50 Best L&D Thought Leaders in Australia and New Zealand

Introduction

If you work in learning and development in Australia or New Zealand, the names that matter most to your professional growth are rarely the ones dominating global conference circuit posters. The practitioners, strategists, and innovators genuinely shaping how Australian and New Zealand organisations develop their people are doing the hard work here, in this time zone, inside this economic and cultural context, with an understanding of what it means to build learning cultures in distinctly ANZ organisations. This blog puts those voices in one place.

The global L&D conversation moves fast. Workplace learning is being rebuilt from the ground up as artificial intelligence restructures the skills that organisations need, the speed at which those skills must be developed, and the methods that work to build them. According to the LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2025, almost half of L&D and talent development professionals globally report their organisations are grappling with skills gaps.

The TalentLMS 2026 L&D Benchmark Report describes the current moment clearly: learning is expanding in scope but contracting in space. Organisations are adding more programs, more tools, and more ambitions while the conditions for actual learning, meaning the time, focus, and cognitive bandwidth employees have to learn, keep shrinking.

Against this backdrop, the thought leaders who matter most are not those who narrate global trends from a distance. They are the practitioners, facilitators, researchers, and strategists who are working through the contradictions of modern L&D in real organisations, in real Australian and New Zealand contexts. Some of them are running the learning function at major listed companies.

Some are independent consultants building new frameworks and sharing them publicly. Some are researchers producing evidence that the field desperately needs. Some are community builders bringing L&D practitioners together so the profession does not have to solve every problem alone.

This list brings together fifty of those people. The selection is built around three criteria. First, each person on this list has made a documented and substantive contribution to learning and development through their practice, research, writing, or community leadership in or directly relevant to the Australian and New Zealand context.

Second, each person is actively engaging in public conversations about L&D in 2025 or 2026. Third, the list is deliberately built to surface voices that deserve to be far more widely known in the ANZ L&D space, rather than recycling the same handful of global names that appear on every roundup.

The fifty people on this list span learning strategy, instructional design, learning technology, capability frameworks, learning culture, VET, higher education learning design, government sector learning, defence education, enterprise capability development, and community building across both Australia and New Zealand. If you are responsible for developing people in any organisation in this region, at least a quarter of the voices on this list should already be in your network. If they are not, this is your starting point.

To book Jonno White to facilitate a leadership workshop, Working Genius session, or keynote for your organisation, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Why Learning and Development Matters Now

The stakes for getting L&D right in 2026 are higher than at any previous point in the profession's history. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs research suggests that 39 percent of workforce skills are expected to change by 2030. For most Australian and New Zealand organisations, that timeline is not abstract. The disruption is already here.

A 2025 survey of 600 L&D leaders and practitioners across Australia, New Zealand, the US, and UK conducted by LearnUpon and Censuswide found that the profession is at a genuine inflection point. Leaders understand that learning must align to business outcomes, but the measurement infrastructure to prove that alignment remains underdeveloped. The gap between what organisations need from their L&D functions and what those functions are resourced to deliver has never been wider.

The thought leaders on this list are doing the hard work of closing that gap. They are the people bringing evidence-based approaches to capability development in organisations that have historically treated training as a cost line item rather than a strategic investment. They are the voices helping other practitioners think more clearly, design more effectively, and advocate more persuasively for the value of learning.

For organisations wanting to build genuine learning cultures from the inside out, Jonno White works with executive leadership teams to create the conditions where development can take hold. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to explore how Jonno might support your next leadership team offsite or strategic planning session.

How This List Was Compiled

Every person on this list was selected on three criteria. First, they have made a substantive and documented contribution to learning and development through practice, research, publishing, or sustained community leadership that is specifically rooted in or directly relevant to the Australian or New Zealand context. Second, they are actively engaged in public conversations about L&D in 2025 or 2026. Third, the list was built to surface voices that genuinely deserve to be far better known across the ANZ L&D community, rather than repeating the same names that dominate every global roundup.

The list spans geographic diversity across all Australian states and both major New Zealand cities, disciplinary diversity from instructional design and learning technology through to capability strategy and leadership development, and sector diversity across corporate, government, defence, health, VET, and higher education contexts. It brings together the people who are genuinely shaping how organisations in this region build their capability, and who every serious L&D professional in Australia and New Zealand should know.

The Innovators: L&D Strategists Redefining What the Profession Looks Like

1. Michelle Ockers

The most connected voice in Australian learning and development, Michelle Ockers runs Learning Uncut, a consulting firm and podcast that has become the reference point for ANZ L&D practitioners wanting to understand how great learning actually works inside real organisations. Her podcast has produced over 260 episodes featuring practitioners from across Australia, New Zealand, and globally, sharing real-world case studies with genuine depth and no sales pitch.

Michelle was awarded the 2019 AITD Learning Professional of the Year, and the Internet Time Alliance Jay Cross Memorial Award that same year for her contributions to informal and continuous learning. Her consultancy has worked with organisations including TAFE NSW, National Australia Bank, Qantas, and the Australian Public Service. Her most consistent message, that learning strategy must be grounded in business value rather than content production, has shaped how a generation of ANZ L&D leaders approach their work.

2. Anneli Blundell

Few practitioners in Australian L&D have demonstrated the combination of deep craft, commercial success, and genuine thought leadership that Anneli Blundell brings to her work on communication dynamics and leadership development. Her 2021 win as AITD's L&D Professional of the Year, alongside a Gold Stevie Award for Entrepreneur of the Year, reflected a career built on rigorous behaviour change programs that produce measurable outcomes rather than feel-good workshops that fade by Monday morning.

