50 Essential Thought Leaders on Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work in Australia and New Zealand

Mental health conditions now account for 12 per cent of all serious workplace injury claims in Australia, a figure that has risen consistently over the past decade according to Safe Work Australia's 2025 Key Work Health and Safety Statistics. That figure does not capture the presenteeism, disengagement, or quiet attrition that happens when people stay in roles that are gradually wearing them down. It captures only the formal claims. The real scale of the challenge is considerably larger, and the economic costs to Australia are estimated at up to $70 billion annually, a figure encompassing direct and indirect impacts across the economy including treatment, absenteeism, presenteeism, and productivity loss.

At the same time, something genuinely significant is shifting in both Australia and New Zealand. Psychosocial hazards, once considered soft concerns sitting outside mainstream health and safety, are now written into law. Victoria's Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations took effect on 1 December 2025. Every Australian jurisdiction operates under model Work Health and Safety laws requiring employers to identify, assess, and control psychosocial risks with the same systematic rigour applied to physical hazards. In New Zealand, WorkSafe has been building an evidence-based framework around work-related wellbeing, and the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission continues to press for upstream structural change.

In that context, knowing whose work to follow matters more than ever. The field is crowded. Motivational content about resilience sits alongside rigorous research on psychosocial risk management. Lived-experience advocacy shares conference programmes with occupational health epidemiology. This list exists to help you find the voices doing substantive work in the Australian and New Zealand context, those whose contributions are most directly applicable to how organisations here are navigating the legal, cultural, and human dimensions of mental health at work in 2025 and 2026.

Each person on this list was selected against three criteria. First, they have made a documented contribution to workplace mental health and wellbeing in the Australian or New Zealand context through research, advocacy, practice, or public communication. Second, they are actively engaged in the field as of 2025 or 2026. Third, the list deliberately reaches past the most prominent international household names to surface voices that HR professionals, safety leaders, and wellbeing practitioners may not yet have encountered but genuinely should.

To build leadership cultures where psychological safety, honest conversations, and genuine accountability are part of everyday work, email jonno@consultclarity.org to discuss how Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and bestselling author, can help your team.

Why Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work Has Become a Strategic Priority

The cost of ignoring workplace mental health is no longer theoretical. Mental health conditions cost Australia an estimated $70 billion annually in direct and indirect costs across the economy, a figure encompassing treatment, absenteeism, presenteeism, and productivity loss. In New Zealand, a 2019 survey by Southern Cross and BusinessNZ found that net stress reported by staff had risen 23.5 per cent since 2017, a finding widely cited by the Business Leaders Health and Safety Forum as evidence of the growing burden of psychological harm in the New Zealand workforce.

The regulatory shift has made the business case harder to dismiss. Model WHS laws across Australian jurisdictions now require employers to proactively manage psychosocial hazards, those work design factors, social conditions, and environmental elements that can damage psychological health. Job demands, role ambiguity, poor supervisor support, workplace bullying, and low autonomy are all now recognised as legally significant risks. Safe Work Australia data confirms that harassment and workplace bullying, work pressure, and exposure to violence and harassment account for the majority of all serious work-related mental health claims, making clear these are largely preventable conditions, not inevitable ones.

For leaders trying to navigate this environment, the challenge is not a shortage of content. It is a shortage of credible, evidence-based, contextually relevant guidance from people who genuinely understand the Australian and New Zealand regulatory, cultural, and workforce landscape. The 50 voices in this directory address that gap.

When you are ready to work on the leadership conversations, performance accountability, and team dynamics that create the conditions for genuine psychological safety, email jonno@consultclarity.org. Jonno White, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold globally) and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, works with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. International travel is often far more affordable than organisations expect.

How This List Was Compiled

Every person on this list was selected against three criteria. First, a documented contribution to mental health and wellbeing at work in the Australian or New Zealand context, through peer-reviewed research, publicly available programmes, policy contributions, or substantive public communication specifically about workplace mental health. Second, active engagement as of 2025 or 2026. Third, a deliberate effort to ensure geographic and disciplinary diversity, covering researchers from both countries, practitioners in different industry settings, advocates with lived experience, and voices addressing specific populations. The list deliberately moves past the most prominent international household names to surface voices specifically grounded in the AU/NZ context.

The Research Foundations: Academics Shaping the Evidence Base

These researchers produce the evidence base that policy-makers, regulators, and organisations draw on. Their work sets the terms of the conversation and supplies the justification for organisational investment in mentally healthy workplaces.

1. Prof Sam Harvey

Executive Director and Chief Scientist, Black Dog Institute; Professor, UNSW

Sam Harvey has led the Workplace Mental Health Research Program at the Black Dog Institute for nearly two decades, building one of the most substantial bodies of workplace-specific mental health research in Australia. His work spans the aetiology of common mental disorders, the effectiveness of workplace interventions, and the mental health of emergency service workers. His 2025 and 2026 research portfolio includes published work on psychological workplace injury, burnout in the medical workforce, and the construction industry's psychosocial risk profile.

In a landmark advisory, Harvey and his team produced the Black Dog Institute white paper Modern Work, presenting for the first time longitudinal data on how changes in Australian work patterns over two decades have affected mental health, identifying disproportionate impacts on younger workers and making the case for urgent employer action. As Executive Director and Chief Scientist since November 2021, he now heads an institute that has done more than any other Australian organisation to translate rigorous science into practical employer guidance.

2. Prof Anthony LaMontagne

Professor of Work, Health and Wellbeing, Institute for Health Transformation, Deakin University

Tony LaMontagne is widely regarded as the architect of the "integrated approach" to workplace mental health in Australia, the framework that asks organisations to simultaneously address psychosocial hazards, protect vulnerable workers, and actively promote positive mental health, rather than treating these as separate programmes. He co-authored the influential 2017 white paper An Integrated Approach to Workplace Mental Health: Nine Priorities for Implementation in Australia with Angela Martin and colleagues, which became a foundational reference document for Australian employers and policymakers.

In 2022, he contributed to the World Health Organization's Guidelines on Mental Health at Work, the most significant international framework for employer action on mental health produced to date. His published response in 2025 to ongoing debates about the legal regulation of psychological hazards at work confirms his continuing role as a reference point for researchers and regulators alike. He is also an honorary professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne's School of Population and Global Health.

3. Prof Angela Martin

Principal Consultant, Pracademia; Professorial Research Fellow, Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania

Angela Martin holds a Professorial Research Fellow appointment at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, as well as an honorary Professorial appointment with the College of Business and Economics at UTAS, and runs Pracademia, a consultancy focused on translating academic research into practical organisational action. With over 100 peer-reviewed publications on workplace bullying, organisational change, work-family conflict, and psychological wellbeing management, she brings the most extensive publication record of any Australian practitioner operating at the boundary of research and consulting.

