5 Chief People Officers in Australia Worth Following

Chief People Officers in Australia are working at the point where commercial decisions meet human consequences. Across health, defence, transport and resources, the same executive is asked to build capability for work that is still changing, keep managers steady through it, and make sure the organisation can explain its choices to the people living with them.

As of July 2026, that job has a clear backdrop. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 forecasts that 39 percent of the key skills required in the job market will change by 2030, that 59 percent of the workforce will need training, and that 85 percent of employers plan to prioritise upskilling. Those are global forecasts rather than Australian results, but they explain why the people below are worth reading closely.

Here are five Chief People Officers in Australia whose current work is worth following.

1. Rebecca Donaldson

Chief People Officer, Bupa APAC

Rebecca Donaldson became Chief People Officer for Bupa APAC in January 2026, joining the executive leadership team and reporting to APAC chief executive Nick Stone. She arrived from Ramsay Health Care Australia, where she led the Australian People team through a strategy built around digital transformation, clinical excellence and workforce sustainability.

Her earlier career is unusually useful for anyone interested in how people strategy holds up under pressure. She was Executive Manager, People and Culture at Qantas, leading the People team through the post-Covid rebuild, and was Chief People Officer and Chief of Staff to the Managing Director at the ABC during a period of executive leadership change. She is a qualified lawyer with deep employee relations experience, which shows in how she frames organisational change.

2. Victoria Halliday

Chief People Officer, QinetiQ Australia

Victoria Halliday is Chief People Officer at QinetiQ Australia, sitting on the leadership team of a business that supports Australia's defence capability through advanced technology, research and expert advisory services.

Defence is a useful sector to watch on people questions. Workforce security requirements, long programme timelines, deep technical skills and a tight specialist labour market all pull against each other, and the people function has to hold those tensions without slowing delivery. Readers interested in capability planning and technical workforce design will find that context worth following.

3. Allison Shevlin

Chief People Officer, Kinetic

Allison Shevlin is Chief People Officer at Kinetic, the largest private bus and rail operator across Australia and New Zealand. She brings more than 25 years leading people functions, with senior roles across retail, higher education and fast-moving consumer goods, including Kmart, Target, RMIT University, Simplot, EnergyAustralia and NAB.

Her track record is in large-scale transformation that had to produce measurable commercial results while building resilient, high-performing cultures. At Kinetic her focus is a people strategy that supports the group's growth ambitions, which is a live question for anyone leading a large frontline workforce through expansion and electrification at the same time.

4. Jad Vodopija

Chief People Officer, BHP

Jad Vodopija has been BHP's Chief People Officer and a member of its Executive Leadership Team since 1 July 2022, responsible for the people and culture strategies, programs and policies that support BHP employees globally and for ensuring the company has the capability to deliver its strategy.

She has more than 25 years in the manufacturing and resources sectors. She started her career with the Ford Motor Company, moved to BHP in 2000 and worked across a wide range of operational and corporate roles, then spent time at Orica from 2016 as Vice President HR for its Australia, Pacific and Asia business before returning. She holds a BA, a postgraduate diploma in industrial relations and human resource management, and a Master of Commerce.

5. Jackie Allen

Chief People Officer, Wettenhalls

Jackie Allen is Chief People Officer at Wettenhalls, a Melbourne-based heavy vehicle transport business, and she is one of the clearest public voices on the practical side of driver safety and wellbeing.

Speaking about wearable fatigue-management technology, she has described drivers responding far more positively to wearables than to in-cab cameras, and predictive alerts arriving 10 to 20 minutes ahead of a fatigue event so that someone can intervene early. As she put it, the device is technology that is with you, not staring at you. That distinction, between surveillance and support, is a question every operational people leader eventually has to answer.

What to notice when a Chief People Officer writes in public

Start with the problem being named. Strong people leadership content usually begins with something leaders and teams are actually living through, such as a change in operating model, pressure on capability, a difficult hiring market, or the challenge of helping managers lead well. General encouragement can be useful, but it is the connection to a real workplace problem that makes a post worth saving.

Then look for the trade-off. Any serious people decision costs something, whether that is money, speed, consistency or a leader's time. A post that names what was given up is far more useful than one that presents a change as free. The same applies to results, so look for what changed for the people affected, not only what was launched.

