25 Executive Team Offsite Facilitators in Ballarat

Your executive team looks impressive on the organisation chart, but the offsite you ran six months ago changed nothing.

You spent two days workshopping strategy, everyone nodded in agreement, and three months later the same tensions surfaced in the same meetings. The problem was never the venue or the agenda. The problem was the person running the room. A skilled facilitator does not just guide discussion. They surface the conflict your team has been avoiding, translate competing priorities into shared language, and build the structures that make accountability possible long after the offsite ends.

Ballarat sits at the centre of regional Victoria, which means leaders from across the state bring their executive teams here for offsites that need to land. The city offers enough distance from Melbourne to signal this matters, and enough proximity to make logistics simple. But distance and logistics do not produce change. The facilitator does.

I put together this list of 25 executive team offsite facilitators who work in or near Ballarat, selected on the basis of expertise, track record, and the ability to handle the specific dynamics of senior leadership teams under pressure.

STRATEGY AND ALIGNMENT SPECIALISTS

These facilitators work with executive teams when the strategy exists on paper but alignment does not exist in practice. They specialise in translating abstract priorities into concrete decisions, and in surfacing the hidden disagreements that prevent execution.

1. Jonno White

Jonno White is author of Step Up or Step Out, with more than 10,000 copies sold, and works with executive teams globally when talent exists but results do not. He specialises in the gap between what a leadership team agrees to in the offsite and what they actually do in the 90 days after. His approach centres on Working Genius, a framework created by Patrick Lencioni that maps how people naturally contribute to team outcomes, and he uses it to diagnose why execution stalls even when everyone looks committed.

Jonno is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator who works with schools, nonprofits, and corporate leadership teams across Australia and internationally. The work is not theoretical. He facilitates offsites where the senior team walks out with clarity on who owns what, what gets decided this quarter, and which conversations they have been avoiding. Book Jonno at jonno@consultclarity.org when your executive team is talented individually but not producing together.

2. Catherine Hayes

Catherine Hayes facilitates executive offsites for organisations where strategy has been workshopped to death but no one can name the next three actions. She works primarily with regional Victorian organisations and specialises in cutting through the polish. Her strength is asking the question that makes the room go quiet, then holding the silence long enough for the real answer to surface.

Her background is in organisational psychology, and she brings diagnostic precision to team dynamics. If two of your senior people are in unspoken conflict, she will name it in the room. If your leadership team defaults to consensus when a decision needs an owner, she will press until someone takes it. Executives who work with Catherine report that the offsite is uncomfortable and necessary in equal measure.

3. Michael Drummond

Michael Drummond runs offsites for executive teams in manufacturing, logistics, and family business, and he works across regional Victoria including Ballarat. His clients are typically businesses between 50 and 300 staff where the senior team has outgrown the informal coordination that used to work. He specialises in building decision-making structures that survive the offsite, not just inspirational moments that fade by Tuesday.

Michael uses scenario planning and priority-ranking exercises that force the team to make trade-offs in the room. The output is not a vision statement. The output is a short list of projects that get resourced and a longer list of projects that get paused. Leaders value his directness and his willingness to name when something is not working.

4. Rebecca Liston

Rebecca Liston facilitates strategy offsites for nonprofit and social enterprise leadership teams, and she works extensively in regional Victoria. She specialises in teams where mission clarity is high but operational alignment is low. Her clients are typically organisations under 100 staff where the executive team is passionate, overcommitted, and stuck in reactive mode.

Rebecca brings structure without killing the energy. She uses frameworks that help teams distinguish between the work only they can do and the work they should stop doing, and she builds planning rhythms that make quarterly priorities visible. Her offsites produce fewer initiatives and more focus, which is exactly what under-resourced leadership teams need.

5. Andrew Braithwaite

Andrew Braithwaite works with executive teams in healthcare, education, and government across regional Victoria including Ballarat. His strength is facilitating strategy discussions where stakeholder complexity is high and the leadership team feels caught between competing pressures. He specialises in helping senior teams clarify what they control, what they influence, and what they need to let go.

Andrew's background is in systems thinking, and he helps leadership teams see the patterns they are stuck in. If your exec team keeps revisiting the same decision, he will map why. If your planning cycle produces documents no one refers to, he will redesign the process. His offsites are rigorous, and his follow-through is structured.

CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND TEAM DYNAMICS

These facilitators work with executive teams when the issue is not strategy but relationships. They specialise in surfacing hidden tensions, repairing trust, and creating the conditions where productive conflict becomes possible.

6. Fiona Grant

Fiona Grant facilitates offsites for executive teams where unresolved tension is costing the organisation outcomes. She works across Victoria and specialises in leadership teams where two or three senior people are in quiet conflict and everyone else is working around it. Her approach is direct, grounded in decades of mediation experience, and she does not allow politeness to substitute for honesty.

Fiona opens the offsite by naming the pattern the team has been avoiding, then structures the conversations that allow each person to be heard without the discussion collapsing into blame. Leaders who book Fiona are ready to deal with what is actually happening, not what the team pretends is happening. The offsite is hard. The three months after are easier.

7. David Penglase

David Penglase works with executive teams in crisis, particularly in schools and nonprofits across regional Victoria. His clients are typically leadership teams where trust has broken down, turnover is accelerating, and the board is asking hard questions. He specialises in diagnostic work before the offsite, one-on-one conversations with each exec team member to understand what is actually happening beneath the surface.

David's offsites are structured to rebuild, not just repair. He facilitates agreements on how the team will work together, how conflict will be raised, and what accountability looks like when someone breaks a commitment. The output is not warm feelings. The output is a team contract that everyone signs and a follow-up rhythm that tests whether the changes hold.

8. Louise Pascale

Louise Pascale facilitates executive offsites for leadership teams where performance is fine but trust is fragile. She works primarily with corporate and family business clients in Victoria, and she specialises in teams where the relationships are professional but not honest. Her strength is creating the safety that allows a senior team to say what they have been thinking for months.

Louise uses structured reflection exercises, small-group breakouts, and facilitated dialogue that prevents the loudest voice from dominating. Her clients report that the offsite feels different from the usual strategy session, slower and more relational, and that the honesty unlocked in the room changes how the team operates afterwards.

9. Geoff Aigner

Geoff Aigner works with social sector executive teams across Australia, including organisations based in regional Victoria. He specialises in leadership teams under external pressure, whether from funding cuts, sector change, or community expectations, and he facilitates offsites that help the team stop blaming and start deciding. His background is in social change strategy, and he brings both empathy and impatience to the room.

Geoff will validate the difficulty of the context, then push the team to own what they can control. His offsites produce clarity on priorities, role boundaries, and the decisions that need to happen in the next 90 days. Leaders value his ability to hold the tension between compassion for the team and accountability for outcomes.

10. Emma Heuston

Emma Heuston facilitates offsites for executive teams where conflict avoidance is the dominant culture. She works across Victoria and specialises in leadership teams that are kind, collaborative, and stuck. Her clients are typically teams where no one wants to be the person who creates discomfort, which means hard conversations never happen and underperformance is tolerated.

Emma teaches the team how to disagree well. She models the language, structures the conversations, and holds the line when someone tries to smooth over a point that needs resolution. Her offsites feel uncomfortable for people who prefer harmony, and transformational for teams ready to trade politeness for progress.

EXECUTION AND ACCOUNTABILITY FRAMEWORKS

These facilitators work with executive teams when the strategy is clear but execution is inconsistent. They specialise in building the operating rhythms, role clarity, and accountability structures that turn offsite decisions into sustained outcomes.

11. Sarah Kearney

Sarah Kearney facilitates offsites for executive teams that workshop well but execute poorly. She works with organisations across Victoria including Ballarat, and she specialises in leadership teams where the problem is not ideas but follow-through. Her approach is built on the Entrepreneurial Operating System, and she uses it to create role clarity, meeting rhythms, and quarterly priorities that survive contact with normal operations.

Sarah's offsites produce less theory and more structure. Each executive leaves with their top three priorities for the quarter, the metrics that define success, and the weekly check-in rhythm that creates accountability. Leaders who work with Sarah report that execution improves not because people try harder but because the system finally supports them.

12. Tim Dalmau

Tim Dalmau works with executive teams in complex organisations across Australia, and he brings decades of experience facilitating offsites where cultural change and strategic execution intersect. He specialises in leadership teams where the strategy requires the organisation to behave differently, which means the exec team must model the change before they can expect it from anyone else.