The author of multiple books including the Amazon bestseller The Gender Penalty: Turning Obstacles into Opportunities for Women at Work and Developing Direct Reports: Taking the Guesswork out of Leading Leaders, Anneli speaks regularly at national and international conferences and has worked with clients including Mercedes-Benz, Telstra, Ernst and Young, and Victoria Police. Her approach to communication as a learnable, designable behaviour, rather than a fixed personality trait, positions her as a genuinely distinctive voice in the ANZ L&D conversation.

3. Ryan Tracey

The author of the E-Learning Provocateur blog and a published book of the same name, Ryan Tracey has been one of Australia's most consistently thoughtful public commentators on corporate learning for over fifteen years. His Masters in Learning Sciences and Technology from the University of Sydney underpins a practice that combines rigorous thinking about evidence and research with direct experience running learning functions in Australia's financial services sector.

Ryan is an AITD Fellow and winner of the Jay Cross Memorial Award, which places him alongside a small group of globally recognised practitioners who have made genuine contributions to the advancement of informal learning. His writing on skills-based learning strategy, AI and learning, and the evidence basis for instructional decisions is among the clearest and most honest available from any Australian practitioner. His annual list of L&D conferences in Australia and New Zealand has become a community resource that many practitioners rely on.

4. Lindsey Leigh Hobson

The Founder of The Learning and Development Collective, which has grown into a network of over 750 L&D professionals across Australia, the US, and internationally, Lindsey Leigh Hobson has done more than almost anyone else in Australia to build community infrastructure for L&D practitioners at every stage of their career. She is now CEO of Future Untamed, a leadership development agency focused on integrating AI-driven technology with human learning design.

Lindsey holds a LinkedIn Top Voice recognition in Mentoring and is National Lead for the Professional Speakers Australia Chapter President Council. Her recognition as a 2025 Global Recognition Award recipient for Leadership confirms that her community-building work extends well beyond a social media presence into genuine organisational impact. For emerging L&D practitioners in Australia, the community she has built has been a significant contribution to a profession that historically lacked a strong grassroots connection point.

5. Dr Denise Meyerson

One of Australia's most experienced voices in vocational and corporate learning, Dr Denise Meyerson brings over 35 years of practice to her role as Founder of The Focus Learning Group and MCI Solutions. Her doctorate and her early career in VET education led her toward innovative learning design, and over time her work has touched over 35,000 students through MCI's qualification programs. She was one of the first four Master Trainers of the LEGO Serious Play facilitation methodology globally.

Denise has been recognised with more than 29 awards from AHRI and AITD, and MCI was featured in the AFR's list of Australia's Most Innovative Companies as the only training provider included. She is a visiting scholar at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of three books on learning. Her breadth of experience across VET, corporate learning, and learning innovation, and her willingness to engage publicly with hard questions about what actually works, make her a genuinely distinctive contributor to the ANZ L&D conversation.

6. Gabrielle Dolan

A global expert on business storytelling and real communication, Melbourne-based Gabrielle Dolan has worked with thousands of leaders across Australia and internationally to help them communicate in ways that genuinely connect and influence. She is the founder of Jargon Free Fridays and the bestselling author of eight books, most recently Story Intelligence: The Craft of Authentic Storytelling Made Smarter with AI, published globally by Wiley in November 2025.

Her L&D contribution is distinct: Gabrielle sits at the intersection of leadership communication, storytelling, and learning design, arguing that the way we communicate inside organisations is itself a capability that must be deliberately developed. Her work with the Obama Foundation, EY, Accenture, Telstra, and Amazon, as well as her 2020 recognition as Communicator of the Year by the International Association of Business Communicators, positions her as a practitioner whose thinking on communication and leadership has shaped how organisations approach executive development.

7. Ben Campbell

As CEO of the Australian Institute of Training and Development, the peak professional body for L&D practitioners in Australia, Ben Campbell holds one of the most strategically significant positions in the Australian learning and development landscape. AITD has over 12,000 followers across its community and has been the primary professional home for Australian L&D practitioners since 1971.

Ben brings more than 30 years of experience in the not-for-profit sector to AITD's leadership, having worked across educational and community organisations at a senior level throughout that career. His leadership of the AITD Capability Framework development, a community-built project that the organisation describes as Australia's first comprehensive framework built by the L&D community for the L&D community, reflects a commitment to making the professional body genuinely useful to practitioners rather than simply prestigious. The AITD Conference 2026 at Sofitel Brisbane, featuring 50+ speakers and 300+ L&D professionals, is the largest single gathering of learning professionals in Australia.

8. Keith Heggart

A Senior Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney and Director of the Centre for Research on Education in a Digital Society, Keith Heggart brings an academic voice to the ANZ L&D conversation that is both rigorous and practically grounded. His research focuses on learning design, educational technology, and the evidence base for effective learning in digital environments.

Keith was named a recipient of the 2025 Australian Schools Plus Teaching Awards and holds Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. He has built a body of research on blended and online learning that is directly useful for practitioners designing learning in complex organisations, and has created the Graduate Certificate in Learning Design at UTS, one of Australia's most practically oriented academic programs for L&D professionals. His active LinkedIn presence and willingness to engage with both the evidence and the practice of learning design make him a valuable voice for practitioners who want to understand what the research says.

The Practitioners: Community Builders and Craft Masters

9. Lachy Gray

Co-founder and Managing Director of Yarno, Australia's microlearning platform, and co-host of the Make it Work podcast alongside Karen Kirton, Lachy Gray has built a dual contribution to the ANZ L&D community: a technology platform that helps organisations embed learning in the flow of work, and a podcast that explores what the future of work requires of learning leaders and practitioners.

