Speakers

General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove retired from the Army in 2005. Four years earlier, he had been Australian of the Year: “In every respect Peter Cosgrove demonstrated that he is a role model. The man at the top displayed those characteristics we value most as Australians – strength, determination, intelligence, compassion and humour.”

The son of a soldier, he attended Waverley College in Sydney and later graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1968. He was sent to Malaysia as a lieutenant in the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. During his next infantry posting in Vietnam he commanded a rifle platoon and was awarded the Military Cross for his performance and leadership during an assault on enemy positions.

In 1972 he served a year as ADC to HE the Governor General and then returned to regimental life as a Company second in command, then Adjutant and then as a Company Commander in 5 RAR and then 5/7 RAR in Holsworthy Sydney. After that came a spell as an instructor at the Army’s Infantry Centre in Singleton, NSW.

Then it was off to the USA for year with the US Marines but now with a young wife, Lynne and their first-born, Stephen.

The next twenty years saw the family grow to three sons and a wide variety of defence force postings, including extended duty in the UK and India. During this period he commanded the Army’s 1st Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, receiving the AM for his time in command in 1983/4. He was honoured to be invested with this award by Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace in 1985, during a period of service in the UK as the Australian Army’s exchange instructor at the British Army’s Command and Staff College Camberley. Later he commanded an infantry brigade and attended the Indian National Defence College in New Delhi
In 1999 Peter Cosgrove became a national figure following his appointment as Commander of the International Force East Timor (INTERFET). He was responsible for overseeing East Timor’s transition to independence during, what was to become, a tense and uncertain period. The International Force rapidly and decisively restored law and order and handed over to another UN force early in 2000. For his leadership of INTERFET he was subsequently advanced to the rank of Companion in the military division of the Order of Australia, and was invested by Her Majesty the Queen at Yarralumla during her visit to Australia early in 2000.

He was soon promoted and made Chief of the Army. He went on to be promoted again to General and was appointed Chief of the Defence Force. Peter Cosgrove retired from the Army in July 2005. Subsequently, he accepted positions on numerous boards, including QANTAS, Cardno and the Australian Rugby Union. He was appointed by the Queensland Government to lead the taskforce rebuilding communities in the Innisfail region following the devastation caused by Cyclone Larry in 2006. From 2007 to 2012, he chaired the Council of the Australian War Memorial, and served as Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University from 2010 until early 2014. General Sir Peter Cosgrove gave the Boyer Lectures series, “A Very Australian Conversation” in 2009. His best selling autobiography “My Story” was published in 2006. He was named Australian of the Year in 2001.

On 25 March 2014, Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced that General Cosgrove would become a Knight in the Order of Australia when sworn in as Governor General. His Excellency General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove AK MC (Retd) was sworn in as Australia’s 26th Governor General and he served in that role until June 2019.

In August 2019 Sir Peter was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order by Her Majesty the Queen. In January 2020 Sir Peter accepted the voluntary role as chairman of the Business Council of Australia’s Community Rebuilding Initiative in response to the 2019/20 bushfires, leading a group of eminent business and community leaders to work with government community in the rebuilding process.

Sir Peter is an avid sports follower with particular emphasis on Rugby and Cricket. He is the husband to Lynne and they have three sons and three grandchildren.

Gert Biesta is Professor of Public Education, Maynooth University, Ireland and Professor for Educational Theory and Pedagogy, University of Edinburgh. Professor Biesta’s presentation will address some of the big questions for those who lead education. What is a good education? What should really matter in education? What should be the place of the school in society? Professor Biesta has written extensively on the philosophy of education and educational policy with a particular focus on teaching, teachers and curriculum.

Jenny Gore is a Laureate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Newcastle. Jenny's sustained program of research on Quality Teaching, a pedagogical model, and Quality Teaching Rounds, an innovative approach to teacher professional development, has had significant evidence based impact on student outcomes in government, Catholic and independent schools throughout Australia. Quality Teaching Rounds is an evidence based model that enables teachers to draw on their own strengths and the advice of peers to find creative ways of improving their practice. The DET has this year approved a QTR pilot in Victorian government schools.

Roger began teaching in 1980. Working initially in the Technical School division he was heavily involved in leadership roles in wellbeing and professional development. He developed an interest and involvement in integrated curriculum and gifted education early in his career, and has been involved in the design and planning of several new schools. Roger is the foundation principal of Nossal High School, the first purpose built coeducational government selective entry school in Victoria. He was responsible for the physical design of the school buildings and teaching spaces; the appointment of all staff; and the development of an ICT rich 21st century curriculum for high performing students.

Dr Robert Kay is a co-founder and Executive Director of Incept Labs. Incept Labs undertakes research into some of the most vexed social science questions, often delivering insights that have overturned conventional thinking.

Robert’s career has moved continuously between industry and academia. He is a former Head of Strategic Innovation at Westpac Banking Corporation; a Senior Lecturer in Information Systems and Organisational Development at the University of Technology, Sydney; and a research analyst at Bovis Lend Lease. He has commissioned to undertake numerous studies of senior leaders, exploring organisational resilience, innovation, and corporate governance. The largest of these involved interviews with Chairs of 100 organisations around Australia for the AICD.

Ultimately, however, his passion is in education which he believes requires a revolution if it is to help our young people prepare for an uncertain and technologically disrupted future. This conviction was shaped by his early research on experiential curriculum design for the development of 21st Century learning and numerous evaluations of school transformation and professional development programs across the Northern Territory, South Australia, Victoria, and Malaysia.

