Leading lady and public speaking coach Mariette Rupps-Donnelly, D&I specialist Heather Price, economist Taleen Shamlian and top Australian law expert Claire Bibby will be talking with Claire Braund and Ruth Medd while sharing their tips with WOB members in the interactive online sessions.
First up is long-time WOB member, actor and presentation skills expert Mariette Rups-Donnelly, who will join Ruth and Claire for WOBChat on 23 February to talk about the art of storytelling and how it can be used to persuade and influence.
On 9 March, Heather Price of Symmetra will discuss the work she is doing bringing Boards and executive to a deeper awareness and understand of the systemic and structural causes of racism and cultural discrimination.
Taleen Shamlian will join the Chat on 6 April, ahead of May’s Federal Election due, to reflect on the importance of political and policy factors in your Board's strategy and risk plan.
On 4 May, join successful ASX Non-Executive Director, professional coach & mediator, Claire Bibby, to hear how she creates environments in which business leaders and employees can make bold decisions with confidence.
About the speakers
Mariette Rups-Donnelly
Actors are trained story tellers. WOB has its own personal favourite in Mariette Rups-Donnelly - whose 30 year acting career included lead roles in Evita, A Chorus Line, Annie, Big River, Company, The Seagull, Hamlet, Emerald City, Away, and appearances on television and in film.
Mariette has transferred this knowledge to the corporate world, taking her years of experience as a leading actor and teacher of actors and combined it with an astute business understanding to create programs that go to the core of presence, presentation skills and business performance. She draws her expertise from her acting career and as a teacher in some of Australia’s foremost acting institutions including NIDA, WAAPA, Uni of Western Sydney and The Actor’s Centre.
Through her company Powerhouse Presentation, she runs a wide variety of one on one programs, and customised workshops for executives and corporations and is particularly valued for her understanding of how to use language, voice and body for maximum impact.
She has sat on academic and course advisory boards for the NIDA Open Program, WAAPA and Uni of Western Sydney and is currently an advisory board for the Sydney Eisteddfod. A language specialist, her BA from Sydney University included studies in French, German, Italian, Dutch and Indonesian. She has recently furthered her studies in performance psychology and comedy performance.
Heather Price
Heather began her career in South Africa in 1990, setting up a consultancy specialising in Diversity and Inclusion and the dismantling of apartheid. She opened the doors of Symmetra in the Asia Pacific region in 2003 with its Head Office in Australia offering end to end solutions on D&I.
She presents regularly at international conferences, sits on the Expert Panel which ratifies the Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmark Tool and has been invited to judge for best practice awards in D&I for Community Business across Asia and Women in Banking and Finance in Australia.
Heather is engaged regularly to work locally and internationally with the C-suite on the business imperative of Diversity & Inclusion, building inclusive leadership capability, leading for purpose and performance, psychological safety, counteracting unconscious bias and racial inclusion in the workplace.
As dynamic presenter, Heather is best known for her powerful delivery of keynote sessions on driving performance and innovation through inclusion with a focus on what inclusion looks like in the 21st century, how inclusion can be leveraged to build agile teams who can better respond to a rapidly changing marketplace and addressing the barriers that stand in the way of achieving this.
Taleen Shamlian
Taleen has a depth of experience advising Boards and C-suite executives of the ASX-100 including the CEOs of CBA, NAB, Bendigo-Adelaide Bank, Bank of Queensland and others on various political and government issues, including lead adviser in the Banking Royal Commission.
She is currently a NED for the NSW Government's Council for Women's Economic Opportunity (CWEO) and Radiation Advisory Council (RAC), a strategic adviser to Commonwealth and State governments, and teaches public service management at QUT's Business School for the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC). She was previously an economist at Commonwealth Treasury, and Head of Government Relations at Visa and Commonwealth Bank where she advised C-suite on Federal election transition issues.
Claire Bibby
Claire Bibby is a Senior Lawyer, Executive Coach and Non-Executive Director, based in Sydney. She has founded and co-founded a number of businesses covering the legal, coaching, property-tech and legal-tech spaces.
As an executive, Claire has over 30 years of experience gained through senior management appointments with some of the world’s largest companies and at top-tier law firms. And as an internationally qualified coach (ACC), Claire coaches private and corporate clients, specialising in lawyers and executives, to empower them to move their career, team and leadership dreams into active, actionable, pursuits.
Outside of her executive life, Claire is a NED of four ASX-listed companies, a public family office and a charity, and is an Industry/Professional Fellow with the University of Technology Sydney, School of Law. She has been recognised as one of Australia’s best lawyers and female executives, including having been awarded the “Excellence Award for Women in Law”, “Female Executive of the Year in Asia, Australia & New Zealand”, and being named one of the "Elite Women of 2021".
Part and parcel with her passion for coaching, Claire is an active public speaker on issues of innovation, diversity and inclusion, psychological wellness, developing high-performing teams and women’s leadership. Claire was also a mentor for seven-times World Surfing Champion Layne Beachley AO's "Aim for the Stars" Foundation.
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