20 Organisational Development Leaders: Australia/NZ

Last updated: August 2026

Organisational development is the practical work of helping an organisation become clearer, healthier and more capable. It touches leadership, culture, structure, learning, workforce planning, performance and the everyday behaviours that turn strategy into work.

This list brings together 20 people working across Australia and New Zealand in roles that connect people and organisational systems. It includes internal people leaders, public-sector capability leaders, specialist practitioners and advisers whose work helps organisations change in useful ways.

The list is a recognition directory, not a ranking. The entries are arranged for easy reading, and each one focuses on a current role and a specific contribution that helps explain why the person belongs in an organisational development conversation.

Why organisational development matters.

A good strategy can still fail if the organisation cannot make decisions, build capability or work together consistently. Organisational development helps leaders look at the whole system, including the structure, skills, habits and relationships that shape performance.

The leaders below show how broad the field has become. Some work on culture and performance inside large organisations. Others focus on workforce capability, leadership development, people technology, public-sector learning or organisation design.

For readers, the value is practical. This list can help you find people to follow, compare different role designs, notice useful themes in current people work or sharpen a brief for a leadership, culture or capability project.

1. Thomas Bailey

Head of Learning and Development, OFX

Thomas Bailey is the Head of Learning and Development at OFX, a role that places learning close to the work of building capability in a complex organisation. His profile also shows sustained service to the learning profession through the AITD NSW council and earlier leadership of the NSW division.

That combination matters because organisational development is not just about delivering courses. It is about making learning useful to the decisions, behaviours and performance standards that shape everyday work.

2. Ruth Bailey-Osborne

Associate, LEAD Centre for Not for Profit Leadership

Ruth Bailey-Osborne works with leaders and managers at LEAD Centre for Not for Profit Leadership. Her work brings together organisation development and change management with coaching, facilitation, strategic communication and mentoring.

That mix is especially relevant to organisations where the work is important, resources are limited and leaders need to turn good intentions into practical systems. Ruth offers a useful example of development work that stays close to mission, people and implementation.

3. Tamsin Bate

Head of Organisational Development and Culture, Urbis

Tamsin Bate leads organisational development and culture work at Urbis. Her remit covers leadership development, talent and succession, performance and enterprise capability building across the employee lifecycle.

She is also interested in how organisations redesign work, leadership and culture for a future shaped by AI and changing expectations. That makes her a helpful person to study when the organisational development brief needs to connect culture with operating model change.

4. Rebecca Coombes

Group Chief People Officer, The Disability Trust

Rebecca Coombes is Group Chief People Officer at The Disability Trust. Her background spans senior people leadership, higher education and academic work in adult learning, workforce learning and development.

That combination gives her a strong connection between theory and the practical demands of a large human services workforce. Her work shows how organisational development can support both the capability of leaders and the experience of the people an organisation exists to serve.

5. Catherine Drury-Fox

Organisational Development Leader, current part-time, GHD

Catherine Drury-Fox is the current part-time Organisational Development Leader at GHD and is helping establish a global organisational development unit for transformational growth. Her career has included senior HR roles across professional services, banking, aviation and consulting.

The GHD remit illustrates the scale question that often sits underneath an OD brief. As an organisation grows across markets, its leaders need shared expectations, better ways to work and enough local flexibility to make change stick.

6. Kate Fraser

Executive Director, Program Delivery, IPAA Victoria

Kate Fraser is Executive Director, Program Delivery at IPAA Victoria. She leads work spanning professional development, flagship events and thought leadership for the Victorian public purpose sector.

Her work is a useful reminder that capability is not measured only by attendance. The stronger question is whether people can use what they learn in the decisions, services and relationships that matter to the public.

7. Shruti Ganeriwala

Chief HR Officer, ANZ and APAC, Unilever

Shruti Ganeriwala is Chief HR Officer for Unilever ANZ and APAC. Her work has included organisation transformation, change management, learning, talent, wellbeing, inclusion and flexible working models.

That breadth is significant because organisation development rarely arrives as one neat project. It is usually a connected set of choices about how leaders work, how teams perform, how people grow and how culture supports the strategy.

8. Jemma Hirst

Head of IT Training, Grant Thornton Australia

Jemma Hirst is Head of IT Training at Grant Thornton Australia. Her work connects learning design, governance, coaching and analytics with practical AI adoption and digital capability.

This is an important part of modern organisational development. Technology changes the tools people use, but capability work still has to build confidence, judgement and safe habits that people can apply in the flow of work.

9. Amantha Imber

Organisational Psychologist and Founder, Inventium

Amantha Imber is an organisational psychologist and founder of Inventium, a behaviour change consultancy. Her work applies behavioural science to productivity, innovation, wellbeing and the design of better workplaces.

That focus makes her relevant to the human side of change. Structure and strategy matter, but the organisation only moves when people can turn a useful idea into a repeatable behaviour.

10. Rob Lamb

Executive General Manager, Talent Experience, Xero

Rob Lamb is Executive General Manager, Talent Experience at Xero. He works at the intersection of leadership, technology and human potential, with experience in talent transformation across high-growth technology companies.

His work points to a central OD challenge in scaling organisations. Hiring, leadership and talent systems need to grow without losing the human experience that gives people clarity, connection and a reason to do their best work.

