Main Conference

Nadia Taylor

Chief Executive Officer
Mapien

Nadia Taylor is the CEO of Mapien, a people consultancy with offices in Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, and Sydney. 

A sought-after speaker and genuine thought leader, Nadia’s expertise includes industrial relations, negotiation, advocacy, disputes, enterprise bargaining, leadership, culture and the people side of scaling businesses. 

On top of leading Mapien’s core team of 65+ staff, Nadia serves on a not-for-profit board and is a mentor for Queensland Leaders and the Australian Owner Manager Program.  

Nadia has spent more than 25 years helping to build Mapien into what it is today — from her first role as a graduate consultant, to her current role as CEO. She played a critical role in the company’s interstate expansion, merger, financial growth, flexible work culture, and more. Under Nadia’s leadership, the company has achieved awards for Best Workplace and Change Champion, was officially recognised as a Great Place to Work, and was featured in workplace design book, The Next Workplace. 

Leading with her famous optimism and flexibility, Nadia has helped make Mapien a workplace of choice, while enabling the team to deliver best-in-industry people solutions for every client. 

Andrew Buckland

Associate Director, Workforce Strategy & Analytics
Eastern Health

With over a decade of experience in workforce strategy, capability, and leadership roles across diverse industries like Supply Chain Logistics, Technology, Education, and Public Healthcare, Andrew is well versed in building, aligning and optimizing organizational talent. Andrew has been successful in ensuring organisations have the right people in the right place with the right skills and capabilities using a variety of talent management solutions. Currently leading the Workforce Strategy and Analytics team at Eastern Health, Andrew has been focused on growing the workforce data literacy of the organisation and using this to build and deliver Strategic Workforce Plans in a critical industry.

Carina Parisella

Head of Technology Workforce
ANZ

Carina Parisella leads the Technology Workforce agenda at ANZ Bank. She is the Architect behind ANZ’s Tech Talent Marketplace, an internal mobility platform designed to mobilse talent to the most important work and is the co-founder of ANZ’s award winning Return to Work program – the first returnship program in the Australian financial services sector.

Carina’s team is focused on attracting, developing and retaining a diverse and highly capable global workforce through building early talent, internal mobility, learning and development, ways of working and workforce management.

A passionate diversity and inclusion advocate, Carina and her teams have been recognised globally for their work across various initiatives focused on leveraging untapped talent like the ANZ award-winning Return to Work program and the highly successful Spectrum program for autistic individuals.

Prior to her current role, Carina has held a number of leadership roles across banking, media, communications, innovation and partnerships and plays an advisory role in the innovation and start-up economy. She’s a regular in the Australian speaking circuit and passionate about increasing awareness of diversity in business and untapped talent. A relentless optimist and business creative, Carina loves working with people and technology to bring ideas and solutions to life.

Nadia Taylor

Chief Executive Officer
Mapien

Nadia Taylor is the CEO of Mapien, a people consultancy with offices in Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, and Sydney. 

A sought-after speaker and genuine thought leader, Nadia’s expertise includes industrial relations, negotiation, advocacy, disputes, enterprise bargaining, leadership, culture and the people side of scaling businesses. 

On top of leading Mapien’s core team of 65+ staff, Nadia serves on a not-for-profit board and is a mentor for Queensland Leaders and the Australian Owner Manager Program.  

Nadia has spent more than 25 years helping to build Mapien into what it is today — from her first role as a graduate consultant, to her current role as CEO. She played a critical role in the company’s interstate expansion, merger, financial growth, flexible work culture, and more. Under Nadia’s leadership, the company has achieved awards for Best Workplace and Change Champion, was officially recognised as a Great Place to Work, and was featured in workplace design book, The Next Workplace. 

Leading with her famous optimism and flexibility, Nadia has helped make Mapien a workplace of choice, while enabling the team to deliver best-in-industry people solutions for every client. 

Kent Cabrera

General Manager Talent Enablement, Insights and Partnering
AIA

Kent has worked across several sectors including insurance, government, petroleum, public health and retail.  A unique background that includes leadership in HR operations, Talent and HR system project implementations; his most recent focus has been the global implementation of HR systems, process redesign, HR analytics and people risks. He continues to focus on the value and evolution of HR. 

Jennifer Tiffin

Human Resources Director – APAC
Bunzl

Jennifer Tiffin is the Human Resources Director at Bunzl Australasia which comprises Bunzl Safety, Bunzl Australia & New Zealand, Bunzl Asia, Interpath, Fire Rescue Safety Australia and LSH (Singapore). Bunzl is part of the global Bunzl Group of companies, established in 1854 and now a FTSE 100 listed company.

With a remit that encompasses eight Business Units across Australia, New Zealand, China and Singapore, Jennifer’s responsibilities include establishing, aligning and executing against a business strategy that covers an international multi-business multi-site landscape.

Her expertise lies in People and Performance Management, Workplace Health and Safety, and Leadership Coaching and Strategy. A genuine interest in Corporate Responsibility extends her involvement with Bunzl’s Modern Slavery stand, plus Community Engagement activities that include supporting opportunities for Indigenous organisations.

Respect, integrity and teamwork are the three guiding pillars Jennifer works within. She brings this approach to her professional life and her academic goals (currently MBA studies), and even her first 10km Fun Run where she raised over $6000 for Peter McCallum. Jennifer finds balance from her busy calendar by camping, bushwalking, knitting and spending time with her family.