She received a national teaching award for her work on psychological wellbeing management capabilities in executive education. Her collaborations with SafeWork Victoria, SafeWork NSW, SafeWork Tasmania, Victoria Police, and BHP Billiton have ensured that her research informs frontline and operational contexts, not only academic literature. She co-authored the 2018 Integrated Approach framework with LaMontagne and others, and her work on small and micro businesses remains the most specific Australian research on that often-overlooked population.

4. Prof Brock Bastian

Professor of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne; Director and Principal Psychologist, Psychological Safety Australia

Brock Bastian is a social psychologist whose research on the social and cultural determinants of wellbeing has been published in The Economist, Harvard Business Review, TIME, Forbes, and The New Yorker. His book The Other Side of Happiness argues that building positive and protective factors into how people experience work is the most effective approach to psychosocial risk management, a finding with direct implications for Australian employers now legally required to manage those risks.

Through Psychological Safety Australia, he translates this research into practical programmes for organisations. His 2026 presentation to the AHRI VIC Conference examined ethical leadership as the foundation for mentally healthy organisations, connecting governance and behavioural ethics directly to the psychosocial safety obligations that Australian employers now face. He is one of Australia's most credentialled voices on psychological safety in workplace contexts.

5. Prof Maree Roche

Professor, University of Auckland; Manutaki, Dame Mira Szaszy Centre for Leading Maori Workforce Development

Maree Roche is a full professor at the University of Auckland specialising in leadership psychology, employee wellbeing, and indigenous perspectives. As Manutaki (director) of the Dame Mira Szaszy Centre for Leading Maori Workforce Development, she conducts research that is directly relevant to the growing number of New Zealand organisations with obligations to support Maori employee wellbeing as part of their Te Tiriti o Waitangi commitments.

Her published research demonstrates that leaders' own wellbeing significantly shapes the wellbeing of those they lead, a finding with practical implications for leadership development investment. She is a Fellow of both the New Zealand Psychological Society and the Positive Organisational Behaviour Institute in the United States. Her 2025 and 2026 LinkedIn activity includes regular posting on mindfulness in leadership and the role of indigenous frameworks in workplace wellbeing.

6. Prof Jarrod Haar

Dean's Chair and Professor of Management and Maori Business, Massey University; Fellow, Royal Society of New Zealand

Jarrod Haar is the most internationally cited New Zealand researcher on how work structure affects mental health, primarily through his groundbreaking research on the four-day working week and work-life balance. His 2018 study on the Perpetual Guardian trial found a 24 per cent improvement in work-life balance and no decline in productivity, a finding that generated global media coverage and directly influenced how New Zealand and Australian organisations think about work design as a wellbeing intervention.

He continues to produce work on Maori employees, work-family balance, and the four-day week, and is a Marsden Fund panel convener at the Royal Society of New Zealand, the country's highest recognition of research excellence. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Aparangi and comments regularly in New Zealand media on the relationship between work structure and psychological wellbeing.

Building Mentally Healthy Workplaces: The Practitioners

These voices work primarily as consultants, organisational psychologists, trainers, and programme developers. Their contribution is in the space between research and action, taking what science knows and translating it into what organisations can actually do.

7. Anna Feringa

Founder, Anna Feringa Consulting; Workplace Mental Health Consultant

Anna Feringa has been working at the intersection of mental health, organisational culture, and psychosocial risk management for over 17 years. Named a LinkedIn Top Voice for Mental Health in Australia in 2022, she is an award-winning international speaker, author, and trainer who helps organisations move from fearful and reactive responses to psychosocial risk toward confident, proactive systems.

Her video series Mental Health Thought Bubbles on LinkedIn has covered everything from toxic rockstar dynamics in teams to manager best practice for R U OK? Day, and has become a practical, accessible resource for HR and safety professionals navigating the new psychosocial regulatory environment. Her consulting partnerships, including an EML Group preferred provider arrangement, confirm her standing as a trusted practitioner for insurers and large employers navigating the 2025 and 2026 regulatory landscape.

8. Tasha Broomhall

Founder and Director, Blooming Minds

Tasha Broomhall founded Blooming Minds in Western Australia in 2005, making her one of the most experienced workplace mental health consultants in Australia. She holds a Masters of Science in Psychology and is completing a PhD in psychosocial risk, workplace psychological wellbeing, and institutional silence, bringing academic rigour to two decades of organisational practice. She is a Principal Master Trainer in Mental Health First Aid and holds an adjunct senior lectureship at the University of Notre Dame.

Her work with water corporations, government agencies, mining and resources clients, and construction companies has been recognised at the ICCWA Suicide Prevention Awards and the LiFE Awards for Excellence in Suicide Prevention. Her book Bloom at Work is a practical guide for leaders on building positive mental health cultures, and her WA base gives her particular depth in the resource, construction, and government sectors that account for a significant proportion of Australia's serious psychosocial risk exposure.

9. Dr Michelle McQuaid

Researcher; Honorary Fellow, Centre for Wellbeing Science, University of Melbourne

Michelle McQuaid is a researcher, author of nine bestselling books, and LinkedIn Top Voice for Mental Health whose work sits at the junction of positive psychology, wellbeing science, and practical organisational change. Her Change Lab 2025 Australia Workplace Report, based on data from 1,004 full-time Australian workers surveyed in July 2025, found that 55 per cent of Australian workers are quietly struggling while maintaining expected performance levels, and identified the most significant psychosocial hazards undermining organisational wellbeing.

The PERMAH Workplace Survey, developed in partnership with Dr Peggy Kern at Melbourne University, has become a widely-used tool for measuring workplace wellbeing systematically. She hosts the Thriving At Work newsletter, which regularly synthesises new research for HR and wellbeing professionals, and was a keynote speaker at the AHRI National Convention and Exhibition. Her programmes have been independently evaluated showing more than 91 per cent of participants confident they can apply what they learn.

10. Emi Golding

Director of Psychology, Workplace Mental Health Institute

Emi Golding leads the clinical and consulting team at the Workplace Mental Health Institute, providing expert consultation to organisations seeking to enhance psychological safety and meet their psychosocial WHS obligations. A registered psychologist with qualifications from UNSW and an accredited trainer for the University of Wollongong, she also provides executive coaching and consulting to high-performance individuals and organisations globally.

Her dual focus addresses a persistent gap in the field: the difference between supporting individual employees in distress and changing the structural conditions that create that distress. Her work at WMHI spans consultation, programme development, and the organisation's widely-used online assessment and training platform, giving her reach into organisations that cannot access bespoke consulting engagements.

