NEEOPA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
The NEEOPA Executive Committee is elected at the Annual General Meeting by members for a 12 month term. There are 3 Office Bearers (President, Vice-President, Treasurer) in addition to Executive Committee members.
TO NETWORK WITH YOUR HR & DIVERSTY & INCLUSION PEERS
MANAGE THE AFFAIRS OF THE ASSOCIATION ON BEHALF OF MEMBERS
MAINTAIN AND GROW THE MEMBERSHIP BASE
PLAN FUTURE FORUM DATES, TOPICS AND GUEST SPEAKERS
ENSURE NEEOPA PROVIDES RELEVENT AND UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION FOR MEMBERS
NEEOPA EXECUTIVE 2017-2018
Rowan Arndt, PRESIDENT
Rowan Arndt is a Diversity and Inclusion Consultant and the founder of 2include Pty Limited. Rowan brings a strong business discipline that focuses on high performance with the right returns, for the right investment, to create inclusive leaders and an inclusive environment. Rowan’s expertise lies in both the design and delivery of strategy and implementation plans for Australian corporates across the multiple dimensions of diversity. His company has developed and delivered a number of successful plans and systems changes across inclusive leadership, unconscious and conscious bias in decision making, Indigenous awareness, disability, gender, LGBTI and age across all generations.
2Include, Director
Fiona Hitchiner, VICE PRESIDENT
Fiona was elected as Vice President of NEEOPA in 2016 and has been on the Executive Committee since 2015 as well as an active member since 2011. Fiona has over 20 years’ experience of working in the Diversity & Inclusion, Work-life balance, Recruitment and Human Resources sectors working for multi-national, private and government organisations across Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
Fiona is the Strategic Relationship Manager NSW for Sageco - a RiseSmart company supporting organisations through organisational and demographic changes.
Fiona is passionate about working with organisations to truly support and engage their people, through the development of work-life, diversity and inclusion as well as talent management programs.
Vice President, NEEOPA & Strategic Relationship Manager, Sageco
Diane Utatao, TREASURER
Elected NEEOPA Treasurer since 2011, Diane is also on the Executive for NAWO (National Association of Women in Operations). In her past corporate career with Australia Post, Diane led diversity and inclusion strategy and change initiatives across a workforce in excess of 36,000 employees to build employee engagement and culture change. Diane’s creative work to raise disability awareness was recognized as a finalist in the 2014 National Disability Awards and as a finalist in the 2015 Australian Human Resource Institute (AHRI) Diversity & Inclusion Awards. As director of D&I Consulting, Diane is passionate about helping others develop creative solutions to leverage diversity and inclusion to improve equality, engagement, productivity and innovation.
D&I Consulting, Director
Executive Committee
Alison Monroe
Alison is a passionate, insightful thought leader on all aspects of workforce and demographic change, with deep expertise in career transition, ageing workforce and gender equality. Alison is highly sought after as a conference chair, presenter and facilitator and known for her energy, humour and incisiveness.
Having begun her career in hospitality and quality management, Alison started working in the Human Resources sector in the mid-nineties, finding a natural place for her skills and strengths in the career transition (outplacement) industry. A highlight of this time was developing and leading the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games career transition program. In 2004, Alison co-founded Sageco, then a niche consultancy in ageing workforce and mature-age transition. She directed a number of industry leading ageing workforce projects including the 3 year Federal Government Corporate Champions program.
Having led Sageco for 12 years, achieving year-on-year growth and expanding the Sageco services to include career and executive transition, Alison was instrumental in Sageco being acquired by Randstad Australia in early 2017. She is now the National Director (Australia & NZ) for Sageco – a RiseSmart company, wholly owned by Randstad, reporting to the CEO, Frank Ribuot.
Sageco - a RiseSmart company, National Director
Alice Moginie
Alice is an Associate Human Resources Manager at MSD Australia, one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. Alice works across a diverse HR portfolio including chairing the Australia & New Zealand Diversity & Inclusion Council, designing and delivering the Diversity strategy, partnering with a range of business units as their HR business partner and managing operational projects. Alice is passionate about equality and believes that equality means a better world for us all.
Merck Sharp & Dohme, Associate Business Partner
Sonja Braidner
Sonja is the Diversity and Inclusion lead at Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW). She brings a wealth of experience in Organisational Development and Diversity & Inclusion, having consulted across numerous corporate and business sectors for the past 20 years. Prior to FRNSW Sonja worked at the University of Sydney, UNSW and Singtel /Optus in diversity leadership capacities. A creative and pragmatic Inclusionist, Sonja’s expertise lies in the tailored design and delivery of strategy and implementation plans to drive positive cultural change; enabling businesses and their people to share in the many successes afforded by inclusive and synergistic workplaces. Sonja was a founder and 1998 NSW Senate Candidate for an inclusive political party established in response to societal issues pertaining to race, refugees and mutliculturalism. She has a deep respect and passion for Reconciliation and as such is a Social Leadership Australia (Leading Together) Alumnus and former co-Chair of the National Sorry Day Committee; which highlighted the issues impacting members of the Stolen Generations to the Federal Government and wider community. Currently she sits on various industry consultative and reference panels, is a diversity awards judge and conference speaker. Sonja has been a member of NEEOPA since 2010.
Fire & Rescue (NSW), Diversity Coordinator
Anne-Marie Paterson
CBA
William Taing
William was elected to the NEEOPA Executive Committee in 2016. William currently works in the Deloitte Human Capital Consulting team helping organisations improve their result and impact by focussing on the challenges at the intersection between business and people. He also manages the Deloitte Australia National Diversity and Inclusion Community of Practice. William is deeply passionate about helping people achieve their full potential and is a strong believer in humanistic leadership.
Deloitte Consulting, Human Capital
Jo Higgins
Jo Higgins is an Organisation Architect responsible for designing/implementing the IAG wide diversity, inclusion and belonging strategy across Australia, NZ and Asia. Recent highlights have included a 3 month secondment to Asia to identify D&I opportunities, the formation of IAG’s first Reconciliation Action Plan and participation in the China Australia Millennial Project 2017. Originally trained as a barrister in London, Jo has worked in a number of organisational design roles across financial services and legal industries.
IAG, Organisation Architect
Sarah Abbott
Sarah is a Senior Diversity and Inclusion Manager for the Commonwealth Bank. In this role Sarah covers the portfolio of gender, accessibility, flexibility, age and inclusion.
Recently Sarah has led CBA’s renewed approach to flexibility with the roll out of the “I Can Flex” campaign across the Bank; redefining CBA’s approach to flexible work arrangements. This has resulted in a change in approach from management and shift in employee empowerment.
CBA, Senior Diversity & Inclusion Manager