25 Government Offsite Facilitators ANZ Leaders Trust

If your government team nods through the offsite, agrees on priorities, then walks out and does exactly what they were doing six months ago, the problem is not the team.

The problem is that most offsite facilitators do not understand the mechanics of how public sector teams actually work. They bring corporate frameworks into a government context where the incentives, constraints, and accountability structures are completely different. You end up with great conversations that produce no change.

Government and public sector teams need facilitators who understand ministerial timelines, cross-agency dynamics, and the reality that your team is accountable to people who are not in the room. They need people who can move a conversation from complaint to commitment when half the constraints are political and the other half are structural. If you want a broader look at this challenge, see our overview of executive team offsite facilitators.

I put together this list of 25 facilitators who work inside government and public sector organisations across Australia and New Zealand, who understand the actual terrain, and who are booked by agencies that need offsites to produce something more than a action plan nobody reads.

FACILITATORS WHO SPECIALISE IN GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SECTOR TEAMS

This first group focuses specifically on government, public sector, and agency work. They understand the unique pressures, timelines, and accountability structures that make government offsites different from corporate ones.

1. Jonno White

Jonno White works with government agencies and public sector organisations where leadership teams are talented individually but struggling to align on execution. He is the author of Step Up or Step Out, which has sold over 10,000 copies, and a Certified Working Genius Facilitator who uses the model to help teams identify why work is stalling and where energy is being wasted.

His approach centres on helping senior teams move from agreement in the room to follow-through in the 90 days after. He works with agencies facing cross-departmental tension, ministerial pressure, and the challenge of turning policy intent into operational reality. Government teams book him when the offsite needs to shift behaviour, not just produce another framework.

2. Amanda Dudley

Amanda Dudley specialises in facilitating strategic offsites for local government and state agencies across Australia. Her background in public administration gives her an understanding of the political context that shapes every decision a government team makes. She knows that alignment in a public sector team is not just about agreeing on priorities but about navigating the competing pressures of community expectation, ministerial direction, and budget constraints.

She structures offsites to surface the tensions that teams are working around rather than through. Her sessions focus on creating shared language and shared accountability in teams where different divisions operate under different assumptions about what success looks like.

3. Ben Crowe

Ben Crowe is known for his work with elite athletes, but his facilitation practice increasingly includes government agencies and public sector leadership teams who are navigating high-pressure transitions. His approach is built around purpose and identity, helping teams reconnect with the reason they entered public service in the first place.

Government teams hire him when morale is low, turnover is high, and the leadership team needs to rebuild a sense of shared mission. His offsites are less about strategy documents and more about helping people articulate what they stand for and how that translates into the decisions they make when nobody is watching.

4. Catherine Gillespie

Catherine Gillespie facilitates offsites for public sector organisations in New Zealand, with a focus on Maori engagement and bicultural frameworks. Her work helps government agencies move from consultation as a compliance exercise to genuine partnership in decision-making and service design.

She structures offsites to surface the gaps between policy intent and lived experience, particularly for teams working in health, education, and social services. Her approach is grounded in Te Ao Maori principles and the recognition that public sector teams are often designing services for communities they do not fully understand.

5. David Rae

David Rae works with federal and state government agencies across Australia, facilitating offsites for executive teams navigating machinery-of-government changes, budget cuts, and shifting ministerial priorities. His background in change management and organisational development gives him a clear-eyed view of what actually shifts behaviour in large bureaucracies.

His offsites focus on decision rights, accountability structures, and the gap between the org chart and how work actually gets done. He helps teams name the informal power dynamics and unwritten rules that shape everything, then rebuild the structures so that the formal system and the real system align.

FACILITATORS WITH DEEP CROSS-SECTOR EXPERIENCE INCLUDING GOVERNMENT

This group works across sectors but has significant experience facilitating government and public sector offsites. They bring frameworks and approaches that translate across contexts while understanding the specific constraints of public sector work.

6. Fiona McDougall

Fiona McDougall facilitates leadership offsites for government agencies, nonprofits, and corporate teams across New Zealand. Her approach is built around adaptive leadership and the work of navigating change when the problem is not technical but cultural. She helps teams distinguish between the challenges they can solve with better process and the challenges that require them to change how they see the work.

Government teams hire her when the issue is not clarity but courage. When everyone knows what needs to change but nobody wants to be the one to name it. Her offsites create the conditions for those conversations to happen without the room shutting down.

7. Geoff Aigner

Geoff Aigner is a social innovation strategist who facilitates offsites for public sector teams working on complex social challenges. His work focuses on helping teams shift from delivering programs to designing systems, particularly in health, justice, and community services.