Tim's offsites combine rigorous analysis with practical action. He facilitates conversations that name the gap between espoused values and actual behaviour, then structures the commitments each leader makes to close that gap. His follow-up process includes peer accountability and cultural audits that test whether the changes are real.

13. Annette Tonkin

Annette Tonkin facilitates execution-focused offsites for leadership teams in education and health across regional Victoria. She specialises in teams where the strategic plan exists but no one can name which initiatives matter most this year. Her strength is helping the exec team move from a list of 18 priorities to a short list of four, then building the project governance that ensures those four get done.

Annette uses prioritisation matrices, resource mapping, and role assignment exercises that force trade-offs in the room. Her offsites are less about inspiration and more about decision-making. Leaders appreciate her clarity and her willingness to call out when the team is avoiding a hard choice.

14. Peter Slade

Peter Slade works with executive teams in manufacturing and professional services across Victoria, and he specialises in offsites where operational discipline is weak. His clients are typically organisations where the leadership team runs from meeting to meeting, where follow-up is inconsistent, and where accountability conversations feel personal rather than structural.

Peter facilitates offsites that install the operating system. He builds weekly leadership team meeting agendas, quarterly planning rhythms, and role clarity that separates strategic from operational work. His clients report that the immediate output feels basic, but six months later the cumulative impact is significant.

15. Kylie Lewis

Kylie Lewis facilitates offsites for executive teams in professional services, particularly law, accounting, and consulting firms across regional Victoria. She specialises in partnership teams where everyone is technically excellent and no one wants to make a unilateral decision. Her strength is facilitating decision-making processes that honour the partnership model while preventing endless debate.

Kylie structures offsites that produce clear decision rights, escalation paths, and veto thresholds. Her clients are senior teams that need to preserve collegiate culture while building the accountability structures that allow the firm to move faster. The offsite clarifies who decides what, and the follow-up rhythm tests whether the agreements hold.

WORKING GENIUS AND STRENGTHS-BASED FACILITATION

These facilitators use assessment-based frameworks to help executive teams understand how they naturally work, where friction is predictable, and how to structure collaboration around innate strengths rather than fighting against them.

16. Belinda Gore

Belinda Gore is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator who works with executive teams across Victoria, and she specialises in leadership teams where talented people are misaligned on how work should happen. She uses the Working Genius framework to diagnose why some team members are energised while others are quietly burning out, then structures roles and workflows to match natural strengths.

Belinda's offsites include pre-work where each exec completes the Working Genius assessment, then the offsite itself is spent interpreting the team profile, naming the gaps, and redesigning how the leadership team collaborates. Her clients report that the framework gives them language for tensions they felt but could not name, and that role adjustments after the offsite reduce friction measurably.

17. Nathan Simmonds

Nathan Simmonds facilitates strengths-based offsites for executive teams in the UK and works remotely with Australian clients. He specialises in leadership teams where performance reviews focus on fixing weaknesses rather than leveraging strengths, and he uses the offsite to shift the culture. His approach is built on the principle that elite teams maximise what people do brilliantly rather than forcing everyone to be good at everything.

Nathan combines strengths assessments with role redesign conversations. The offsite identifies what each executive does better than anyone else on the team, then restructures responsibilities so those strengths get used. Leaders report that energy lifts, performance improves, and retention strengthens when people spend more time in their zone of genius.

18. Michelle Gibbings

Michelle Gibbings facilitates executive offsites across Australia and works with leadership teams where change fatigue is high. She specialises in teams that have been through restructures, strategy pivots, or leadership transitions, and she uses strengths-based frameworks to rebuild confidence and clarity. Her approach combines neuroscience with practical team design.

Michelle's offsites focus on how the brain responds to uncertainty and how executive teams can structure their work to reduce cognitive load. She facilitates conversations about decision-making fatigue, prioritisation under pressure, and how to allocate the team's finite energy to the work that matters most. Her clients value the combination of evidence and empathy.

19. Ross Tartarotti

Ross Tartarotti works with family business executive teams across regional Victoria, and he facilitates offsites where family dynamics and business roles overlap. He uses strengths-based tools to help senior family members clarify who is best suited to which role, then structures governance that allows the business to operate professionally while preserving family relationships.