Lachy's writing and speaking on microlearning, skills development, and the future of workplace learning have made him one of the most regularly cited voices on practical L&D solutions in Australia. His perspective is grounded in direct work with hundreds of Australian organisations using Yarno's platform, which gives him a data-informed view of what learning interventions actually change behaviour and what simply creates the appearance of learning activity.

10. Karen Kirton

Founder of Amplify HR and co-host of the Make it Work podcast, Karen Kirton has built a reputation as one of Australia's most practical voices on the intersection of HR strategy, people leadership, and learning development. Her work through Amplify HR helps organisations think through the human dimensions of workforce transformation, including how upskilling, reskilling, and capability development need to connect to culture and leadership to produce genuine results.

The Make it Work podcast, which Karen co-hosts with Lachy Gray, has explored topics including upskilling priorities, hybrid working models, psychological safety, and the future skills that leaders need to develop in their teams. Karen's ability to connect L&D strategy to broader people and culture questions makes her a distinctive contributor to the ANZ conversation on workforce development.

11. Kade Brown

Director of Workforce Solutions at RMIT Online, Kade Brown sits at the intersection of higher education, skills strategy, and corporate learning. His role involves partnering with enterprises and governments to identify skills challenges facing their workforces and designing learning solutions built around those challenges rather than around existing course catalogues.

A former school teacher who retrained into strategy consulting before finding his focus at RMIT Online, Kade has been a prominent voice at AITD and other ANZ L&D events on skills-based learning, the future of work, and how universities and organisations can design learning partnerships that produce genuine workforce readiness rather than credentials that trail the actual skills demand. His research with Deloitte Access Economics on skills and talent diversity in Australia's tech workforce has contributed evidence that practitioners can use to make the case for more sophisticated approaches to capability development.

12. Ryan Byrne

Senior Manager of Capability and Learning at Sydney Trains, Ryan Byrne leads the learning function for one of Australia's largest and most operationally complex organisations. His work on large-scale learning programs for government and private sector organisations has earned recognition for excellence in employee engagement, gamified learning, and blended learning solutions that serve frontline workers in safety-critical environments.

Ryan's contribution to the ANZ L&D conversation is anchored in the practical realities of running a learning function at significant scale, with constrained budgets and genuine accountability for outcomes. His presentations at AITD conferences and his work building Sydney Trains' capability programs have made him a reference point for practitioners navigating the gap between learning theory and the operational demands of large organisations.

13. Lisa Elias

A Fellow of AITD, Lisa Elias has made one of the most significant structural contributions to the Australian L&D profession through her lead role as editor and working group leader in the development of the AITD L&D Capability Framework. This framework, built by the community for the community and launched in 2025, provides Australian L&D practitioners with the first comprehensive competency map specific to their professional context.

Lisa's work spans learning and organisational development, capability frameworks, and executive roles in L&D and People and Culture across professional services, financial services, government, and education. Her commitment to making the L&D profession more legible and credible, both internally to organisations and externally to stakeholders, has shaped how a generation of practitioners think about their own development and career pathways.

14. Beth Hall

Founder and Director of Culture Edge and a regular event chair at Australia's leading L&D conferences, Beth Hall brings a background in global organisational development to her consulting work on learning culture, high performance, and workforce capability. Her career includes serving as Global Head of Organisational Development at Cotton On Group and General Manager of Standards and Capability at AHRI.

Beth's thinking on learning culture is grounded in the belief that learning does not happen in training programs, it happens in the conditions that leadership creates. Her ability to connect learning strategy to broader culture and performance system design makes her a valuable voice for practitioners trying to build the executive-level case for investing in genuine capability development rather than compliance activity dressed as development.

15. Deanne Boules

Founder and Chief Enabling Officer of Insync Workplace Solutions and The Centre for Human-Centred Leadership, Deanne Boules began her career as a police officer before spending over 20 years building expertise in human-centred leadership, change, and workplace safety. Her mission to build organisations that are genuinely inclusive, safe, and high performing drives both her consulting practice and her public contribution to L&D conversations.

Deanne's background in regulatory and corporate roles gives her a perspective on workplace safety, psychological safety, and inclusive design that crosses boundaries most L&D practitioners operate within. Her speaking at AITD and other Australian conferences, and her extensive writing on how to build workplaces where every person can bring their full capability, make her a genuinely distinctive voice in the ANZ L&D community.

16. Amanda Barnard

An executive with over 25 years of experience in People, Culture, and Capability, Amanda Barnard most recently led the Global Learning Culture team at Adobe, where her team supported over 15,000 Adobe employees through a significant shift in how AI was integrated into their ways of working. Her focus on personal leadership, human creativity, and the role of humanity in the development of AI capabilities positions her at the leading edge of the conversation about what L&D must do differently as AI reshapes the workforce.

Amanda's willingness to engage publicly with the tensions between technological acceleration and the human skills that cannot be automated makes her a thoughtful contributor to the ANZ L&D conversation. Her experience leading learning culture globally for one of the world's most recognised technology companies gives her direct credibility on the questions that matter most for Australian organisations navigating the same transition.

The Enterprise Leaders: Learning at Scale

17. Michelle Fichmann

General Manager of Organisational Development and Learning at Ramsay Health Care, Michelle Fichmann leads the learning function for one of Australia's largest private hospital operators. Her experience building learning strategies that serve a clinical workforce across geographically dispersed sites, with genuine accountability for patient outcomes and clinical governance, makes her a reference point for practitioners working in complex, regulated, and safety-critical environments.

