Speakers
Hayley Lewis, Queensland's Mental Health Ambassador is dedicated to sharing her personal story to help reduce the stigma associated with mental illness and advocate for mentally healthy workplaces.
At the age of 15 years old, Hayley captured the hearts of Australians by winning five gold medals at the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games. A year later, she made history as one of Australia’s youngest ever World Champion, winning the 200m freestyle at the Perth World Championships.
In 1992 at her first Olympics, Hayley brought home a silver and a bronze followed by more medals at the '93 Pan Pacific Championships, the '94 Commonwealth Games, the '95 World Championships and the '96 Atlanta Olympics. After a short break, she returned to swimming in 1999 and achieved her goal of making the 2000 Olympic team, as well as the 2001 World Championship team.
Since her retirement from competitive swimming, Hayley has been a driving force in the community. She founded a swim school in Brisbane, hosted five seasons of the reality show The Biggest Loser, authored a small business book, Dream, Believe, Create, and has over 18 years' experience as a small business owner. In addition, Hayley has recently completed a psychology degree.
Dave Burroughs is the Principal Psychologist of Australian Psychological Services and Chief Mental Health Officer for Westpac Group. He has a 20-year international career as a strategist, consultant and psychologist working across multiple industries.
With career experience across clinical, military, organisational, and community psychology domains, Dave has a commitment to evidence-informed practice and a reputation for tackling complex organisational issues.
He is a mentally healthy workplaces ambassador for SafeWorkNSW, Champion for the National Communications Charter for Mental Health and Suicide, co-founder of Mantle men’s mental health and partner at Psychological Safety Australia.
Mark is a workplace psychologist and risk specialist with a broad background beginning his career serving nearly a decade in the Australian Army as a Psychology Officer. This gave him the opportunity to provide individual, team, and organisational psychological intervention both in Australia and overseas. During this time, Mark also had the privilege of working with Australia’s elite special forces in human performance, selection, workplace mental health, and resilience. He was awarded an Australian Defence Force Gold Commendation for his motivational and supportive leadership in this role.
Mark has also worked across industry in human factors, human performance, workplace mental health, and executive leadership development. He has a passion for delivering tailored workplace interventions to promote positive mental health to create a flourishing work environment. He takes a practical and applied approach to psychology and communicates it in a way that is easily accessible.
Mark is a workplace psychologist and risk specialist with a broad background beginning his career serving nearly a decade in the Australian Army as a Psychology Officer. This gave him the opportunity to provide individual, team, and organisational psychological intervention both in Australia and overseas. During this time, Mark also had the privilege of working with Australia’s elite special forces in human performance, selection, workplace mental health, and resilience. He was awarded an Australian Defence Force Gold Commendation for his motivational and supportive leadership in this role.
Mark has also worked across industry in human factors, human performance, workplace mental health, and executive leadership development. He has a passion for delivering tailored workplace interventions to promote positive mental health to create a flourishing work environment. He takes a practical and applied approach to psychology and communicates it in a way that is easily accessible.
Anna is an award-winning international speaker, author, trainer and workplace mental health consultant. As a respected member of global HSE, Anna was recognised as a Global Top 10 Health and Safety Influencer in 2020 and voted LinkedIn’s Top Voice for Workplace Mental Health in 2022.
With over 18-years’ consulting experience, Anna supports employers by helping them to see that embracing mental health in the workplace can help prevent injury and drive a great culture. She helps Australian businesses transition from fearful and confused, to confident and responsive when faced with mental health challenges in the workplace.
With a background in psychology, Michelle has worked in a range of operational and leadership roles across various departments within WorkCover Queensland. In her current position, she leads the planning and delivery of the mental health and injury claims strategy—providing technical expertise and coaching for claims teams, and offering guidance and mentoring for leaders to support capability and promote mental health literacy.