His offsites are structured around systems thinking and collective impact frameworks. He helps teams map the wider ecosystem they are operating in, identify the leverage points where intervention actually creates change, and build the partnerships required to shift outcomes at scale.

8. Helen Palmer

Helen Palmer facilitates strategic planning offsites for local councils and regional government bodies across Australia. Her background in public policy and community engagement gives her a grounded understanding of the pressures that shape local government decision-making.

She structures offsites to surface the tension between long-term strategy and short-term political cycles. Her approach helps elected members and executive teams build shared understanding of the trade-offs they are making and the communities they are serving. She is hired when councils need to move beyond factional politics and rebuild trust in the room.

9. James Lush

James Lush works with government and public sector teams across Australia and New Zealand, facilitating offsites that focus on accountability, execution, and team performance. His approach draws on the work of Patrick Lencioni and the Five Dysfunctions of a Team model, adapted for the public sector context.

He helps teams distinguish between healthy conflict and dysfunction, rebuild trust in leadership teams where political appointments have created fractures, and establish the rhythms of accountability that turn strategic intent into operational delivery. His offsites are practical, direct, and focused on the 90 days after the session ends.

10. Kara O'Brien

Kara O'Brien facilitates offsites for government agencies working on digital transformation and service design. Her background in design thinking and user experience gives her a framework for helping public sector teams shift from policy-first thinking to user-first thinking.

Her offsites focus on helping teams understand the gap between how they think a service works and how citizens actually experience it. She structures sessions around journey mapping, pain point analysis, and co-design, bringing the voice of the user into the room in a way that shifts how the team sees the work.

11. Liam Pomfret

Liam Pomfret works with state and federal government agencies facilitating offsites focused on leadership development and team effectiveness. His approach is built around emotional intelligence and the recognition that technical expertise does not automatically translate into leadership capability.

He helps public sector leaders navigate the transition from individual contributor to team leader, from operator to strategic thinker. His offsites create space for senior teams to name the leadership gaps they are carrying and build the practices that close them.

12. Marcus Dervin

Marcus Dervin facilitates strategy and innovation offsites for public sector organisations across New Zealand. His work focuses on helping government teams move from risk aversion to intelligent experimentation, particularly in areas where the old models are failing but the new models are not yet clear.

His offsites are structured around scenario planning, prototyping, and learning cycles. He helps teams build the capability to test, learn, and iterate in a context where failure is politically costly and the pressure to get it right the first time is enormous.

13. Michelle Ockers

Michelle Ockers facilitates offsites for government agencies focused on learning, capability development, and organisational culture. Her background in learning and development gives her a sharp understanding of how adults actually learn and how capability is built inside organisations. For more context on this type of work, see our post on nonprofit leadership retreat facilitators.

She structures offsites to move teams from training as an event to learning as a system. Her sessions focus on helping leadership teams identify the capability gaps that are holding performance back, then design the learning architecture that closes those gaps at scale.

FACILITATORS WHO WORK WITH BOARDS, COUNCILS, AND GOVERNANCE TEAMS

This group specialises in facilitating offsites for elected bodies, boards, and governance teams. They understand the dynamics of working with groups where power is distributed, accountability is public, and decision-making is political.

14. Ngaire Bates

Ngaire Bates facilitates governance offsites for local councils, public sector boards, and community organisations across New Zealand. Her work focuses on helping elected members and board directors build the clarity and trust required to govern effectively.

She structures offsites to surface the tensions between governance and management, between strategic oversight and operational interference. Her sessions help boards define their role, establish decision rights, and rebuild relationships where trust has broken down between the board and the executive team.

15. Paul Chamberlain

Paul Chamberlain works with local government councils across Australia, facilitating offsites for newly elected councils and leadership teams navigating political transition. His approach is grounded in the realities of local government, where the people in the room represent competing communities and competing visions for the future.

His offsites focus on building shared understanding of the financial constraints, the regulatory environment, and the community expectations that frame every decision. He helps councils move from ideology to pragmatism without losing sight of the values that matter.

16. Rachel Audige

Rachel Audige facilitates board and governance offsites for public sector organisations, crown entities, and statutory bodies across New Zealand. Her background in governance and risk gives her a clear framework for helping boards understand their accountabilities and manage the tensions between stakeholder expectations and organisational capacity.

She structures offsites around risk appetite, strategic priorities, and the board's role in holding the executive to account. Her sessions are particularly valuable for boards navigating crisis, transition, or reputational risk.

17. Simon Banks

Simon Banks facilitates governance and strategic offsites for government-owned enterprises, statutory authorities, and public sector boards across Australia. His background in corporate governance and public policy gives him a dual lens on the unique pressures facing public sector boards.