Michelle's public engagement at Australia's L&D forums and conferences reflects a commitment to sharing what she has learned about building capability at scale, including the practical realities of measuring learning impact when the outcome that matters most is a clinical one that is several steps removed from any training event.

18. Mark McLaren

Head of Talent and Capability at Bunnings, Mark McLaren leads people development for one of Australia's most recognised and operationally intensive retailers. Building genuine capability across a frontline workforce that spans hundreds of sites and tens of thousands of employees is one of the most demanding L&D challenges in Australian business, and Mark's work in this environment has made him a valued voice at enterprise L&D forums on how to design learning that scales.

His thinking on the intersection of frontline capability development, business performance, and workforce agility reflects the practical realities of L&D at one of Australia's most operationally demanding employers.

19. Deepti Sachdeva

Head of Learning for Workforce Transformation at Westpac, Deepti Sachdeva leads the learning function supporting one of Australia's largest financial institutions through a period of significant organisational transformation. Her work on capability development in the context of digital transformation, AI adoption, and workforce restructuring makes her a practitioner whose experience is directly relevant to the questions facing most large Australian organisations in 2026.

Deepti's involvement in Australia's most senior L&D forums reflects the scale of her responsibility and the quality of her thinking on how learning strategy must connect to business transformation to produce genuine capability outcomes rather than training activity.

20. Liz Ranieri

Executive for Talent and Learning at Telstra, Liz Ranieri leads the learning and capability function for Australia's largest telecommunications company. Telstra has been recognised publicly for its approach to workforce development, and Liz's leadership of that function reflects both the scale of the challenge and the sophistication of the strategy required to build genuine capability in a workforce undergoing rapid transformation.

Her participation in Australia's L&D Leadership Forum and other senior practitioner events positions her as one of the most senior and visible enterprise L&D leaders in Australia, with a perspective on capability development at scale that is directly relevant for practitioners navigating similar challenges.

21. Kerrie Robertson

Head of Leadership and Capability at Kmart, Kerrie Robertson leads people development for one of Australia's most recognised retail brands. Building leadership capability across a retailer with thousands of frontline employees and hundreds of sites involves solving the classic enterprise L&D problem: how do you make leadership development consistent, accessible, and genuinely useful when the context varies enormously across locations and roles?

Kerrie's engagement at Australia's L&D forums reflects her commitment to sharing practical approaches to this challenge and her willingness to engage publicly with the tensions between learning ambition and operational reality.

22. Chad Burke

General Manager of Learning and Development at Metro Trains Melbourne, Chad Burke leads the learning function for a critical public infrastructure operator with genuine safety obligations and a workforce that spans operational, technical, and corporate roles. His experience building learning systems for a transport organisation positions him as a practitioner with direct expertise in the intersection of safety, capability, and operational performance that many Australian L&D leaders are navigating.

Chad's participation in Australia's most senior L&D events and his thinking on how to build workforce capability in regulated industries contribute a perspective that is underrepresented in most L&D thought leadership.

23. Justine Macrae

Head of Learning, Talent, and Culture at Laing O'Rourke in Australia, Justine Macrae brings over 25 years of senior experience in learning, talent management, and people strategy to her role at one of Australia's most significant construction and engineering companies. Her background includes senior roles at KPMG Australia, the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation, and global leadership development assignments.

Justine holds a Master of Science in Coaching Psychology from the University of Sydney, grounding her practice in evidence-based approaches to leader development. Her particular expertise in cultural transformation programs and the design and delivery of leadership development for global talent pipelines makes her a genuinely distinctive voice in the ANZ enterprise L&D community.

24. Fiona Hogan

Head of Learning for the Pacific at Schneider Electric, Fiona Hogan leads capability transformation for one of the world's leading energy management companies across the Pacific region. Her expertise in enterprise-level curriculum architecture and her record of guiding capability development in complex, evolving environments have made her a recognised voice on how to build learning systems that bridge local needs and global enterprise ambition.

Fiona's contribution to Australia's L&D forums reflects a commitment to sharing what she has learned about building learning ecosystems that are genuinely future-focused and practically achievable, not just strategically sophisticated on paper.

25. Kate Black

A senior leader in Learning and Organisational Development with a career spanning financial services, manufacturing, energy, and gaming and entertainment, Kate Black has earned multiple awards for her contributions to organisational development across distinctly different industries. Her work at The Lottery Corporation reflects an ability to build learning strategy that connects capability development to culture, commercial outcomes, and organisational design.

Kate's speaking at Australia's L&D forums and her thinking on how to design learning that actually aligns with what the business needs rather than what the training function finds easiest to deliver makes her a useful reference point for practitioners working in organisations where the connection between learning and business performance is not yet clearly made.

26. Phillip Wells

Head of People Development and Learning at L'Oreal Groupe, Phillip Wells leads capability development for one of the world's most recognised consumer goods companies across the Australian market. Building learning culture inside a global corporation with strong brand culture and clear commercial expectations requires a practitioner who can navigate the intersection of global strategy and local context, which is exactly the challenge Phillip has built expertise in.

His participation in Australia's most senior L&D forums reflects both the scale of his responsibility and his commitment to engaging publicly with the questions that matter for enterprise L&D leaders navigating transformation.

27. Samantha Fernando

Learning and Leadership Leader at Aurecon, an engineering and advisory firm operating across Australia, New Zealand, and beyond, Samantha Fernando has built expertise in designing learning that serves highly technical and professional workforces with genuine accountability for the quality of their work. Engineering and consulting organisations are among the most demanding environments for L&D practitioners, because the workforce is highly credentialled and sceptical of generic development that does not connect to real technical or professional challenge.

