Trailblazing with CorbettPrice

This episode highlights the critical need to boost productivity in Australia and provides several approaches on how to turn it around. It also leaves you with the encouragement to pursue change, embrace new technology, prepare your workforce for the future, and approach and navigate regulation more thoughtfully.

As a people and culture leader, Emma Connell has seen and experienced both sides of organisational change, including when it’s managed well and when it’s not. Emma is the Executive Director of People and Culture at the Aged Care Quality Safety Commission. She joins us in our latest episode to share her experiences and offer her advice in leading and supporting people through change, whether it be...

A lot has changed over the past ten years, and the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing is no exception! From the 2016 capability review, the COVID pandemic, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, and the second capability review in late 2022, DoHAC stands at a critical point in its history, having evolved considerably in how it approaches change and prepares itself for the...

The Clean Energy Regulator (CER) certainly has a large and growing remit of work. As they administer Australia’s climate change mitigation laws, CER not only serves as a regulator but also as a carbon markets agency, acting like a bank due to the carbon units and certificates it issues. Speaking with Mark Williamson, the Executive General Manager, who has been at CER for thirteen years on the topi...

Imagine being a micro agency of nine people with a great ambition to make a real difference in addressing climate change for Australians. Then you get the green light to rapidly grow six times your size, budget, and remit. Exciting? Perhaps. Uncertain? Definitely. Brad Archer, Chief Executive Officer of the Climate Change Authority, joins us to discuss leading through significant and rapid growth,...

Saxon Rice, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA), joins us in our latest episode to discuss fostering adaptability in teams. This episode is an excellent reminder that while, for many leaders that are comfortable with change and may already be working in the future state that they’ve been part of designing, it can be easy to forget that others in the organisati...

In our milestone thirtieth episode, we are joined by Carlyn Waters, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Operating Officer at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, as she brings a rare perspective of what it is like to be an Aboriginal person in 2025 and how having cultural traits of resilience, adaptability, curiosity, and humility encapsulate a growth mi...

The benefit of hindsight is that you can see how things from your past have carefully placed the pieces together to create the path that you’re on. Our next trailblazer, Sandy Pitcher, Chief Executive at the Department of Human Services for the South Australian Government, joins us in our latest episode to talk about this as she reflects on her career. Sandy shares her experiences in growing up in...

Tania Rishniw, Deputy Secretary of Employment and Workforce at the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) joins us in our latest episode to talk about how failure can lead to your biggest success. This episode showcases an engaging and authentic leader whose experience in crises and uncertainty offers excellent advice on overcoming challenges, managing risk, innovating, and buildi...

Having worked on several significant transformation projects across Queensland Health, eHealth Queensland, and Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service, Damian Green knows a thing (or ten) about what factors are critical in leading successful transformations and delivering them in uncertain times. Damian is currently the Deputy Director-General of Corporate Services at Queensland Health, and he join...

Deb Jenkins, Deputy Secretary of Corporate Enabling Services and Chief Operating Officer for the Department of Employment and Workplace and Relations, joins us in our latest episode to talk about fostering adaptability in teams. This episode affirms that to create great teams, you have to work hard at it. Deb shares that the cornerstones of great teams are built on relationships, a clear and share...

Our next Trailblazer has over forty years of experience in information technology and digital media in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, and Asia, leading companies such as IBM, Apple, Microsoft, ninemsn, and Xero, and as a result, has been on the frontline of every significant technological shift and economic shock since the 1980s. Steve Vamos, Global Executive, and former CEO, joins us in our lat...

Amanda Cattermole, CEO of the Australian Digital Health Agency, is a leader who is passionate about creating an organisational culture that’s focussed on stewardship, built on deep collaboration, and comprised of leaders at every level who add to the culture by enabling stewardship and innovation and creating a convening role with the broader ecosystem. Amanda also shares a powerful message of the...

When you've had a thirty-five-year-long career that spans industries and sectors as our next Trailblazer has, you have the benefit of seeing how organisational learning has changed and if it's changed for the better or worse. Tim Beresford, Chief Executive at the Australian Financial Security Authority, or AFSA, joins us to talk about this and much more in our latest episode on becoming a learning...

What does learning look like in an organisation when a high proportion of your workforce is already doctorate-level educated, formally trained marine scientists and former teachers? Josh Thomas, Chief Executive Officer at the Reef Authority, talks about this and much more as he joins us to discuss becoming a learning organisation in our latest podcast episode. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Au...

Our next Trailblazer’s interest in history and learning from it, particularly the history of labour movements and work, has been a common theme that has led her throughout her fascinating career. Marie Boland, Chief Executive Officer at Safe Work Australia, discusses this further in our latest episode on Taking the Path Less Travelled. Listen to Marie's story of growing up in Ireland and how her d...

For many leaders in the public sector, there are very few times in your career when you have the opportunity to develop a new agency for a state government entity. Our next Trailblazer, Marina Bowshall, had the chance to do just that as she took on the Chief Executive of Preventive Health SA role in September of 2023. Marina joins us in our latest episode to talk about her experience in leading th...

As an experienced leader who has worked across multiple industries and now is the Chief Executive Officer at the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Authority, our next guest Sue McCarrey, has certainly seen her share of times when things haven’t gone according to plan or achieved an unexpected outcome. Sue joins our latest podcast to discuss how challenges can lead to your bigges...

Liz Tydd, the Australian Information Commissioner, joins us in this special broadcast of our podcast series on Thriving in Uncertainty to provide a regulator’s perspective in building capacity in agencies and industry. In this enlightening episode, you’ll learn the OAIC’s latest thinking on the eight key elements in ensuring there is a human-rights-centred approach in the AI space and how essentia...

Our next trailblazer, David MacLennan, has had an interesting career. He started out working in the Commonwealth Government, mainly in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra and then overseas, before joining the Western Australian State Government in the Department of Planning and now as the CEO of the City of Vincent. David joins us in our latest episode to talk about his journey...

We know that there are many modes of learning. One that has been spoken about in recent episodes as critically important is on-the-job learning and how, knowledge sharing between peers, even from different areas of an organisation, can help fuel new ideas and ways of working. Another important learning and development opportunity in the APS is mobility. In our latest episode, Sam Palmer joins us t...

We are thrilled to present our exclusive broadcast with David Thodey, who joins our podcast to discuss Innovating in Uncertainty. David is a business leader with a career active in business, healthcare, public policy, innovation, tertiary education, the environment, and corporate governance.  In our latest episode, we catch up with David to discuss the concept of "Innovating in Uncertainty."...

Tim Bullard, Chief Executive Officer at the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), joins us in our latest episode to discuss adaptability. Tim knows too well how adaptability can directly influence your engagement at work, having managed the Department of Education and then the Department of Education, Children, and Young People in Tasmania through tremendous amounts of ch...

Dr Ivan Williams, the Chief Medical Radiation Scientist at the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), joins us in our latest episode to discuss the topic of becoming a learning organisation. Critical to performing ARPANSA's work is being across enormous amounts of data, research, regulations, and audits. Staff must also be across contemporary developments in technolog...

We often speak about the importance of everyone continuing to learn. After all, learning, in its essence, is about being alive. While some may approach learning with curiosity and be open to the possibilities it may provide for us, others may find it overwhelming to be able to decide in the direction to go. David Coltman, Chief Executive of TAFE SA, joins us to discuss this and much more in our la...