11. Ingrid Ozols AM

Managing Director, Mental Health at Work (mh@work)

Ingrid Ozols AM founded mh@work in 2002 and developed the first interactive e-learning tool focused on mental health and resilience in the workplace. That tool and its successors have reached more than 250,000 Australian employees. She is a lived-experience consumer advocate, TEDx speaker, inaugural Chair of BlueVoices at Beyond Blue, and served as Expert Advisory Group Member to the National Suicide Prevention Advisor to the Prime Minister.

Her 2025 co-authored publication in the Australian Journal of Social Issues on digital futures in mental health confirms her continuing contribution to scholarship alongside practice. Her Member of the Order of Australia, awarded for service to the mental health sector, reflects more than two decades of contribution spanning e-learning, advocacy, board service, and public education. Her work consistently centres the lived experience of people navigating mental health conditions inside workplaces.

12. Dr Leanne Faulkner

Founder, Fortitude at Work; Researcher, University of Newcastle

Leanne Faulkner is Australia's only PhD-qualified researcher and practitioner working specifically on the mental health of small business owners and sole traders. After building Billie Goat Soap into a multi-million dollar enterprise before selling in 2012, she pivoted to advocacy and research. Named COSBOA Small Business Champion in 2015, she has consulted for the ATO, Beyond Blue, Everymind, and the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman.

Her published research on the NSW Government's SIRA website, her doctoral research on micro-business owner mental health, and her University of Newcastle lectureship make her the most credentialled voice on a population, small business owners, representing nearly two million Australians who are largely invisible in standard workplace wellbeing frameworks. Her ICMI profile confirms current active speaking in 2025 and 2026.

13. Aaron Williams

CEO and Co-Founder, Mindstar

Aaron Williams co-founded Mindstar in 2015 after a career pivot from IT account management into clinical mental health work with the Queensland Department of Health. Mindstar has grown into a national wellbeing and employee assistance organisation working with Telstra, Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Woolworths, Oracle, and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

He has chaired major clinical conferences including the International Mental Health Conference and the National Suicide Prevention Conference. His Mindstar programmes are specifically designed to normalise help-seeking in Australian corporate and government settings, using language and framing accessible across the range of industries and demographics those organisations serve. His active LinkedIn presence in 2025 and 2026 includes posts from client engagements with Woolworths Group and Commonwealth Bank.

14. Dr Angela Lim

CEO and Co-Founder, Clearhead (New Zealand)

Angela Lim is CEO and Co-Founder of Clearhead, a New Zealand digital mental health platform that has built a clinically backed system for assessing, triaging, and providing personalised treatment plans for people seeking wellbeing support. Clearhead addresses a structural barrier that sits beneath most corporate mental health awareness initiatives: the gap between raising awareness and providing accessible, evidence-based support when someone decides to act on that awareness.

The platform has been deployed across multiple NZ employers and was featured in Employment Hero NZ's Wellness at Work 2025 webinar series. Her LinkedIn activity in 2025 confirms current engagement and platform development. As New Zealand organisations navigate new wellbeing obligations under the Health and Safety at Work Act, digital tools that close the access gap are an increasingly important part of the picture.

15. Kathryn McEwen

Organisational Psychologist; Creator, Resilience at Work (R@W) Toolkit

Kathryn McEwen is an Australian organisational psychologist with 35 years of practice whose most significant contribution to the field is the Resilience at Work (R@W) Toolkit, a validated systemic framework addressing resilience at individual, leader, and team levels simultaneously. The toolkit has been published in peer-reviewed journals, validated internationally including in Brazil, and is used across organisations in Australia, the United Kingdom, and North America.

A Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society elected in 2014, she has lectured at the University of South Australia and collaborated with academic colleagues to build a research base around her practitioner experience. Her work is distinctive because it treats workplace resilience as a structural and organisational property rather than an individual characteristic, directly aligning with the current regulatory shift away from individual resilience training toward systemic psychosocial risk management.

Speaking the Field Alive: The Advocates and Communicators

These voices are primarily speakers, advocates, and communicators whose work reaches audiences that formal research and consulting may not. Their contribution is to normalise conversations, reduce stigma, and make mental health at work part of everyday organisational culture.

16. Graeme Cowan

Co-Founder, WeCARE365; Founding Board Director, R U OK?; Author

Graeme Cowan is Australia's most recognised practitioner-voice on workplace mental health. After surviving a severe five-year depression, he emerged with a mission to help leaders build workplaces where people genuinely thrive. He is a Founding Board Director of R U OK? and co-founder of WeCARE365. His fifth book, Great Leaders Care: Building Safe, Resilient, and Successful Teams, published via Wiley in April 2026, continues his focus on the practical challenge of building caring, resilient cultures without sacrificing performance.

His Caring CEO podcast has featured over 70 CEO interviews demonstrating that high care and high performance are not in conflict. His LinkedIn presence, confirmed active in 2026 with posts on men's mental health, burnout prevention, and caring management, generates some of the most engaged workplace mental health content in the Australian market. His WeCARE Manager eLearning programme is used by organisations nationally.

17. Chelsea Pottenger

Founder and Director, EQ Minds

Chelsea Pottenger founded EQ Minds in Sydney in 2016 following her own experience of severe postnatal depression and has built it into a consultancy training over 90,000 professionals annually. A psychology postgraduate, accredited mindfulness and meditation teacher, and author of The Mindful High Performer, she received the Mental Health Advocate of the Year (NSW) award in 2022 from the Mental Health Foundation Australia. She works with Google, eBay, Westpac, and dozens of major Australian organisations.

Her approach blends individual mental health tools including mindfulness, sleep science, and performance optimisation with corporate culture change. In 2026, she is delivering globally across Australia and the USA. Her board membership of an ASX-listed company adds a governance perspective to her wellbeing advocacy that is unusual among speakers in this space.

18. Wayne Schwass

Founder and CEO, PukaUp

Wayne Schwass played 282 AFL games over 14 years at North Melbourne and the Sydney Swans while privately battling depression, anxiety, and OCD. After going public in 2006, he became one of Australia's most respected mental health advocates. In 2017, he founded PukaUp, a social enterprise focused on mental health, emotional wellbeing, and suicide prevention. He was the lead witness to the 2019 Royal Commission into the Victorian Mental Health System, giving his advocacy institutional weight beyond the conference circuit.

His keynotes are regularly cited as among the most powerful at corporate mental health events. His specific focus on men's mental health, workplace conversations, and suicide prevention makes him particularly effective for industries including construction, manufacturing, and professional sport, where cultural barriers to help-seeking remain significant. His Celebrity Speakers and ICMI profiles confirm active speaking in 2025 and 2026.