Samantha's engagement at Australia's L&D forums and her thinking on how to build learning strategy for professional services organisations makes her a valuable voice for practitioners working in similar environments.

28. Millie Law

Enterprise Capability Lead for Talent and Culture at ANZ, Millie Law leads capability strategy for one of Australia's major banks through a period of significant workforce transformation driven by digital change and skills evolution. Her work on enterprise-level capability frameworks and her thinking on how to align learning investment to business transformation outcomes reflect the strategic sophistication that the most advanced ANZ organisations are bringing to their L&D functions.

Millie's participation in Australia's L&D forums positions her as one of the more visible enterprise capability leaders in Australian financial services, with a perspective on building learning cultures inside large institutions that is directly relevant to practitioners working in similar contexts.

29. Vanessa Blewitt

An Enterprise Capability leader at NAB, Vanessa Blewitt has built a reputation as a creative and cross-functional problem solver who approaches capability development with genuine strategic thinking. Her public profile describes her as someone who shapes ideas, people, and possibilities, working across teams and contexts to build the kind of workforce capability that supports large organisations through change.

Vanessa's involvement in Australia's L&D Leadership Forum reflects the level of her responsibility and her willingness to share what she has learned about building capability at enterprise scale in one of Australia's most complex financial institutions.

30. Bonnie Richards

Director of Capability and Organisational Effectiveness at Treasury Wine Estates, Bonnie Richards leads people development for one of Australia's most internationally recognised wine and hospitality brands. Building capability for a workforce that spans vineyard, hospitality, commercial, and corporate roles across multiple countries requires a practitioner who can design learning that is genuinely fit for context rather than generically excellent on paper.

Bonnie's participation in Australia's L&D Leadership Forum and her thinking on how to align capability development to business performance and strategic goals contribute a commercial perspective that is valuable for practitioners working in organisations where L&D must demonstrate clear ROI.

31. Hannah Ryan

Learning and Capability Manager at Versent, an Australian technology consultancy recognised with the 2025 AITD Excellence Award for Best Learning Culture, Hannah Ryan built a genuine learning culture at a company where she was the first and only dedicated L&D professional. Her approach moved from managing an LMS and a leadership program to enabling learning in the flow of work through peer-led programs and community structures that multiplied her impact beyond what a single practitioner could achieve alone.

Hannah's work was featured on Michelle Ockers' Learning Uncut podcast, where she shared the specific frameworks and decisions that helped Versent build a learning culture that the industry recognised as outstanding. Her experience provides a practical model for practitioners working as sole L&D practitioners in growing organisations.

32. Tas Papasimeon

Global Senior Manager of Learning and Development at Nissan Motor Corporation, Tas Papasimeon brings an international and automotive industry perspective to his L&D work that adds diversity to a field that sometimes defaults to generic corporate examples. His global role means that his thinking on capability development reflects the complexity of building learning cultures across national borders and cultural contexts, not just within a single country.

Tas's participation in Australia's L&D forums, including the 2026 L&D Forum, reflects a commitment to sharing his international perspective with the ANZ L&D community and engaging with the practical challenges that practitioners across the region are navigating.

The Specialists: Deep Expertise in Critical Dimensions of L&D

33. Sophie Hardman

A Learning Consultant at KPMG Australia with over a decade of experience, Sophie Hardman co-founded the KPMG Learning Design Studio alongside colleagues Sasha Wrublewski and Emily Stocks. This initiative transformed instructional design at KPMG by integrating AI tools to make the creation of high-quality learning experiences more efficient and agile without sacrificing quality.

Sophie's work on how AI can partner with learning experts to streamline the design process at scale is among the most practically useful thinking on AI and L&D available from an Australian practitioner. Her focus on real-world case studies and on maintaining human oversight of AI-generated content reflects the kind of rigorous thinking the ANZ L&D community needs as the technology becomes more accessible.

34. Jemma Hirst

Head of Tech Training at Grant Thornton Australia, Jemma Hirst has built direct expertise in the practical integration of generative AI into professional services workforces. Her work leading the adoption of AI tools across Grant Thornton's Australian operations resulted in significant time savings and efficiency gains, and her focus on responsible, effective, and personalised AI adoption reflects the broader challenge facing L&D leaders across Australian organisations.

Jemma's thinking on how AI can support the adult learning journey, enhance personalised learning experiences, and use data-driven insights for continuous improvement in training programs positions her at the leading edge of the AI and learning conversation in the ANZ context.

35. Colonel Karina Jones

Director of Army Education and Learning Systems at the Royal Australian Army Educational Corps, Colonel Karina Jones leads the learning function for the Australian Army, one of the most demanding and complex L&D environments in any organisation in Australia. Military learning systems must produce genuine capability in high-stakes environments where failure has irreversible consequences, which requires a level of rigour in learning design, measurement, and continuous improvement that most corporate L&D functions aspire to but rarely achieve.

Karina's engagement with Australia's broader L&D community through forums and events reflects a commitment to sharing the insights from military learning with civilian practitioners and contributing her perspective on how to build resilient, adaptive capability in complex organisations.

36. Mei-Ling Chin

With over 20 years of experience in the creative technology industry across London, Paris, and Asia before making her home in Australia, Mei-Ling Chin has built a distinctive practice around LEGO Serious Play facilitation and the role of creative and kinaesthetic methods in learning design. Her integration of Lego Serious Play methodology into strategic thinking, deep connection, and problem-solving work inside organisations positions her at the intersection of play, learning, and organisational development.

