THE MENTORS
Award-winning educators, senior corporate leaders, CEOs, and seasoned Excutives. All hand-picked for their ability to help future leaders level up, and provide your team with the insight they need to advance.
PETER BAILEY
TRUSTEE | ARUP
Peter is a Trustee Director and Principal of Arup, the renowned global engineering and built environment consultant. He recently stepped down as CEO of Arup in Australasia, was the global Director in charge of Sustainable Development, and a founding member and recent Chair of Consult Australia’s Male Champions of Change.
NICOLE BROWN
SENIOR ENGINEER | CREO
At the age of 20, whilst studying full time, Nicole became the Global CEO of a not for profit organisation, leading a volunteer community of over 1000 people from 13 different countries to inspire the next generation of engineers. Today, Nicole is an active leader within Engineers Australia and the Commonweakth community, where in 2015, she was named in the inaugural Queens Young Leaders; one of only 126 in the world.
EILEEN DEEMAL-HALL
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS JERVIS BAY TERRITORY | DEPARTMENT OF INFRASTRUCTURE
A Bama woman with cultural ties to Dhithirr Warra, Wakamin, Bagarrmuuku and Ankamuthi Nations. Previously the CEO of the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, in the Daintree Forest Area of Cape York.
LUKE MATHERS
DIRECTOR, PHILANTHROPIST, AUTHOR
Simple fact: People who are better able to handle stress make better leaders, run better businesses and make more profit.
Luke knows a thing or two about stress and high performance. As an optometrist, Luke has spent 25 years running successful businesses. He was one of the original directors of Specsavers in Australia. Leading busy businesses with large teams full of different personalities, he knows the tricks of how to make stress not stick.
As the author of "Stress Teflon", he runs Stress RESET workshops around the country. He sees becoming Stress Teflon as a critical tool in leading a high performance business.
COL. TIM RUTHERFORD
COMMANDER | REGIONAL FORCE SURVEILLANCE GROUP
Tim is an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance specialist in the Australian Army. He has held a range of appointments in Australia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Most recently, he served as the Director of Strategic Policy and Intelligence within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. In this role, he provided advice to the Prime Minister on the development and implementation of national security policy.
MARIA KOUTSIMPIRIS
IN TRANSITION GM, COO, PMO LEAD
Deputy Chair Highett Financial Services Ltd (Highett Community Bank)
Maria is a general manager, who has had a successful international executive automotive career with General Motors across manufacturing, finance, project management, operations and business planning. Post this she managed an engineering and technical services business in Victoria, commenced developing her board portfolio and is currently focussed on securing her next executive role. Her superpower is her critical thinking, she has the ability to quickly work through highly complex situations to get to the core issues and work cross functionally on developing and executing sustainable strategic plans. She is passionate about improving gender diversity in STEMM and leadership more broadly.
STACEY DANIEL
CHAIR, FOUNDER, SPEAKER
Stacey is an experienced non-executive director, founder of Board Presence and author of Fly to the Boardroom: Your Essential Guide to Getting on a Board. As an entrepreneur, educator and engineer, she has developed sustainable strategies and solutions for public, private and not-for-profit organisations. She now delivers programs to build capability, improve performance and support those; aspiring to, sitting on and working with, boards and committees. Stacey has been nationally recognised for her work as one of Australia’s Innovative Engineers and is also now Chairperson of a start-up not-for-profit organisation.
MANDY DANTE
FOUNDER AND CEO | FLOURISH GIRL
Mandy is an ex-speech pathologist, TEDx Speaker and an Australian Accredited Facilitator. Mandy is the first-senior female facilitator at The Rites of Passage Institute and is paving the way for their school programs for teenage girls across Queensland, Victoria and South Australia.
From working with young children find their voice as speech pathologist, she found herself shifting her passion and focus towards giving teenage girls a voice. Mandy was voted Young Social Pioneer in 2018 for her work with Flourish Girl.
MUSHFIQ RAHMAN
MANAGING DIRECTOR, CEO | EIRE CONSTRUCTIONS
Mushfiq Rahman has had a range of roles in his career from owning his own computer services business to working in the energy and resource sectors in senior executive roles.
Mushfiq shares his passion about mentoring aspiring leaders and creating more inclusive workplaces through Power of Engineering and UQ Women in Engineering. He is the Deputy Chair of the University of Queensland Women in Engineering Alumni Council, serves on the Advisory Committee Board for Power of Engineering and mentors MBA and Engineering graduates.
ROWAN KUNZ
FOUNDER AND CEO | ART OF SMART EDUCATION
Rowan spent the last decade motivating and mentoring tens of thousands of young Australians, conducted 10 years of research on the key strategies used by Australia’s top students to create academic excellence, authored Secrets of HSC Success Revealed and a sought-after speaker and presenter on the future of careers for young people.
GRANT MAHER
DIRECTOR | JABIN GROUP
Grant is a proud descendant of the Gumbayyngir and Biripi nations of Northern NSW.
He has worked across wide range of projects and disciplines within the engineering field such as extensive experience in Façades, ESD, Design Management, Procurement & Fabrication, gaining experience in both contracting and consulting roles whilst working on local and international projects within government, aviation, defense, residential and commercial sectors. Further to his work, Grant is the inaugural chairman of the Indigenous Engineers Group within Engineers Australia.
STEVE BAKER
FOUNDER AND CEO | COHERICS
In a military aviation career spanning over 23 years; including an exchange tour with the Royal New Zealand Air Force, Steve ‘Imran’ Baker is one of Australia’s leading retired military aviators and ‘Roulette Leader’ – retired lead pilot of the Royal Australian Air Force’s elite aerobatics team ‘The Roulettes’. Steve became one of the youngest RAAF aircraft instructors since World War II at the age of 23.
Today, Steve is often engaged to speak on the topic of leadership through adversity and the art of fellowship to the corporate sector.