19. Dr Paul Taylor

Director, Paul Taylor Consulting; Neuroscientist

Paul Taylor is a former British Royal Navy Aircrew Officer who has become a neuroscientist, exercise physiologist, nutritionist, and affiliate professor at the University of San Francisco. As Director of Paul Taylor Consulting, he delivers hardiness training and executive performance workshops to NAB, Commonwealth Bank, BUPA, Oracle, and the Australian Military. His book Death by Comfort is a multi-award-winning bestseller, and his second book The Hardiness Effect extends the research into workplace applications.

His programmes are distinguished by peer-reviewed published research demonstrating measurable improvements in hardiness, cognitive function, and employee wellbeing. His Hardiness Lab Podcast reaches a large global audience and has established him as one of the most credibly evidence-based voices in the Australian corporate wellbeing speaking market.

20. Georgie Harman AO

CEO, Beyond Blue

Georgie Harman has served as CEO of Beyond Blue since 2014 and was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in June 2025 for distinguished service to the mental health sector. Under her leadership, Beyond Blue has developed one of Australia's most comprehensive workplace mental health programmes, helping organisations in every sector build psychologically safe cultures and meet their obligations under the evolving psychosocial regulatory environment.

Her Beyond Blue podcast series Work explores job design, burnout, imposter syndrome, and executive wellbeing through conversations with experts and people with lived experience. As the highest-profile CEO in the Australian mental health sector, her advocacy directly shapes national discourse on how employers should approach their mental health obligations. Her LinkedIn presence, with approaching 85,000 followers, amplifies her voice to HR and leadership audiences at scale.

21. Casey Lyons

Co-Founder and CEO, LIVIN

Casey Lyons co-founded LIVIN in 2013 following the suicide of his best friend Dwayne Lally, driven by the conviction that stigma had prevented Dwayne from seeking the help he needed. LIVIN's mission, expressed in the phrase "It Ain't Weak to Speak," has made it one of Australia's most recognisable mental health organisations operating specifically at the intersection of stigma reduction and workplace education.

LIVIN's LIVINWell in Work programme brings lived-experience-based mental health awareness into corporate settings including mine sites, construction yards, warehouses, and boardrooms. Lyons' background as a carpenter and rugby league player gives him genuine credibility with blue-collar and masculine-culture workplaces that formal clinical voices struggle to reach. His LinkedIn activity in May 2026, including posts from a site visit to Mount Morgan, confirms he continues to deliver personally across Australia.

22. Greg Hire

Founder, A Stitch in Time; Mental Health Advocate

Greg Hire was Vice-Captain of the Perth Wildcats during four NBL championship seasons, a four-time champion and 2018 West Australian of the Year Youth Award recipient. Growing up in circumstances marked by domestic violence, depression, and substance use, he later founded A Stitch in Time in 2014, an organisation delivering mental health awareness workshops and programmes to schools, sporting clubs, and corporate groups across Western Australia.

He has delivered keynotes to more than 80 corporate groups and has presented to more than 40 schools across Western Australia, including in the Kimberley and Pilbara regions. His LinkedIn activity in 2026, including participation in the AISWA Wellbeing and CRRE Conference, confirms active ongoing engagement. His combination of elite sport credibility, authentic personal narrative, and genuine community work in regional Australia gives his advocacy a texture that purely corporate voices cannot replicate.

23. Jason Banks

Co-CEO, TIACS (This Is A Conversation Starter)

Jason Banks is Co-CEO of TIACS, the not-for-profit that provides free mental health counselling to tradespeople, truck drivers, farmers, and blue-collar workers across Australia. After more than 30 years in retail leadership including 16 years at Bunnings as Queensland State Manager and National Safety and Wellness Manager, he joined TIACS to address the mental health crisis in industries where help-seeking has historically been lowest and psychosocial risk is highest.

TIACS' rebranding as "the head noise specialists" is exactly the kind of strategic insight that distinguishes effective mental health communication from generic awareness campaigns. Named a LinkedIn Top Voice for Mental Health in 2022, Banks remains active on the platform. TIACS partnerships with Coates Foundation, Jim's Group, and major construction clients demonstrate the scalability of the model he has helped build.

24. Donna Thistlethwaite

Founder, Mentally Wellthy; Speaker and Mental Health First Aid Instructor

In 2012, Donna Thistlethwaite experienced a mental health crisis triggered in the workplace that culminated in her jumping from Brisbane's Story Bridge. Her story was featured on Australian Story in August 2017. She has since founded Mentally Wellthy, a Brisbane-based consultancy delivering Mental Health First Aid training, resilience workshops, and keynote speaking to corporate and conference clients. She is a Principal Master MHFA Instructor and a Resilience at Work facilitator.

Her dual background as a corporate HR professional before her crisis and an accredited mental health educator after it gives her a perspective that bridges both the organisational failure modes that create psychosocial risk and the personal experience of what those failure modes do to real people. She won the Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2016 and is actively delivering MHFA sessions and workplace workshops in 2025 and 2026.

25. Michael Crossland

Resilience and Wellbeing Speaker

Michael Crossland grew up battling a rare and life-threatening illness that required 57 surgeries before his 18th birthday. Against every statistical expectation, he built a career in corporate sales and then became one of Australia's most sought-after keynote speakers on resilience, survival, and the mental health dimensions of overcoming adversity. His story is a direct and powerful rebuttal of the normalisation of suffering that underlies the culture of presenteeism in many Australian workplaces.

His corporate keynote clients include some of Australia's largest organisations, and his presentations are consistently rated among the highest at wellbeing and leadership events. The mental health element of his work, specifically the relationship between physical and psychological resilience, the cost of silence, and the importance of community, makes him a regular feature at corporate wellbeing programmes and large-scale national conferences. Based in NSW, he speaks nationally and internationally.

26. Anthony Hart

Founder, Hart Wellbeing; Mind Health Advocate

Anthony Hart survived an attempt to take his own life in circumstances that became the catalyst for his mental health advocacy career. He was recognised as part of the Australian of the Year nomination process for his contributions to mental health awareness, and has since built Hart Wellbeing in South Australia, focused on helping individuals and organisations address mental health through practical, accessible tools and lived-experience education.

He created the Lifeback Tracker, a digital mental health monitoring app designed to help individuals and organisations track psychological wellbeing over time. The app translates his lived experience into a scalable wellbeing tool that complements his speaking and advocacy work. His South Australian base has informed work with regional and rural organisations across the country where formal mental health services are often inaccessible.

27. Warren Davies

Mental Health Advocate and Speaker; The Unbreakable Farmer

"The Unbreakable Farmer," Warren Davies is a mental health advocate and keynote speaker focused specifically on the wellbeing of people in rural, farming, and regional Australia. His own lived experience of mental health challenges in the agricultural sector, one of the sectors with the highest rates of psychosocial risk and lowest rates of formal help-seeking in Australia, has made him one of the most authentic voices addressing that population.