Mei-Ling's contribution to AITD and the Australian L&D community reflects a commitment to expanding the toolkit available to practitioners beyond slide decks and digital platforms, toward facilitation methods that engage participants at a different cognitive and emotional level.

37. Felicity Harrison

An L&D professional with over 20 years of experience across finance, FMCG, and pharmaceuticals, Felicity Harrison has spent the past eight years at Ego Pharmaceuticals building a strong learning culture from the ground up. Her expertise spans technical learning and operational excellence through to team dynamics and leadership capability development.

Felicity's passion for creating holistic learning ecosystems that empower individuals and teams to grow, perform, and adapt in dynamic environments reflects the kind of whole-system thinking that distinguishes effective L&D professionals from those who focus only on program delivery. Her AITD engagement and her work building learning culture in a mid-sized pharmaceutical company make her a useful reference point for practitioners in similar organisations.

38. Mark Eggers

Co-founder and Head of Sales at Yarno, the Australian microlearning platform, Mark Eggers contributes to the ANZ L&D community through his direct work with organisations trying to embed and reinforce learning in the flow of work. As a certified project manager and former executive at a digital agency, Mark brings commercial and technical perspectives to the practical challenge of designing learning that fits into how employees actually work, rather than requiring them to step away from work to learn.

His participation in AITD and his work building Yarno's commercial partnerships with hundreds of Australian organisations have given him a grounded understanding of where learning investments produce results and where they disappear without trace.

The New Zealand Voices: Shaping L&D Across the Tasman

39. Phil Garing

Managing Director and founder of Synapsys NZ, Phil Garing has over 30 years of experience building learning solutions for New Zealand organisations. He founded Synapsys in 2004 after two decades developing flexible, open, and eLearning solutions, and the company has become one of Aotearoa New Zealand's most respected learning design and strategy consultancies.

Phil won the 2025 NZATD L&D Strategist award, the highest individual recognition for strategic learning and development work in New Zealand. His thinking on learning strategy, the value and return on investment of L&D activity, and the emerging role of AI in learning design has positioned him as the most credentialled L&D strategy voice in New Zealand's practitioner community.

40. Maire Smith

Learning Design Lead at Synapsys NZ and winner of the 2025 NZATD L&D Consultant award, Maire Smith is one of New Zealand's most recognised and credentialled learning designers. Her work creating impactful capability uplift programmes for New Zealand organisations reflects a rigorous and empathetic approach to learning design grounded in the actual contexts and needs of New Zealand learners.

Maire's use of empathy mapping to improve learner engagement, her commitment to evaluation beyond happy sheets, and her development of Synapsys' evaluation tool for tracking meaningful behavioural change after learning reflect the kind of evidence-based thinking that distinguishes outstanding learning design from generic content production.

41. Meia Lopez

The 2025 NZATD L&D Practitioner of the Year, the highest individual recognition in New Zealand's L&D profession, Meia Lopez works at Site Safe New Zealand and has built a reputation for designing learning that addresses genuinely difficult challenges in safety education. Her NZATD award recognised work on national cervical screening eLearning modules and other projects that serve diverse, often underserved, learner populations.

Meia's willingness to engage with the hard design questions that arise when learners are stressed, distracted, or learning about sensitive topics in high-stakes contexts makes her a distinctive and valuable voice in the ANZ L&D community.

42. Bonita Misilisi

The 2025 NZATD L&D Manager of the Year, Bonita Misilisi leads the learning function at Fulton Hogan, one of New Zealand and Australia's largest construction and infrastructure companies. Building learning culture in a construction workforce involves navigating genuinely distinctive constraints around workplace learning, safety-critical skill development, and the practical reality that many workers do not have access to screen-based learning during their working day.

Bonita's NZATD recognition reflects the quality of her practice and her contribution to the New Zealand L&D community beyond her own organisation. Her work at Fulton Hogan provides a practical model for practitioners in trades, infrastructure, and frontline environments.

43. Paul McNab

An L&D Strategist at New Zealand Police and finalist for the 2025 NZATD L&D Strategist award, Paul McNab leads capability development for one of New Zealand's most recognised public sector organisations. Building learning strategy for a police force requires navigating the full complexity of public sector L&D, including workforce size, geographic distribution, shift work, safety-critical skill development, and the particular demands of serving a diverse public.

Paul's NZATD recognition and his work building L&D strategy at NZ Police contribute a public sector perspective that is valuable for the many practitioners working in government and regulated organisations across Aotearoa.

44. Helen McPhun

Founder of 4Clarity Consulting and finalist for the 2025 NZATD L&D Practitioner of the Year, Helen McPhun has built a consulting practice focused on delivering clarity and practical capability to New Zealand organisations navigating learning challenges. Her practice reflects the kind of independent consulting that is essential to a healthy L&D ecosystem, providing organisations access to expertise without requiring them to build full internal learning functions.

Helen's NZATD recognition and her ongoing contribution to the New Zealand L&D community make her a valuable voice for practitioners who are building their own consulting practices or working with consultants to improve their organisations' capability development.

45. Olivia Dodd

The 2025 NZATD L&D Team Member award winner, Olivia Dodd works in the learning and development function at KPMG New Zealand and has been recognised for her contribution to the practice of L&D from an early career perspective. KPMG New Zealand's learning function is one of the most sophisticated in the country, and Olivia's recognition reflects the quality of her work within that environment.

Her contribution to the NZATD community and her award recognition position her as a valuable voice representing the next generation of New Zealand L&D practitioners, whose perspective on digital learning, AI, and the evolution of the profession is directly shaped by having grown up with these tools as the default rather than the disruption.