Professor Michelle Tuckey is one of Australia’s leading researchers in workplace bullying prevention—recognised globally for her theoretical and practical advances in this domain. She works towards change at a systemic level and has had significant national impact, including supporting the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Set the Standard: Report on the Independent Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces (2021) and guiding the Australian Medical Association's revised Position Statement on workplace bullying, harassment, and discrimination. The evidence-based psychosocial risk management program developed through Michelle's research has been implemented in more than 85 worksites around Australia. She has published over 100 significant research publications and currently serves as Associate Editor of the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology and on the editorial boards of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology and the International Journal of Stress Management.
Nicholas is a psychologist and data scientist leading the National People at Work® programme in the Psychological Health Unit at Workplace Health and Safety Queensland.
He is passionate about developing systems that support workers to flourish, and has experience in performance measurement, leadership, staff selection and development, and psychometrics.
Nicholas has worked in the public and private sectors, in selection and assessment in Defence and emergency services, and has provided consulting services across education, sports, construction, research, and other industries.
Skye is an Associate Professor of Law and consults on matters of sex discrimination.
She is passionate about the elimination of sexual harassment, particularly in the dynamic rural context, having written and published the book Whispers from the Bush – The Sexual Harassment of Australian Rural Women.
Skye has reviewed and facilitated gender equity solutions for a wide range of industries including forestry, seafood, meat and also in the legal profession.
In 2017, the Victorian Women's Trust produced a short documentary about Skye's research called Grace Under Fire, and in that same year, she was the recipient of the Chancellor’s Young Alumni Award (University of Canberra) for her contribution to sexual harassment redress in Australia.
In 2000, Daryl's life changed forever when he was shot twice in the face and shoulder. Despite critical injuries, he immediately responded by protecting his colleagues and residents while searching for the gunman. His bravery that night earned him the highest police award and a citation from Australia's Governor General.
Over the next seven years, Daryl underwent over a dozen facial reconstructive surgeries while battling severe depression and chronic PTSD. He later returned to the police force, where he earned three promotions and a master's degree in finance. He also confronted his greatest fear—guns.
Today, Daryl is a Lifeline Ambassador and speaker—drawing on his personal experiences to inspire individual, leaders and teams that bravery, courage, and resilience are within us all.
Dr Michalak is an evidence-savvy specialist in psychosocial risk management and organisational performance. With 25+ years of experience spanning the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors, she draws from her uniquely transdisciplinary expertise to help organisations tackle wicked problems. Her expert opinion, strategic advisory, and capability building work demystifies what ‘bad to best’ really means on the journey from compliance-orientated cost-saving, through to value-baking.
She holds tertiary qualifications in psychology, business and management research, and is a certified trainer and assessor.
Head of Implementation at Black Dog Institute, Menopause Workplace Trainer and Facilitator and Psychotherapist, Janey McGoldrick has more than 25 years' experience delivering health and education programs, across the UK and Australia. Clients include Toyota, Vodaphone, the UK National Health Service and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Despite working in the health space, at age 47 Janey found herself ill equipped and struggling through her menopause transition, experiencing night sweats, insomnia, anxiety, joint pain, brain fog and other physical symptoms. Several years and many lifestyle and medical changes later, Janey is now a passionate advocate for better menopause healthcare to help other women during this life stage. She is committed to reducing stigma and increasing awareness of menopause and delivers workplace education and training across Australia.
Director of the OPUS Centre for Psychosocial Risk and a registered psychologist, Dr Tessa Bailey completed her PhD focusing on psychosocial safety climate and psychosocial factors at work, earning the Ian Davey Award for the most outstanding PhD thesis at the University of South Australia (UniSA).
Dr Bailey's experience spans health and safety, human resources, injury prevention and injury management. In her prior role as a Research Fellow at UniSA, she assisted with coordinating the Australian Workplace Barometer project, which collected data on working conditions, worker health and productivity outcomes for over 7000 workers across Australia.
Her focus on applied practice led to the creation of The OPUS Centre, where she assists organisations from all industries to understand and improve their internal capacity to manage psychosocial hazards.