His work developing resilient leaders and communities in rural Australia addresses a gap that corporate wellbeing frameworks routinely overlook. His focus on the unique psychosocial stressors of farming life, including drought, debt, isolation, and intergenerational pressure, is increasingly recognised in the context of Australia's broader conversation about rural mental health. His Speaker Advisor profile and website confirm current active speaking across Victoria and nationally.

Wellbeing Science in Practice: The Positive Psychology Practitioners

Positive psychology, the science of what makes people and organisations flourish, has moved substantially beyond its early reputation as an optimism movement. These voices represent its mature, evidence-based application to workplace settings in Australia and New Zealand.

28. Dr Lucy Hone

Adjunct Senior Professor, University of Canterbury; Co-director, NZ Institute of Wellbeing and Resilience

Lucy Hone is a globally recognised expert in resilience science and a practitioner who has tested her frameworks under conditions of genuine personal tragedy. Trained at the University of Pennsylvania and holding a PhD in public health from AUT University in Auckland, she co-directs the NZ Institute of Wellbeing and Resilience alongside Denise Quinlan. Her TED Talk The Three Secrets of Resilient People has exceeded 24 million views.

In 2014, her 12-year-old daughter Abi was killed in a road accident. The book she wrote in response, Resilient Grieving, became a bestseller in New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and England. The Educators Guide to Whole-school Wellbeing, which she co-authored with Quinlan, is published globally by Taylor and Francis. She holds an adjunct appointment at the University of Canterbury, and her RealTime Resilience programme is deployed across organisations globally.

29. Dr Denise Quinlan

Co-director, NZ Institute of Wellbeing and Resilience; Adjunct Senior Fellow, University of Canterbury

Denise Quinlan is the only New Zealand trainer to have delivered the University of Pennsylvania's resilience and wellbeing programmes in collaboration with Professor Martin Seligman and Dr Karen Reivich. Her background as an equity analyst and consultant at Deloitte and KPMG in Europe and New Zealand, before pivoting to positive psychology, gives her a corporate legitimacy that resonates with senior executive audiences.

Co-author with Lucy Hone of The Educators Guide to Whole-school Wellbeing (Taylor and Francis, 2020), she teaches the Diploma of Positive Psychology and Wellbeing and consults to organisations across New Zealand and internationally. She is an adjunct senior fellow at the University of Canterbury and a guest lecturer at IE Business School, Madrid. Her April 2026 LinkedIn post confirmed she is actively delivering an immersive programme in Christchurch.

30. Dr Amanda Mullin

Founder and Director, Think Differently; Director, Mindworx Psychology

Amanda Mullin is a Doctor of Clinical Psychology who founded Mindworx Psychology in Sydney in 2014 and subsequently created Think Differently, a preventive mental health programme delivered to schools, early childhood, and corporate workplaces across Australia. Her focus on neurodiversity, ADHD, burnout, and trauma in workplace settings addresses populations that standard corporate mental health initiatives frequently miss.

A cancer survivor herself, she brings lived experience alongside clinical depth. Her work has appeared in the National Firefighter Magazine and she delivers workshops and keynotes to corporate clients, first responder organisations, and professional development audiences. Her Think Differently programmes are distinguished by their grounding in clinical evidence and their accessibility to audiences without prior mental health literacy. She is actively delivering in 2025 and 2026.

31. Ashley Fell

Director of Advisory, McCrindle; Co-author, Work Wellbeing and Generation Alpha

Ashley Fell is Director of Advisory at McCrindle, Australia's leading social research firm, and co-author, with Mark McCrindle, of Work Wellbeing and Generation Alpha. She is a TEDx speaker and was a keynote presenter at the AHRI National Convention and Exhibition in Brisbane in 2026. Her research tracks how values, purpose, and mental health expectations are shifting across workforce generations, giving HR and wellbeing leaders the data they need to design interventions that will actually connect with different cohorts.

McCrindle's ongoing national research studies, including the Australia Now reports and the Work Wellbeing research, provide rigorous quantitative backing for insights that Fell communicates with clarity and accessibility. Her focus on the intersection of generational change and wellbeing is particularly valuable for organisations managing workforces spanning Baby Boomers through to Generation Z.

32. Sally McGrath

Founder, Health That Heals; Burnout Prevention Expert and Speaker

Sally McGrath is the founder of Health That Heals, a burnout prevention and workplace wellbeing consultancy, and the author of Transform Your Life Before It's Too Late. She experienced burnout three times across a 25-year corporate career before building a practice focused on helping organisations shift from reactive burnout firefighting to proactive burnout blocking. Her keynotes and workshops address burnout as a leadership and risk management issue, not merely an individual health matter.

Her 2025 media presence included cited commentary in Staffing Industry Analysts research coverage and Executive PA Media, where her framework "move from burnout firefighting to burnout blocking" was highlighted as a practical framework for organisations. She is represented by Celebrity Speakers Australia and confirmed active in delivering to corporate audiences across Australia.

33. Julia Grace

Mental Health and Wellbeing Speaker; Keynote Speaker of the Year NZ 2025

Julia Grace was named Keynote Speaker of the Year by the Professional Speakers Association of New Zealand in 2025 and VSA International Speaker of the Year in 2024. With more than 30 years of experience as an educator and communicator, she specialises in helping organisations "Be Kind to Their Minds by Working Well" through evidence-informed, story-rich sessions on workplace mental health. She is qualified in Mental Health First Aid and Mind Health Carer training.

Her sessions are specifically designed to be evidence-informed without being clinical, story-rich without being purely motivational, and packed with practical tools that stick beyond the day. She delivers conference keynotes, professional development days, and wellbeing workshops across New Zealand's public, corporate, and not-for-profit sectors. Her award recognition confirms her standing as one of New Zealand's leading wellbeing communicators for workplace audiences.

34. Narelle Fraser

Victoria Police Officer; Workplace Stress Expert and Speaker

Narelle Fraser is a serving Victoria Police officer and recognised expert on workplace stress who speaks nationally to corporate and government audiences on stress management, resilience, and wellbeing in high-pressure occupational settings. Her combination of active service in one of Australia's highest-risk psychosocial environments and external thought leadership on workplace stress gives her a credibility that is rare among speakers addressing these themes.

Her work specifically addresses stress management and resilience in blue-collar and high-risk workplace cultures, including policing, corrections, and emergency services. The unvarnished, practical quality of her perspective makes her particularly effective for organisations in industries where standard resilience training is perceived as disconnected from operational reality. She is listed by Speaker Advisor as an active speaker for 2025 and 2026 events.

Sector-Specific Voices: Reaching the Populations Standard Frameworks Miss

Some of the most important mental health work in Australian and New Zealand organisations happens in industries and communities that corporate wellbeing frameworks routinely overlook. These voices work specifically in those gaps.