46. Loz Wootton

A finalist for the 2025 NZATD L&D Consultant award and practitioner at Whanake Learning, Loz Wootton has built expertise in the human dimensions of learning design and capability development in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her practice reflects a commitment to understanding the unique contexts of New Zealand organisations, including the significance of te Tiriti o Waitangi and matauranga Maori to how learning is designed and delivered in this country.

Loz's NZATD recognition and her work through Whanake Learning contribute a perspective on learning design that takes cultural context seriously as a design constraint and an opportunity rather than a compliance checkbox.

47. Debbie MacDonald

An L&D Strategist finalist at the 2025 NZATD awards and a learning and development leader at GPC New Zealand, Debbie MacDonald has built expertise in building learning capability within organisations that are navigating the practical demands of skill development in regulated, technical, and trade environments. Her work in New Zealand reflects the specific challenges of L&D in a small country with strong relationships between industry, education, and government.

Debbie's NZATD recognition and her contribution to the New Zealand L&D community through her work at GPC and her engagement with the professional association make her a valued voice for practitioners working in similar operational contexts.

48. Ganga Sudhan

An L&D Strategist finalist at the 2025 NZATD awards and a learning and development leader at Responsive Trade Education, Ganga Sudhan has built expertise in the intersection of trade education, workforce development, and the specific needs of learners entering or transitioning within New Zealand's trade and technical workforce. Her work at the intersection of L&D and vocational education reflects a genuinely important dimension of the ANZ learning landscape that is underrepresented in most thought leadership.

Ganga's NZATD recognition and her work in trade education contribute a perspective on learning design that is directly relevant for practitioners working in VET, apprenticeship, and skills development contexts.

49. Natasha Thomas

An L&D Team Member finalist at the 2025 NZATD awards and a learning professional at SICE Ltd, Natasha Thomas brings a practitioner perspective that is grounded in the day-to-day realities of designing and delivering learning in a New Zealand technical and engineering company. Her NZATD recognition reflects a commitment to the craft of learning design that goes beyond job requirements into genuine professional development and community engagement.

Natasha's contribution to the New Zealand L&D community represents the kind of grassroots practitioner energy that is essential to a healthy profession and that is often invisible on global thought leadership lists.

50. Michelle Martin

An L&D Manager finalist at the 2025 NZATD awards and a learning leader at FIRST Security, Michelle Martin has built expertise in the practical challenges of designing and delivering capability development for a security services workforce. Security and protective services organisations face distinctive L&D challenges around physical skills, regulatory compliance, and the particular demands of training people whose work requires split-second judgement in high-stakes situations.

Michelle's NZATD recognition and her contribution to the New Zealand L&D community through her work at FIRST Security add both sector diversity and a New Zealand practitioner voice to a list that otherwise risks being dominated by corporate and consulting contexts.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

Several voices were seriously considered for this list but were ultimately not included. Globally, figures like Josh Bersin, Donald H Taylor, and Charles Jennings appear on virtually every L&D roundup, and their contributions to the field over decades are genuinely significant. This list deliberately moved past those household names to surface voices that every ANZ practitioner deserves to know, rather than recirculating names that every reader has already encountered many times. Within the ANZ space, several corporate L&D leaders were considered but could not be verified against the public engagement criteria required for inclusion in this particular format. They are doing important work that may be better surfaced through AITD and NZATD community channels.

Common Mistakes L&D Leaders in ANZ Make

The most costly mistake L&D leaders make in Australian and New Zealand organisations is designing learning as a response to a training request rather than as a response to a performance problem. When a manager says "my team needs training on X," the correct response is almost never to design a training program on X. The correct response is to investigate whether a learning gap is actually the cause of the performance problem, or whether the problem sits somewhere else entirely, in process, resources, expectations, feedback, or motivation. Designing training for problems that training cannot solve is the single biggest waste of L&D investment in ANZ organisations.

The second common mistake is measuring learning activity rather than learning impact. Completion rates, attendance numbers, and satisfaction scores are not evidence that anything changed. They are evidence that something happened. The thought leaders on this list are almost uniformly working to shift organisations toward measurement frameworks that connect learning to the behaviours and outcomes that actually matter for organisational performance.

A third persistent mistake is building learning that requires learners to step away from work to access it, when the most powerful learning happens in the flow of work itself. Several practitioners on this list, including Ryan Tracey, Lachy Gray, Michelle Ockers, and Phil Garing, have written and spoken extensively about how organisations can design learning environments rather than learning events and why that distinction matters for whether capability development actually sticks.

The fourth mistake is treating L&D as a separate function from leadership development. The research on this is clear: learning cultures are created by leaders who learn visibly, who ask questions rather than performing certainty, and who create psychological safety for the people around them to experiment and make mistakes. An L&D function that focuses only on programs rather than on shaping the leadership behaviours that determine whether learning can happen at all is leaving most of its potential impact on the table.

Finally, many ANZ L&D functions underinvest in the development of their own practitioners. The people designing and delivering learning experiences need to be among the most sophisticated learners in any organisation. The professional bodies, conferences, podcasts, and community networks listed here exist to support that development, and the L&D leaders who do not invest in their own team's growth are undermining the very capability they are trying to build for others.

Implementation Guide: How to Use This List

Start by identifying the five or six people on this list whose work is most directly relevant to the challenges you are facing right now. Do not try to follow all fifty simultaneously. Quality of engagement matters more than breadth of exposure, and the real value of connecting with any thought leader comes from applying their ideas to your own context, not from passively consuming their content.