His offsites focus on the governance disciplines that matter most in a public context, including transparency, accountability, and the management of conflicts of interest. He helps boards navigate the gap between commercial imperatives and public expectations, particularly for organisations operating in contested or politicised spaces.

FACILITATORS FOCUSED ON DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND CULTURAL CHANGE

This group facilitates offsites where the work is not just strategy but culture. They help government teams navigate diversity, equity, inclusion, and the deeper cultural shifts required to make public sector organisations safe and effective for everyone.

18. Stacey Copas

Stacey Copas facilitates offsites for government agencies focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Her work helps leadership teams move from compliance-based approaches to DEI to culture-based approaches that shift how people experience the organisation every day.

She structures offsites to surface the gaps between stated values and lived experience, particularly for marginalised groups inside the organisation. Her sessions focus on helping teams understand the systems that reproduce inequity and build the practices that dismantle them.

19. Tanya Serisier

Tanya Serisier works with public sector organisations across Australia facilitating offsites on workplace culture, psychological safety, and respectful workplaces. Her background in organisational psychology gives her a grounded understanding of the conditions that create safe workplaces and the behaviours that undermine them.

Her offsites are structured around behaviour change, accountability, and leadership modelling. She helps teams move from policies on paper to practices in the room, particularly in organisations recovering from bullying, harassment, or toxic leadership.

20. Terri Janke

Terri Janke facilitates cultural competency and Indigenous engagement offsites for government agencies and public sector organisations working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Her work focuses on helping teams understand their legal and ethical obligations under native title, cultural heritage, and self-determination frameworks.

She structures offsites to build the knowledge and the relationships required for genuine partnership. Her sessions focus on moving teams from consultation as a box-ticking exercise to co-design as a shared leadership practice.

21. Yollana Shore

Yollana Shore facilitates leadership and culture offsites for public sector organisations across Australia, with a focus on inclusion, belonging, and the leadership practices that create psychologically safe teams. Her approach is grounded in neuroscience and the understanding that culture is built in micro-moments, not mission statements.

Her offsites help teams identify the patterns of behaviour that are making the workplace unsafe for particular groups, then rebuild the practices that create belonging. She is hired when agencies are serious about culture change and willing to look at the leadership behaviours driving the problem.

FACILITATORS WHO SPECIALISE IN CHANGE, TRANSFORMATION, AND TRANSITION

This group facilitates offsites for government teams navigating major organisational change, digital transformation, or machinery-of-government restructures. They understand the mechanics of leading change in large bureaucracies where the stakes are high and the resistance is real.

22. Will Smith

Will Smith facilitates change leadership offsites for government agencies undergoing restructures, mergers, and digital transformation. His background in change management and organisational development gives him a clear framework for the phases of change and the leadership practices required at each phase.

His offsites focus on helping leadership teams build the coalition required to lead change, identify the pockets of resistance and the reasons behind them, and create the communication and engagement strategies that bring people along. He is hired when the change is mandated but the leadership team has not yet built the internal capability to deliver it.

23. Zena Burgess

Zena Burgess works with public sector organisations across Australia and New Zealand facilitating offsites focused on culture change and organisational transformation. Her approach is built around values, leadership, and the recognition that transformation starts with the leadership team's willingness to change first.

She structures offsites to surface the leadership behaviours that are reinforcing the old culture, even when the stated strategy is calling for something new. Her sessions are confronting, honest, and focused on helping leadership teams see the gap between who they say they are and who they are being in the room.

24. Andrew Hollo

Andrew Hollo facilitates strategic planning and transformation offsites for government agencies, particularly in health and human services. His background in systems thinking and complexity gives him a lens for helping teams navigate the wicked problems that define public sector work.

His offsites focus on helping teams build the capability to work adaptively in environments where the problems are evolving faster than the solutions. He structures sessions around sense-making, experimentation, and the leadership practices required to navigate uncertainty without defaulting to command and control.

25. Belinda Goodwin

Belinda Goodwin works with state and federal government agencies facilitating offsites for teams navigating digital transformation and technology-enabled change. Her background in IT strategy and service design gives her a practical understanding of the gap between what technology promises and what organisations can actually absorb.

She structures offsites to help leadership teams understand the people side of digital change, build the change capability required to implement new systems, and manage the risks that come with moving critical services to new platforms. Her sessions focus on execution, not just vision. For guidance on structuring this kind of work, see our post on planning a leadership retreat and our roundup of leadership retreat locations.

Your next offsite is not another workshop. It is the moment where your team either builds the alignment required to execute or spends another six months working around each other.

The facilitators on this list understand government work. They know the constraints you are operating under. They know what shifts a room and what shifts behaviour after the room. If you need help finding the right facilitator for your team, reach out at jonno@consultclarity.org