35. Bel Ryan

Founder, Ignite Art Therapies and Ignite Wellbeing

Bel Ryan is the founder of Ignite Art Therapies in South Australia, which addresses what she describes as "the epidemic of overwhelm, emptiness, and stress in organisations" through art therapy and creative wellbeing approaches. Her practice offers organisations an evidence-based, non-verbal route into wellbeing conversations that some employees, particularly those resistant to traditional mental health language, find far more accessible.

Art therapy's growing evidence base, combined with Ryan's practical application in corporate settings, positions her as a distinctive and complementary voice to the predominantly cognitive and psychological approaches that dominate workplace wellbeing. She is listed by Speaker Advisor as an active South Australian speaker in 2026, and her work with organisations across sectors demonstrates the applicability of creative wellbeing approaches beyond clinical settings.

36. Debra Lampshire

Lived Experience Educator and Researcher; Adjunct Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland

Debra Lampshire has spent 30 years converting her lived experience of mental distress into teaching, research, and writing that has influenced how New Zealand's health system and workplaces approach mental health recovery and support. She is an adjunct senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, was the subject of a documentary made about her life, and has appeared on multiple television programmes. She was a speaker at the 2026 Transforming Mental Health in New Zealand conference.

Her contribution to the field of workplace mental health is primarily through lived-experience research and education that challenges clinical assumptions about who counts as an expert and what recovery looks like. Her work advocating for peer support and lived experience as central, not supplementary, to mental health programmes is increasingly influential in both New Zealand's health system and its larger employers.

37. James Hill

Mental Health Advocate; 2019 Open Minds Individual Contribution to Mental Health Award Winner

James Hill is a passionate mental health advocate based in Queensland who won the 2019 Open Minds Individual Contribution to Mental Health Award for his work influencing change at Energy Queensland. After his own lived experience of mental illness, he has become a respected voice on workplace mental health, peer support, and the specific challenges of mental health in essential services and utilities organisations.

He is an ambassador for the Australian and New Zealand Mental Health Association and continues to deliver advocacy and education in corporate and community settings in Queensland. His combination of lived experience, award recognition, and sector-specific work in essential services makes him a valuable voice for organisations in the utilities, infrastructure, and government sectors navigating their psychosocial obligations.

38. Tom Boyd

Former AFL Footballer; Mental Health Speaker and Advocate

Tom Boyd played for the GWS Giants and Western Bulldogs in the AFL, winning a premiership with the Bulldogs in 2016, before publicly retiring at 23 due to mental health challenges. His willingness to prioritise his mental health over a career at the height of its trajectory, and his subsequent public advocacy, has made him one of the most compelling voices in Australia on the culture of silence that surrounds mental health in elite performance environments.

His corporate keynotes address the gap between external performance and internal struggle, the cost of normalising suffering in high-performance cultures, and the conditions that allow people to ask for help before they reach crisis. His AFL premiership credibility and authentic public disclosure of his mental health challenges make him a powerful voice for corporate audiences, particularly those in high-performance and professional environments. He is represented by Speaker Bureaus in Victoria.

39. Asami Koike

Founder and Director, Shapes and Sounds; Asian-Australian Mental Health Advocate

Asami Koike is an Australian mental health clinician and the founder of Shapes and Sounds, a certified social enterprise that works to destigmatise and promote mental health in Asian-Australian communities. After experiencing burnout while providing emergency mental health services for young people, she founded Shapes and Sounds in 2019 and has since built it into Australia's leading platform for Asian-Australian mental health resources, practitioner directories, and community education. She was recognised as a LinkedIn Top Voice for Mental Health in 2022 and named in the Top 40 Under 40 Most Influential Asian Australians in the same year.

Her work addresses a significant gap in Australian workplace mental health programming: the absence of culturally appropriate mental health support for the country's substantial Asian-heritage workforce. Through community workshops, practitioner networks, and public writing, she has created infrastructure that helps organisations reach employees who are underserved by mainstream EAP and wellbeing offerings. Her LinkedIn activity in late 2025 confirms she is actively delivering workshops and building the Shapes and Sounds practitioner community.

40. Anna Dawson

Organisational Psychologist and Psychosocial Safety Specialist

Anna Dawson is an Organisational Psychologist and Psychosocial Safety Specialist who presented at the AHRI National Convention and Exhibition 2025. Her work focuses on helping organisations understand and manage psychosocial hazards at work, including the systemic factors, leadership behaviours, and job design elements that either protect or compromise mental health. She is a practitioner on the frontline of Australia's transition from awareness-based to systems-based psychosocial risk management.

Notably, she played a pivotal role in leading the development of NSW's psychological health and safety strategy, a landmark initiative setting out obligations for all NSW businesses. Her AHRI 2025 and 2026 presentations and ongoing consulting work position her among the emerging generation of organisational psychologists who are operationalising the psychosocial safety regulatory requirements for organisations that have the intent but lack the specific expertise. Her dual lens, combining psychological knowledge and WHS systems understanding, reflects the skill set that Australian workplaces most urgently need as the regulatory environment tightens.

41. Prof Maree Teesson

Scientia Professor and Director, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney

Maree Teesson is a Scientia Professor at the University of Sydney and Director of The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use. She is one of Australia's most highly cited mental health researchers, with her work spanning the prevalence, treatment, and prevention of mental health and substance use disorders. Her research directly informs national mental health policy and the evidence base for how Australian workplaces approach mental health intervention.

As co-author of key analyses of the 2020-22 National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, published in 2025, her work provides the most current epidemiological evidence on help-seeking patterns, treatment gaps, and the populations most underserved by existing mental health systems in Australia. Her research findings, which demonstrate significant increases in psychological distress across the working-age population, provide the evidence base for employer investment in early intervention.

42. Prof Jane Pirkis

Professor, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne; Director, Centre for Mental Health

Jane Pirkis is a Professor and Director of the Centre for Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, and one of Australia's leading suicide prevention researchers. Her work on safe messaging guidelines for media reporting on suicide has directly influenced how organisations communicate about mental health emergencies, and her research on the effectiveness of universal and targeted suicide prevention interventions is internationally cited.

Her contribution to the workplace mental health field is primarily through her research on the populations at highest suicide risk, which includes specific occupational groups, and through her policy work shaping how Australian and New Zealand systems approach suicide prevention. She was a co-author of the 2025 analyses of the National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, providing current data on the populations most underserved by Australian mental health systems.

43. Rachel Clements

Co-Founder and Director of Psychological Services, Centre for Corporate Health

Rachel Clements is the Co-Founder and Director of Psychological Services at the Centre for Corporate Health, an Australian consultancy that has been providing workplace psychology, psychosocial risk assessment, and wellbeing consulting to major organisations for over two decades. The Centre works with organisations across the resources, legal, financial services, and government sectors, providing the specific expertise in high-demand industries that general wellbeing consulting often lacks.