For most practitioners, the highest leverage starting point is Michelle Ockers' Learning Uncut podcast. With over 260 episodes featuring genuine practitioners sharing genuine case studies, it provides the most direct access to real-world experience at genuine depth available anywhere in the ANZ L&D community. Subscribe and listen to five or six episodes on topics that match your current challenges.

If you are building a learning strategy from scratch or updating an existing one, Phil Garing's work at Synapsys NZ and Maire Smith's published thinking on learning evaluation provide the most practically grounded starting points available from within the ANZ context.

If you are working as a sole practitioner or in a small L&D team, Lindsey Leigh Hobson's Learning and Development Collective is the community infrastructure that gives you access to a network of practitioners with similar challenges and genuine willingness to share what they have learned.

If you are working in a large enterprise and need to make the case for more strategic investment in learning, the combined experience of the enterprise L&D leaders on this list, from Michelle Fichmann at Ramsay Health Care to Deepti Sachdeva at Westpac, provides a powerful reference set for how the most sophisticated Australian organisations are approaching the challenge.

Finally, attend the AITD Conference and, if you are in New Zealand, the NZATD Conference. The people on this list show up there. The relationships you build in person are the ones that last and compound.

To bring Jonno White into your organisation for a leadership workshop, Working Genius facilitation, or executive team offsite, email jonno@consultclarity.org. International travel is often more affordable than organisations expect, and Jonno works with organisations across Australia, New Zealand, and globally.

Frequently Asked Questions

How was this list compiled?

Every person on this list was selected based on three criteria: documented and substantive contribution to L&D in or directly relevant to Australia and New Zealand; active engagement in public conversations about L&D in 2025 or 2026; and a commitment to building genuine capability in ANZ organisations rather than simply maintaining a high-profile presence. The list spans practitioners, researchers, enterprise leaders, consultants, and community builders across all Australian states and both major New Zealand cities.

Can I hire someone to facilitate leadership development workshops or team sessions?

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out, and experienced executive team offsite facilitator who works with organisations across Australia, New Zealand, and internationally. If your organisation is looking for facilitation that builds genuine team capability rather than ticking a development checkbox, email jonno@consultclarity.org. Many organisations find that flying Jonno in costs less than engaging local providers, and his work integrates well with the kind of learning culture work that the practitioners on this list are advancing.

What is AITD?

The Australian Institute of Training and Development is the peak professional body for L&D practitioners in Australia. Founded in 1971, it provides courses, events, community connections, and the annual AITD Excellence Awards that recognise outstanding learning initiatives and practitioners. Ben Campbell, who appears at number seven on this list, serves as its current CEO.

What is NZATD?

The New Zealand Association for Training and Development is the professional body for workplace learning, development, and performance specialists in Aotearoa New Zealand. It runs the annual NZATD Awards, which recognise outstanding individual practitioners and learning initiatives, and the Tahu Ignite annual conference. Several New Zealand practitioners on this list have been recognised through NZATD's awards.

What are the most important trends in ANZ L&D right now?

The three trends that the thought leaders on this list discuss most consistently are: the integration of AI into learning design and delivery; the shift from measuring learning activity to measuring learning impact on business outcomes; and the growing recognition that learning culture is a leadership responsibility, not an L&D program. Ryan Tracey, Michelle Ockers, and Phil Garing have all written or spoken recently on all three of these themes in an ANZ context.

Should L&D practitioners follow global thought leaders or focus on ANZ voices?

Both. Global voices like Donald H Taylor, Josh Bersin, and Charles Jennings provide important context for where the profession is heading globally. But the specific regulatory environment, organisational culture, and workforce demographics of Australian and New Zealand organisations mean that global frameworks must always be applied with local judgment. The practitioners on this list provide that local judgment, grounded in actual experience working in ANZ organisations.

Final Thoughts

Australian and New Zealand organisations have access to a remarkable body of L&D talent. The fifty people on this list represent a fraction of the practitioners doing important work in this region, but they are among the most publicly engaged, the most practically grounded, and the most committed to advancing the profession rather than simply practising within it.

The word "learning" in learning and development is the important one. The most sophisticated L&D practitioners understand that their job is not to produce training programs. Their job is to change what people know, believe, can do, and actually do inside their organisations. That is a harder problem than content production, and it requires the kind of thinking, evidence, and professional community that the voices on this list are building together.

If you are in a leadership role in any Australian or New Zealand organisation and you have not yet invested in building a genuine learning culture, the place to start is not with a program. It is with a conversation with your leadership team about what kind of organisation you want to build, and what it would take to make learning central to how you build it. Jonno White facilitates exactly those conversations, bringing a Working Genius facilitation approach and a deep understanding of team dynamics and leadership development to executive teams that are ready to think differently about how their people grow.

Email jonno@consultclarity.org to start that conversation.

His book Step Up or Step Out, which has sold over 10,000 copies globally, addresses the difficult conversation and accountability skills that underpin genuine leadership growth and that every team on the journey to a genuine learning culture will need.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230+ 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, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements. Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected.

To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Next Read

If you found this list useful, the next most valuable read for understanding the landscape of talent and people development in Australia is the list of the 50 Essential Thought Leaders in Human Resources in Australia and New Zealand. That post covers the HR leaders whose decisions about workforce strategy, talent management, and organisational design determine the context in which L&D operates. Understanding that community is essential for any L&D practitioner who wants their work to connect to the decisions that actually shape how organisations develop their people.

Keep reading: consultclarity.org/post/thought-leaders-human-resources-australia-new-zealand