11. Liam Mahon

Head of People and Culture, Supermarket Operations, Coles

Liam Mahon is Head of People and Culture for Supermarket Operations at Coles. His work spans workforce strategy, organisational transformation and operational people leadership across a large frontline network.

The Coles example shows why OD needs to reach the operating floor. Workforce design, flexibility and change communication only matter when leaders and team members can use them in the real conditions of customer-facing work.

12. Angelina McMenamin

Head of Performance Culture, WiseTech Global

Angelina McMenamin is Head of Performance Culture at WiseTech Global. Her remit connects performance, engagement and capability with the everyday experiences, behaviours and accountability that help teams work well.

That is a practical view of culture. It treats performance culture as something leaders and teams build through repeated choices, not as a slogan that sits apart from the work.

13. Aly McNicoll

Director, LEAD Centre for Not for Profit Leadership

Aly McNicoll is Director at LEAD Centre for Not for Profit Leadership. She brings more than 20 years of experience across leadership development, coaching, mentoring and work with not for profit organisations in Australia and New Zealand.

Her work is a good example of development that respects context. Leaders in purpose-led organisations often need tools that are rigorous enough to help, but practical enough to use when resources and capacity are tight.

14. Sarah Novelli

Executive Director, People and Culture, APAC, BGIS

Sarah Novelli is Executive Director, People and Culture, APAC at BGIS. Her work includes people strategy, reporting, analytics, benchmarking, retention and engagement across a large regional business.

That data-informed focus makes her relevant to the shift from HR as a support function to people work as part of business performance. Organisational development becomes stronger when leaders can see what is happening and act on it with care.

15. Lauren Pendergast

Leadership and Competence Leader, Australia and New Zealand, IKEA

Lauren Pendergast is the Leadership and Competence Leader for IKEA Australia and New Zealand. Her background spans organisational development, leadership capability, workforce planning, organisational transformation and strategic business partnering.

Her role shows how capability can be woven into a clear organisational purpose. Leaders need more than a programme catalogue. They need shared expectations and practical support that helps people lead consistently across a whole organisation.

16. Dr Michelle Shields

Coach, Consultant and Facilitator, ODI, New Zealand

Dr Michelle Shields is an organisational development consultant, coach and facilitator working with ODI in New Zealand. Her work has included leadership programmes, performance management redesign, HR strategy, competency frameworks, 360 feedback and change management.

That range shows the breadth of the discipline. Organisational development can involve systems, relationships, skills and culture at the same time, with the best work connecting them rather than treating them as separate projects.

17. Donna Vacondios

Director, People Operations, Google

Donna Vacondios is Director, People Operations at Google. Her current work focuses on employee engagement, performance and organisational transformation, supported by more than two decades of HR experience.

Her role is a useful reminder that people operations can be strategic work. The systems that support performance and engagement shape whether an organisation can change without losing trust or clarity.

18. Celia Wellington

Deputy Director-General, Corporate Services, New Zealand Ministry of Health

Celia Wellington is Deputy Director-General, Corporate Services at the New Zealand Ministry of Health. Her background includes organisational performance, capability development and culture change in a large public service setting.

That context matters because public organisations have to build capability while serving complex communities and working within strong accountability requirements. Celia represents the organisational development work that sits inside the machinery of public value.

19. Jackie Whitehead

General Manager, HR Retail Banking Services, Commonwealth Bank

Jackie Whitehead is General Manager, HR Retail Banking Services at Commonwealth Bank. Her work spans organisational transformation, workforce strategy, leadership capability and organisational design across large customer-facing workforces.

This is the kind of role where development, structure and customer experience meet. Leaders need the capability to navigate regulation, technology and changing customer needs while still making work clearer for the people delivering it.

20. Cathy Wilks

Chief People, Culture and Learning Officer, Mater

Cathy Wilks is Chief People, Culture and Learning Officer at Mater. She leads people, culture and learning strategies, with expertise in workforce planning, organisational development and design, and building high-performing teams.

Her work shows how OD can be connected to a clear organisational mission. In healthcare, the quality of the employee experience and the strength of capability systems affect how reliably people can serve patients, families and communities.

Conclusion.

Across this group, organisational development is closely tied to the work of the organisation. It is visible in how leaders build capability, how teams use technology, how people experience change and how systems support good decisions.

Another theme is integration. Learning, culture, workforce planning, performance and organisation design are not separate boxes when the work is done well. They reinforce one another and help leaders make change more practical.

That is useful for any leader shaping an OD brief. Start with the organisational problem, then ask what needs to change in the way people lead, work, decide and grow.

About the author.

Jonno White is a Brisbane-based leadership consultant, keynote speaker and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, and the author of Step Up or Step Out. He works with schools, corporates and nonprofits around the world.

Next read.

If the next challenge is building stronger leadership habits across a team, read leadership team development. If the work involves a major technology or process change, explore software change management. For a team that needs clearer decisions and shared direction, see leadership team alignment.

A practical next step.

If your organisation needs a keynote, workshop, facilitated leadership session or written plan for a people and culture challenge, I can help you make the work practical and clear.

Email jonno@consultclarity.org with the challenge you are trying to solve and the outcome you need.