Her work spans psychosocial risk assessment, workplace investigation, early intervention for psychological injuries, and executive coaching. The Centre for Corporate Health's position as a trusted provider for some of Australia's largest employers, including resource companies and financial institutions, reflects a depth of sector-specific knowledge that translates the evidence base into the operational realities of those industries.

44. Fiona Wilson

Workplace Mental Health Training Specialist and LinkedIn Top Voice

Fiona Wilson was named a LinkedIn Top Voice for Mental Health in Australia in 2022, recognised for her work leading workplace training that enables employers to create psychologically safe spaces for staff. She shares lived experience of mental health and draws on her article series "The Hard Truth" to challenge perceptions on topics including pregnancy loss, kindness, and workplace support programmes.

Her content specifically addresses the gap between awareness training and the culture change required to make mental health conversations safe and normal in the context of daily work. Her focus on safe leadership, self-care, and practical workplace implementation has made her one of the most followed voices in Australia for HR professionals looking for actionable guidance rather than abstract frameworks.

45. Daniel Angus

Psychologist and Mental Health Advocate; LinkedIn Top Voice

Daniel Angus is an Australian psychologist and mental health advocate of Vietnamese heritage who was named a LinkedIn Top Voice for Mental Health in 2022 for his work addressing the specific mental health challenges facing culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Australian workplaces. His posts regularly showcase meaningful work by organisations in men's health, youth services, and multicultural mental health across New South Wales.

His dual role as a hands-on psychological professional and public mental health educator gives him a perspective that bridges both clinical practice and the community-level factors that shape help-seeking behaviour. His advocacy specifically for CALD communities addresses a significant gap in Australian workplace mental health programming, which has historically been designed with a culturally narrow lens.

46. Prof Nicola Reavley

Professor, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne

Nicola Reavley is a Professor at the University of Melbourne whose research focuses on mental health literacy, the public's ability to recognise, understand, and respond to mental health problems. Her work has directly informed how Australian organisations design their mental health awareness and first aid training, moving the field from passive awareness campaigns toward active literacy that enables real behaviour change.

Her research on what people know about mental health, how they seek help, and what gets in the way of that help-seeking has practical implications for how organisations design both their training and their culture. She was a co-author of the 2025 analyses of the National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, which provided current data on help-seeking patterns across the Australian population.

47. Prof Helen Christensen AO

Scientia Professor, UNSW; Former Director, Black Dog Institute (2011-2021)

Helen Christensen AO served as Director of the Black Dog Institute from 2011 to 2021, overseeing the organisation's expansion from a clinical service to one of Australia's most influential mental health research institutes. A Scientia Professor at UNSW and Officer of the Order of Australia, she has been a pioneering force in digital mental health, developing e-mental health programmes that have reached hundreds of thousands of Australians.

Her research on cognitive and emotional wellbeing across the lifespan, and her work translating digital interventions into scalable workplace mental health programmes, has made the Black Dog Institute's workplace resources among the most evidence-based available to Australian employers. Her contributions to global mental health research have been recognised in leading international publications and she was named NSW Scientist of the Year in 2024.

48. Shannon Harvey

Author, Filmmaker and Health Journalist

Shannon Harvey is an Australian health journalist and filmmaker who experienced a serious autoimmune disease in her twenties and channelled her recovery research into the documentary The Connection, which explores the science connecting lifestyle, stress, and health. Her subsequent book and speaking work examines the relationship between stress, chronic disease, and wellbeing in a way that resonates with professional audiences who might find clinical mental health framing less accessible.

Her book My Year of Living Mindfully, which documents a year-long experiment testing the evidence for mindfulness as a health intervention, has sold broadly in the corporate wellbeing market. Her background as a medical journalist, combined with her lived experience and media skills, makes her an effective communicator of the research-to-practice bridge that corporate wellbeing programmes need to cross.

49. Prof Grant Schofield

Professor of Public Health, Auckland University of Technology; Director, Human Potential Centre

Grant Schofield is Professor of Public Health at Auckland University of Technology and Director of the Human Potential Centre, a research centre focused on the science of human performance, nutrition, and wellbeing. His research examines how lifestyle factors including sleep, movement, and diet intersect with psychological health, and how organisations can design work and support systems that enable people to function at their best.

His co-authored bestselling books and extensive public communication have made him one of New Zealand's most recognised voices on the science of wellbeing. His work on the relationship between physical and psychological health, and his practical framework for embedding wellbeing science into organisational culture, has been applied in education, healthcare, and corporate settings across New Zealand and internationally.

50. Prof Felice Jacka

Professor and Director, Food and Mood Centre, Deakin University

Felice Jacka is the founder and Director of the Food and Mood Centre at Deakin University and the founding president of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research. Her pioneering research on the relationship between diet, gut health, and mental health has opened a new dimension of workplace wellbeing that is increasingly being incorporated into corporate health programmes. Her 2017 randomised controlled trial demonstrated that dietary intervention reduced depressive symptoms, a finding that opened the field of nutritional psychiatry.

Her book Brain Changer translates the research into accessible guidance for general audiences. Her work is directly relevant to organisations designing comprehensive wellbeing strategies, as it demonstrates that the food environment employers provide, including canteen offerings, snack provisions, and meal support, is not merely a perquisite but a psychosocial determinant of workforce mental health. She is based at Deakin University in Melbourne and is internationally recognised.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

Several voices were seriously considered for this list but ultimately not included, either because they are so widely known that they need little introduction, or because their primary contribution is in a global rather than specifically AU/NZ context. Brene Brown, Adam Grant, and Simon Sinek would appear on most global leadership and wellbeing lists. Their work has shaped the conversation globally for over a decade. The list deliberately moved past these household names to surface voices the reader may not yet have encountered but who are doing equally important work in the specific context of Australian and New Zealand organisations.

Within the AU/NZ space, voices from the organisational safety and compliance sector were also considered, along with several emerging psychologists building practices in psychosocial risk assessment. The regulatory acceleration of 2025 and 2026 means this space will surface more thought leaders over the next two years.

Common Mistakes Organisations Make with Workplace Mental Health

The most persistent mistake is treating workplace mental health as an awareness campaign rather than a systems issue. A one-off R U OK? Day event, a webinar on mindfulness, or a newsletter with mental health resources all have a place. But they do not address the psychosocial hazards that the research consistently identifies as the primary drivers of mental health conditions at work: excessive job demands, low autonomy, poor managerial support, role ambiguity, and a culture that punishes vulnerability.

The second common mistake is confusing psychological safety with comfort. Psychological safety, as Amy Edmondson's research defines it, is the belief that you can take interpersonal risks without being punished or humiliated. It is not the absence of challenge or difficulty. Organisations that confuse the two create cultures where honest feedback, accountability, and performance conversations are avoided because they have been framed as unsafe.