Robert holds a first class honours in curriculum development and worldview change, whilst his PhD involved the application of biological systems theory to improving learning and resilience in organisations.

Almost universally, Australian school leaders agree that the culture of their school matters. And yet, when asked to define it, the answers are often diverse and vague. It positions school leaders in the company of an inconvenient question - “How can work on our school’s culture if we aren’t even sure what it actually is?” In this presentation, Adam will call upon his years as a principal to assist us to establish a clearer definition of school culture, to adopt methodologies that foster culture and to see more clearly our own personal influence within that culture. A strong, relational and productive culture is the key to your people and your programs thriving. We stand at the edge of the next frontier of school improvement and Adam will be ensuring that our first steps are taken together.

Jackie Furey is known as one of Australia’s leading clinical psychotherapist and a specialist in relationships and Mental Health wellbeing.
For the past 30 years Jackie has helped thousands of people in their personal and professional lives to deal more effectively and successfully with the challenges presenting in todays wonderful yet fast paced and ever-changing world.

Jackie’s work on ‘well-being’ – creating mental strength and emotional resilience has been presented in over 40 major cities around the world. This has resulted in her conducting over 25,000 hours of face to face consultations and having thousands of people benefit from her life-changing keynotes and workshops.

Jackie is university trained in counselling and psychotherapy, a clinical member of PACFA – the Australian governing body of Psychotherapists and Counsellors, a clinical member of AAOS - the Australian Association of supervisors enabling her to offer supervision to other mental health professionals and a member of eMHPrac (black dog institute) and The Ethics Centre.

She also hosted Australia’s much-loved radio talk back relationship show on Mix 106.5 Sydney for 5 years and a was a weekly guest on the morning show for channel 9.

Jackie’s wellness experience also covers meditation (which she has practiced and taught) for over 30 years), conflict resolution, interventions for drug and alcohol issues and facilitating support groups for people struggling with addictions and mood disorders. Jackie regularly offers her time pro bono to support people working at the coal face in charities and community centres.

Jackie’s vast experience along with her skill as an accomplished presenter is able to have people drop their defenses, open their minds, strengthen their hearts and face life forward. Jackie has dedicated her professional life to Mental Health and Well-being.

Lynne Cazaly is an international keynote speaker, multi-award-winning author, and a master facilitator.

She is also an experienced radio broadcaster, presenter and producer having presented more than 10000 hours on-air. Her background is a communication specialist, having lectured in under-graduate and post-graduate programs in several of Australia's Universities, and a consultant to different industries and sectors on change and transformation.

Lynne helps individuals, teams, and businesses transition to better ways of thinking and working. She can help you think better, make sense of information and handle the realities of workplace overwhelm and information overload with her clever hacks and ingenious processes, tools and methods.

Lynne will speak about, and share strategies for sensemaking and cognitive load coping, two capabilities The Institute for the Future has predicted will be essential for leadership in the 2020s – the new ‘superpower’.

Caroline Milburn is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Ourschool, a not-for-profit service devoted solely to helping public high schools build strong alumni networks to benefit students and their school communities. Under Caroline’s leadership, Ourschool transformed from its origins as a small pilot program in 2017 incubated by VASSP, to an independent entity currently providing a service to 24 partner schools in Victoria.

Caroline is a former state secondary school teacher and a former journalist with The Age newspaper. Caroline believes state high schools deserve to have professionally-run alumni programs that create supportive alumni networks.

Paul Broecker is an Assistant Principal at Hampton Park Secondary College, located in Melbourne’s south east. Paul is passionate about making a difference to the lives of our most vulnerable and marginalized young people, having taught in disadvantage communities for 12 years. Paul was one of the original school leaders to join Ourschool and has implemented the program in two large secondary schools. He has a strong understanding of how to build an alumni program from the ground up and can attest to benefits that flow from unlocking the power of alumni.

Caroline and Paul will present on ‘Empowering schools to deliver cultural change and lift aspirations via a coherent alumni program’.
The Ourschool alumni program was founded in 2017. In this workshop, Caroline Milburn and Paul Broecker, Assistant Principal at Hampton Park Secondary College, which joined the program last year, deliver a frank appraisal of the challenges and lessons they’ve learned from starting an alumni program from scratch in a school. Paul’s former school, Fountain Gate Secondary College, was in Ourschool’s pilot and continues to grow it’s alumni program.

Andrew Douch is a teacher and independent education consultant with 22 years’ classroom experience. He helps teachers amplify their impact on student learning by inspiring new thinking about teaching effectively in a technology rich world.

His essential message is that in a rapidly changing social and economic landscape, as technology becomes ever more plentiful, user-friendly and affordable, it is leveraged most powerfully, not by the most technologically capable teachers but by those most willing to look with fresh eyes at their pedagogy.

In this down-to-earth workshop, Andrew will explain and demonstrate tips, tricks and tools he and other professional presenters use, that make presentations more seamless, compelling and memorable.

No matter your current presentation skill level, you are sure to pick up some ideas and insights that will guarantee your next presentation is more effective than your last.

Kylie Lewis is an executive coach and a certified Dare to LeadTM Facilitator. Dare to LeadTM is a formal leadership program derived from Brené Brown’s best-selling book of the same name. In this presentation, Kylie will introduce the four skill sets demonstrated by courageous leaders. Kylie holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) (Psychology & Sociology), Masters in eBusiness and Communication and is a certified Executive Coach (IECL) and Wellness Coach (Wellness Coaching Australia).