Ross's offsites are part strategy, part family systems work. He facilitates hard conversations about succession, competence, and accountability in a way that allows the family to stay connected. His clients are leadership teams that need both business rigour and relational care, and he delivers both.

20. Jen Long

Jen Long facilitates Working Genius offsites for nonprofit executive teams across Australia. She specialises in mission-driven organisations where burnout is endemic and where the leadership team is doing too much of the wrong work. Her offsites diagnose where each executive is working outside their genius and restructure the team's workload to match natural strengths.

Jen's clients report that the offsite produces immediate relief because the framework names why certain work feels so draining. The follow-up work involves redistributing tasks, hiring to fill genius gaps, and protecting each executive's time so they spend the majority of their week in energising work.

SECTOR-SPECIFIC FACILITATION

These facilitators bring deep expertise in particular sectors and understand the specific pressures, stakeholder dynamics, and leadership challenges that define executive teams in schools, health, local government, and social enterprise.

21. Jenny Donovan

Jenny Donovan facilitates offsites for school leadership teams across regional Victoria, and she specialises in principals and their executive teams under pressure from boards, parents, and staff. She understands the unique dynamics of school leadership, where authority is high but autonomy is constrained, and where every decision is scrutinised by multiple stakeholder groups.

Jenny's offsites focus on role clarity, decision rights, and stakeholder management. She helps school executive teams clarify which decisions sit with the principal, which sit with the team, and which need board approval. Her clients report that the offsite reduces second-guessing and increases the speed of decision-making during term time.

22. Mark Richardson

Mark Richardson works with local government executive teams across Victoria, and he facilitates offsites where political complexity and operational delivery intersect. He specialises in leadership teams that report to elected councils, where strategic priorities shift with each election cycle, and where the executive team must balance community expectations with resource constraints.

Mark's offsites help the leadership team separate what they can control from what they must navigate. He facilitates scenario planning that prepares the team for political shifts, and he structures quarterly reviews that keep the exec team aligned despite external turbulence. His clients value his realism and his refusal to pretend the context is simpler than it is.

23. Sue Cato

Sue Cato facilitates offsites for executive teams in crisis communications, particularly for organisations dealing with reputational damage, stakeholder conflict, or public scrutiny. She works across sectors and brings decades of media and crisis management experience. Her clients are leadership teams that need to make high-stakes decisions under pressure while managing external narratives.

Sue's offsites focus on message discipline, stakeholder mapping, and decision-making under uncertainty. She facilitates conversations about what the executive team will say publicly, who will say it, and how they will handle dissent. Her strength is helping the leadership team stay aligned when everything outside the room is chaotic.

24. Greg Moran

Greg Moran works with health sector executive teams across regional Victoria, and he facilitates offsites where clinical excellence and operational reality collide. He specialises in leadership teams managing workforce shortages, funding constraints, and rising community expectations. His background is in health management, and he understands the specific pressures clinicians face when they step into executive roles.

Greg's offsites balance strategic ambition with operational realism. He facilitates conversations that honour clinical values while acknowledging resource limits, and he structures decision-making processes that allow the exec team to say no to good ideas when capacity does not exist. His clients report that the offsite produces both clarity and relief.

25. Claire Scobie

Claire Scobie facilitates offsites for social enterprise and impact organisation executive teams, and she works across Australia with a focus on regional and remote contexts. She specialises in leadership teams managing the tension between mission and margin, where every dollar spent on infrastructure feels like a dollar taken from program delivery.

Claire's offsites focus on business model clarity, pricing strategy, and the leadership team's role in building financial sustainability. She facilitates conversations that allow mission-driven leaders to talk about money without guilt, and she structures planning processes that integrate impact and revenue rather than treating them as competing priorities. Her clients value her ability to honour the mission while building the business discipline that sustains it.

Your next step is simple. Choose a facilitator whose expertise matches the specific challenge your executive team is facing, not the one whose website looks best. If your team is talented but stuck, reach out directly and name what is actually happening.

Not sure which type of facilitator your team needs? Read our guide to how to choose an executive offsite facilitator before you book.

Looking for fresh agenda formats? Explore 100 team offsite ideas that drive results beyond the session itself.

The offsite is not the solution. The offsite is the beginning of the solution, and the facilitator you choose determines whether the beginning leads somewhere or fades by the time you return to normal operations.