The third mistake is investing heavily in individual EAP services while leaving structural drivers of poor mental health untouched. EAP utilisation rates in Australian organisations average around 5 per cent. That means roughly 95 per cent of the workforce is not accessing the service provided, often because they do not know it exists, do not trust confidentiality, or are too overwhelmed to take the first step. Organisations that want to move the dial on mental health need to pair accessible support services with genuine work design improvements.

The fourth mistake is assuming that wellbeing is the responsibility of the HR team rather than every leader. The research from Prof Brock Bastian, Dr Michelle McQuaid, and the Caring CEO podcast consistently shows that the biggest predictor of whether an individual feels psychologically safe at work is the behaviour of their immediate manager, not the existence of a formal wellbeing programme.

The fifth mistake is treating psychosocial risk management as a compliance exercise to be documented rather than a genuine leadership priority. The organisations in Australia and New Zealand that are making real progress on workplace mental health are those where senior leaders speak openly about their own mental health, where psychosocial risk registers are regularly reviewed and acted upon, and where the people who raise mental health concerns are visibly supported rather than quietly managed out.

Implementation Guide: Building Your Following List

The most practical thing you can do with this directory is build a deliberate reading and following list that reflects the specific mental health and wellbeing challenges your organisation faces.

Start with the researchers relevant to your industry. If you work in construction, mining, or emergency services, Prof Sam Harvey's Black Dog Institute research is your starting point. If you work in healthcare, Prof Angela Martin's work on frontline worker wellbeing is essential. If you are in financial services or professional services, Prof Brock Bastian's work on psychological safety culture is directly applicable.

Follow the LinkedIn Top Voices in your geography. Anna Feringa, Graeme Cowan, and Michelle McQuaid generate the most consistently practical and current content for Australian HR and wellbeing practitioners. In New Zealand, Lucy Hone and Denise Quinlan's posts on resilience science and positive psychology applications are a regular source of actionable insight.

Subscribe to the key newsletters and podcasts. The Caring CEO podcast (Graeme Cowan) and the Thriving At Work newsletter (Michelle McQuaid) are the two most substantive regular publications specifically oriented toward Australian workplace mental health. Both synthesise new research with practical implications for leaders and HR teams.

Engage with the regulatory updates coming through your state's WHS regulator, and find a practitioner, such as Anna Feringa, Tasha Broomhall, or an organisational psychologist in your state, who can translate those obligations into your specific operational context.

For help with the leadership conversations, the difficult discussions about performance and accountability, and the team dynamics that determine whether psychological safety is real or merely aspirational in your organisation, email jonno@consultclarity.org. Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies globally), and experienced keynote speaker and workshop facilitator. International travel is often far more affordable than organisations expect.

Frequently Asked Questions

How was this list compiled?

Every person on this list was selected against three criteria: a documented contribution to mental health and wellbeing at work in the Australian or New Zealand context; active engagement in the field as of 2025 or 2026; and a deliberate effort to represent geographic, disciplinary, and demographic diversity. The list moves past the most prominent international household names to surface voices specifically grounded in the AU/NZ regulatory, cultural, and workforce context.

What is the difference between mental health awareness and psychosocial risk management?

Mental health awareness refers to education and communication that helps people recognise mental health conditions, reduce stigma, and know how to seek help. Psychosocial risk management refers to the identification, assessment, and control of the workplace factors that cause psychological harm. Both are important, but under Australia's current WHS laws, employers are legally required to do the latter, not merely the former.

How do I know if my organisation's wellbeing programme is working?

The best indicator is not EAP utilisation or survey scores, but whether people in your organisation feel comfortable raising concerns about workload, management behaviour, or team dynamics without fear of consequence. Prof Brock Bastian's Psychological Safety Australia offers validated measurement tools. Dr Michelle McQuaid's PERMAH Workplace Survey is freely available and provides a structured approach to measuring wellbeing against evidence-based dimensions.

Can I hire someone to facilitate leadership and team building sessions that support mental health at work?

Absolutely. Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out, facilitates leadership offsites, team workshops, and keynote sessions that help organisations build the communication skills, accountability practices, and team dynamics that are the foundation of genuine psychological safety. He works with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to discuss what is right for your team.

Why are psychosocial regulations important for my organisation right now?

Under the model Work Health and Safety laws, employers now have the same duty of care to manage psychosocial hazards as they do to manage physical hazards. Victoria's 2025 Psychological Health Regulations set specific obligations for identifying, assessing, and controlling psychosocial risks. Organisations that fail to meet these obligations face increased regulatory scrutiny and claims.

Who are the best thought leaders to follow in New Zealand specifically?

For wellbeing science and resilience, Dr Lucy Hone and Dr Denise Quinlan at the NZ Institute of Wellbeing and Resilience are the most credentialled and active voices. For academic research on employee wellbeing and the four-day week, Prof Jarrod Haar at Massey University and Prof Maree Roche at the University of Auckland are the leading NZ voices. For digital mental health tools, Dr Angela Lim and Clearhead are building the most substantive New Zealand-specific digital infrastructure for workplace wellbeing.

Final Thoughts

The 50 voices on this list represent something important about where workplace mental health sits in Australia and New Zealand in 2026. It is no longer a fringe concern, addressed occasionally by wellness programmes and ignored in strategic planning. It is a legal obligation, an economic imperative, and increasingly a measure of what it means to lead well.

The researchers on this list, from Harvey and LaMontagne to Roche and Haar, have built the evidence base that makes it impossible to treat mental health at work as a soft issue. The practitioners, from Feringa and Broomhall to McQuaid and Golding, have translated that evidence into tools that organisations can actually use. The speakers and advocates, from Cowan and Schwass to Lyons and Hire, have done the harder cultural work of making it permissible to talk about mental health in workplaces where silence has historically been the safer option.

The most important insight from reading across this body of work is the consistency of the finding that leadership behaviour is the single most powerful determinant of whether a workplace supports or damages the mental health of its people. Not programmes, not EAPs, not awareness campaigns, though all of those have their place. The behaviour of every manager in every one-to-one, team meeting, and difficult conversation is where workplace mental health is made or broken.

If you would like to explore what that means for your organisation, and how building genuine accountability, honest communication, and Working Genius clarity into your leadership culture can create the conditions for real psychological safety, email jonno@consultclarity.org. Jonno White works with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. For more resources on team dynamics, communication, and leadership, visit consultclarity.org.

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

For a broader look at thought leaders on mental health globally, including voices in neuroscience, clinical psychiatry, and digital health, see the blog post "35 Best Thought Leaders Globally on Mental Health" at consultclarity.org.