Director of the Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing and Professor of Organisational Psychology at Griffith University, Professor Brough's primary research areas include occupational stress and coping, employee mental health and wellbeing, work engagement, work-life balance, workplace conflict (bullying, harassment, toxic leadership) and the psychosocial work environment.
Paula is listed in the top 2 per cent of scientists for occupational wellbeing research and is identified as one of the top 50 work-family scholars globally. She has received $6 million in competitive external research grants funding and has authored over 60 industry reports, more than 150 journal articles and book chapters and has produced 12 scholarly books based on her research.
A Fellow of the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology and a Fellow of the Asia Pacific Academy for Psychosocial Factors at Work, Prof Brough is also an Associate Editor of Work & Stress, Deputy Editor of Stress & Health, and is an Editorial Board member of the International Journal of Stress Management.
Tracey Spicer AM is a Walkley Award-winning journalist, author and broadcaster who has anchored national programs for ABC TV and radio, Network Ten and Sky News.
The inaugural national convenor of Women in Media, Tracey is one of the most sought-after keynote speakers in Australia. In 2019 she was named the NSW Premier's Woman of the Year, accepted the Sydney Peace Prize alongside Tarana Burke on behalf of the Me Too movement, and won the National Award for Excellence in Women's Leadership at the Women & Leadership Australia annual awards.
In 2018, Tracey was chosen as one of the Australian Financial Review's 100 Women of Influence, winning the Social Enterprise and Not-For-Profit category. For her 30 years of media and charity work, Tracey has been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).
Highlights of her outstanding career include writing, producing and presenting documentaries on women and girls in Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda, Papua New Guinea and India. She is an Ambassador for ActionAid, the Ethnic Business Awards, Emerge Australia, the Australian POTS Foundation and Purple Our World, and Patron of the Pancreatic Cancer Alliance.
Her first book, The Good Girl Stripped Bare, became a bestseller within weeks of publication, while her TEDx Talk, The Lady Stripped Bare, has attracted almost seven million views worldwide.
The ABC highlighted Tracey’s #metoo work in the three-part documentary series Silent No More, which featured the stories of hidden survivors. Her new book published in 2023, Man-Made: How the bias of the past is being built into the future, has been longlisted for a Walkley Award, and won the Social Responsibility category in the Australian Business Book Awards.
Jo Sampford is the Director and co-Principal Solicitor at the LGBTI Legal Service, a community-controlled community legal centre that provides holistic help for LGBTIQA+ Queenslanders and the only Rainbow Tick accredited law firm or legal service in Australia.
Jo has 18 years’ experience in the community legal sector and has worked across corporate legal, government, community and disability sector roles. During their time at Queensland Advocacy for Inclusion Jo was recognised by the Public Guardian for their excellence in advocating for the rights of clients with impaired capacity. In their current role at LGBTI Legal Service, Jo advocates for the protection of LGBTQIA+ rights through law reform, strategic litigation, community legal education and oversees the Service’s multifaceted discrimination and civil law practice.
Andrea Fox is the Executive Director of Policy and Workplace Services at the Office of Industrial Relations. Her career has spanned the public sector in Queensland, as well as working for a non-government organisation and teaching in the university sector. Andrea is genuinely committed to the principles of collaborative policy design, knowing that enduring and effective policy solutions are only devised when crafted with those effected by them. She has policy making experience working with a diverse range of industries including work health and safety, industrial relations, vocational training, transport, energy, natural resources and child protection reform.
Since 2017, Andrea has focused on work health and safety. She is the Queensland member of the Strategic Issues Group of Safe Work Australia, where she contributes to the national development of work health and safety policy. Andrea has also chaired a number of tripartite steering groups for collaborative policy development and regulation setting across construction, agriculture and psychosocial hazards.
An advocate for reconstructing growth economics away from GDP and towards the reconciliation of economics with ecology, Andrea holds a Bachelor of Economics, as well as a Masters in Social Science (Economics) from The University of Queensland.