Cynthia Wong

GM Customer Experience
Employment Hero

Cynthia is focused on ensuring that the needs of Employment Hero’s customers remain front and center when it comes to the products and services that we provide. As part of her role, she is constantly driving her team to uncover innovative solutions to existing challenges and looking for new ways to better service the 300,000 businesses that use Employment Hero. Cynthia has over twenty years work experience in product development, customer-led design and process improvement. Her industry experience spans across the health insurance designing consumer products at Medibank as well as working with small and medium sized businesses at Sensis and Xero.

Nadia Taylor

Chief Executive Officer
Mapien

Nadia Taylor is the CEO of Mapien, a people consultancy with offices in Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, and Sydney. 

A sought-after speaker and genuine thought leader, Nadia’s expertise includes industrial relations, negotiation, advocacy, disputes, enterprise bargaining, leadership, culture and the people side of scaling businesses. 

On top of leading Mapien’s core team of 65+ staff, Nadia serves on a not-for-profit board and is a mentor for Queensland Leaders and the Australian Owner Manager Program.  

Nadia has spent more than 25 years helping to build Mapien into what it is today — from her first role as a graduate consultant, to her current role as CEO. She played a critical role in the company’s interstate expansion, merger, financial growth, flexible work culture, and more. Under Nadia’s leadership, the company has achieved awards for Best Workplace and Change Champion, was officially recognised as a Great Place to Work, and was featured in workplace design book, The Next Workplace. 

Leading with her famous optimism and flexibility, Nadia has helped make Mapien a workplace of choice, while enabling the team to deliver best-in-industry people solutions for every client. 

Antoinette Battista

Executive Director, People & Culture
Department of Transport and Planning

With an HR career spanning 25 years in the public sector and currently the Executive Director at the Department of Transport and Planning, Antoinette has extensive experience as a strategic leader. She has worked in public transport in government departments for over 20 years.

Antoinette has experience in leading strategic and operational people and culture functions and multidisciplinary teams, spanning all functions of HR. She has extensive experience in leading large change programs to drive engagement, positive workplace cultures and performance.

Antoinette is a fervent believer in an inclusive workplace where people can be their best at work. Developing collaborative relationships based on trust, respect and integrity is a key strength and developing a culture of collaboration both in the department, its portfolio and across government, is central to her success.

Kristen Bugeja

Chief People Officer
Defence Bank

Kristen has 26 years’ experience in the financial services sector, and 17 years’ as an executive of Defence Bank, a member owned bank that serves the Australian Defence Force.

Kristen has extensive experience in cultural change and in developing the capability of frontline and support office teams. She has successfully enhanced the bank’s employee value proposition through the integration of reward and recognition, with strategic direction and talent and leadership programs.

Under her leadership, the Bank’s People team was named in the 2023 HR Director Australia’s Innovative HR Teams list and Defence Bank has been named an Excellence Awardee for both 2023 and 2024 in the categories of Employer of Choice (100-999 employees) and Best Reward and Recognition Program at the Australian HR Awards.

Meredith Crowe

Senior VP, Global People & Culture
Telix Pharmaceuticals

Meredith is a People & Culture executive specializing in organisation growth and culture, global operations, and organisation effectiveness.

As Senior VP, Global People & Culture at Telix Pharmaceuticals, she leads a global team with focus on talent acquisition and management, and building flexible and future-proofed People & Culture practises that can scale with a business. Telix is an ASX200, fast growing and highly innovative biopharmaceutical company with employees across APAC, EMEA and AMER.

Meredith has worked in Healthcare and BioTech for most of her career, and excels in high-stakes, purpose-driven environments. She have a keen curiosity for all things people, particularly in how the systems and networks in the workplace influence capacity for accountability, communication, empathy, and self-awareness.

Carl Phillips

Chief People Officer
Costa Group

Carl Phillips is Chief People Officer for Costa Group, a world leading, large scale horticultural company with growing and marketing operations in Australia and overseas, supplying fresh produce to millions of people.

Having led Costa’s people function since 2014, a key focus for Carl has been to ensure the function has delivered the necessary strategy, support, and practical outcomes for the organisation as it moved from being privately owned to a public company, while also exponentially expanding its domestic and existing international operations, including the establishment of new operations in China.

The Costa people function is required to deliver timely expert advice and support to our business leaders securing the best talent, and a workforce that can meet comprehensively the needs of a seasonal and at times volatile growing environment. Carl has been instrumental in developing and implementing key employment and workplace initiatives that deliver a positive experience for workers in order that they continually return and support the harvest, packing and movement of fresh produce through the various locations and seasons that Costa operates across.  He leads a talented team of HR and safety professionals to support Costa’s aspiration to grow and deliver premium fresh produce, underpinned by our core values and mission.

Carl has extensive experience across various industries including retail, mining, services, and horticulture.  His formative career experience was developed through his role with the Federated Iron Workers and as the national industrial officer of The Australian Workers’ Union.  This saw Carl deeply involved in many workplace negotiations and dispute resolutions across many different workplaces and industries, including aviation, aluminium, pastoral and general manufacturing industries.

Carl has formal qualifications from the University of Newcastle, focused on labour economics and industrial relations. He has always had a strong passion to help people develop into being best they can at all levels of their working and personal lives.  A passion for sport, in particular football, has seen Carl coach and support young players, helping them to develop both technical and game sense, while always seeking maximum enjoyment from competing.  He grew up in the lands of the Worimi people and respects those past and present who have and continue to guide and lead our society for a better future.