Finally, notice what a leader keeps returning to. One post is a moment. A pattern across a year tells you what someone actually believes about work, and that is the part you can learn from.

Questions to take back to your own organisation

Ask what your managers need in order to lead the change you have already announced. Managers absorb most of the difficulty in any people decision, and they usually need simple language, usable tools, enough notice and space to ask their own questions before they are expected to answer everyone else's.

Ask what will make the change feel fair. Fairness is not giving every group the same experience. It means explaining how decisions are made, noticing where the impact differs and giving people a real way to raise concerns. A change can be commercially necessary and still be handled badly.

Ask what leaders will stop doing, not only what they will start. Many people strategies fail because they add activity without removing reporting, meetings or approvals that no longer serve anyone. Helping an executive team make fewer, clearer commitments protects attention and gives new practices a genuine chance to take hold.

Ask which signals will tell you whether things are improving. Engagement, retention, absence, safety, customer feedback, hiring outcomes and internal mobility all help, and none of them is sufficient alone. Combine the numbers with direct conversations, because a dashboard can look stable while a particular team is struggling.

A simple monthly learning routine

Following more people rarely helps. A small routine does. Set aside 20 minutes once a month to read the recent public work of two or three of the leaders above, plus one person from your own sector.

Spend the first five minutes saving one idea that names a problem you recognise, and write a single sentence about why it caught your attention. Spend the next ten testing it against your situation, asking what is similar, what is different, and what evidence you would need before acting. Use the final five minutes to make one small commitment you can finish inside a week, such as asking a manager what support would help most, or removing one unnecessary step from a people process.

If you lead a team, make it social. Invite two managers to each bring one public post and discuss what is useful, what is missing and what would have to change for the idea to work locally.

Making people strategy practical

People strategy becomes real in everyday work. A new starter understands what good looks like in their first week. A manager can explain a change without adding confusion. A team has a simple way to raise a workload concern before it becomes a bigger problem.

Those are small moments, and they are where culture actually lives. Senior people leaders usually hold several time frames at once, planning future capability, responding to a current workforce issue and supporting a manager through a hard conversation today. Public posts show one of those moments, while the role also includes the quiet work of aligning leaders, improving systems and helping an organisation make choices it would rather avoid.

Clear priorities matter. If a people plan contains too many themes, nobody knows what changes first. A better plan names a small number of outcomes, explains why they matter and gives each leader a realistic role. The test is whether someone close to the work can describe the priority in plain language and see what to do next.

There is also a real balance between consistency and local judgement. Organisation-wide standards can make decisions fairer and reduce needless variation, while local leaders still need room to adapt when their people, customers, rosters or risks differ. Deciding which practices are shared everywhere and which stay flexible is one of the most valuable things a Chief People Officer does.

That is one reason to follow people leaders across sectors. A health insurer, a defence business, a transport operator and a global miner translate the same underlying ideas for very different work. The language changes, but the need for clear expectations, capable managers and trust does not.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a Chief People Officer and a CHRO?

In practice both titles describe the senior executive responsible for people strategy, culture, talent, employee experience and HR operations. Organisations choose different titles for historical, sector or brand reasons. The responsibilities and the reporting line tell you far more than the title does.

How should I use this list?

Follow a few people whose sector or problems interest you, then read their work over time. Take note of the questions and practical approaches you can adapt to your own context, and remember that one public post never captures a whole person or a whole organisation.

What should I look for in a strong people leader?

Look for someone who names trade-offs honestly, who can explain a decision in language a frontline team would recognise, and who treats people questions as operating decisions rather than communications exercises.

Final thoughts

The right people to follow are not always the loudest people online. They are the people whose public work helps you think more clearly about the real choices facing leaders and teams. Use the five above as a starting point, then bring what you find back into the conversations that shape your own organisation.

If you want a wider view, we have also put together 46 Essential Chief People Officer Thought Leaders globally, and 46 Essential People and Culture Leaders in Australia and New Zealand to Follow on LinkedIn.

About the author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, author of Step Up or Step Out, and a leadership consultant who works with schools, corporates and nonprofits around the world. Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and The Leadership Conversations Podcast has featured 240+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries.

Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement, with 6,000+ participating leaders, and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, he works with executive teams on facilitation, leadership development and keynotes. To talk about your leadership team, email jonno@consultclarity.org.