
Education & Accreditation: MBA, Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scaled Agilist
Examples:
Paul was an executive role in a business transformation team driving a move towards capability-based delivery from siloed business units.
Paul was a Change Champion for ‘SAFe’ Scaled Agile adoption program in Australia’s largest credit bureau.
Furthermore, Paul Led the team that developed and implemented a new Portfolio/Project Management & IT Governance framework, this incorporated the best elements from the existing processes and combined with industry best practices to produce a relevant and implementable management system incorporating Agile practices for the UK’s national telecommunications provider.
Karen is an IT project manager and business continuity subject matter expert, she leads organisations in the design, implementation and maintenance of business continuity frameworks and plans including emergency, incident & crisis management.
Skills: Stakeholder engagement, risk management, business continuity, business impact assessments and project management
Industries: Financial Services, Education and Technology
Education & Accreditation: Member of the Business Continuity Institute, PRINCE2 and Critical Thinking Specialist
Examples:
Karen led the design and implementation of business continuity frameworks for a Global General Insurer.
She led the design and implementation of business continuity, crisis management plans and frameworks for a Leading Education Provider.
Karen was responsible for project delivery and integration of several banking systems, including core banking, internet banking and treasury-based systems and decommissioning legacy systems for a Global Bank.
Led the design and implementation of a successful business continuity framework, implementation of workplace recovery sites for New Zealand and upgrades to existing Australian facilities for a Global Bank.
Nicole is an organisational strategy consultant with experience designing and delivering transformational organisational change. With 20 years of global experience partnering with C-suite leaders, Nicole delivers well-designed and well-executed change that enhances business performance, leadership, organisational capability and employee experience.
Skills: Enterprise change management, strategic alignment, organisational design, organisational development, culture change and M&A due diligence and integration
Industries: Utilities, Government, Telecommunications, Financial Services, Professional Services, Retail and Non-Profit Sectors
Education & Accreditation: B.A Business, Critical Thinking Professional
Examples:
Nicole led the organisational leadership change in finance and IT functions for a leading energy company. This comprised of organisational design, change planning and delivery, employee engagement and program management.
Nicole led a team of 12 senior HR professionals for a high growth Global Services business. This project focused on people strategy and HR operations with a significant organisational transformation and development agenda.
Nicole has led the strategic review of a complex program of operating model and organisational change. Partnering within a matrix of senior leaders, and with a sensitive political environment, she has garnered broad-based support including Ministerial endorsement, for her recommendations for reform. Her insights have been underpinned by deep analysis, aided by insight and balanced by pragmatism.
