There are meetings that drain a room, and there are sessions that move people. The difference is almost never the agenda.
Good facilitation is about reading what's really happening — the energy, the unspoken tension, the person who hasn't said a word but has the most important perspective — and creating the conditions for something genuinely useful to emerge.
The approach
How I think about this work
Facilitation is a paradox: you are pivotal, but it's not about you. Your job is to hold space, ask the right questions, and get out of the way when the group is in flow.
My approach is grounded in human-centred facilitation — putting people before process, staying genuinely curious about what the group actually needs, and being willing to improvise when the plan stops serving the room. I'm not attached to the agenda. I'm attached to the outcome.
After twenty-plus years of facilitation work, I've learned that the most important moments in a session are rarely the ones you planned for. The breakthrough usually comes in the pause, the honest admission, the question nobody thought to ask. My role is to make space for those moments — and to notice them when they arrive.
Clients
Who I work with
I have facilitated sessions for executive leadership teams, cross-functional project groups, large-scale strategy programs and stakeholder engagement processes — in organisations from global banks and telcos to local government and public sector bodies.
Executive and leadership teams.
Strategy sessions, executive alignment workshops, leadership offsites and complex decision-making processes where the stakes are high and the dynamics need careful handling. I'm particularly effective with teams navigating significant change, where there's unspoken tension to surface and genuine alignment to build.
Cross-functional and project teams.
Workshops bridging technology and business, design and delivery, organisation and customer. I have a reputation for building productive working relationships quickly across teams with different languages, priorities and mental models — and for translating across those divides in the room.
Stakeholder groups.
Facilitated engagement with diverse, sometimes contentious groups — designed to surface shared ground, build genuine momentum and move beyond the positions people walk in with. This includes community engagement, co-design processes and multi-stakeholder consultation.
I've facilitated sessions for ING Global, Telstra, Telstra Global, City of Melbourne, Geelong City Council, and Folkestone UK, among others.
Differentiator
Why me
Most facilitators are process people. I'm a practitioner.
I co-founded and ran Huddle for fifteen years — a strategic design consultancy where facilitation was the core of how we worked. During that time I developed and led Huddle Academy's human-centred facilitation training program, training facilitators in the same philosophy and approach I use in my own work. I've been on both sides of the room — as the facilitator and as the person trying to get something genuinely difficult done — and that shapes how I design and run every session.
I'm also particularly effective at bridging the gaps that tend to stall organisations: between technology and business strategy, between design thinking and delivery, between what the executive team intends and what actually lands with the people doing the work. I'm told this is rare. I think it just comes from having worked across all of those contexts for long enough.
One question worth asking
When you're speaking to a facilitator about running a strategy session or workshop, ask them: "What happened in the last session that didn't go to plan, and what did you do?"
A facilitator who's only ever run smooth sessions hasn't been tested. The ones worth hiring have had rooms go sideways — energy drop, conflict surface, a key participant disengage — and they know what to do when it happens. They've had to improvise with purpose, not just push through the agenda.
That's the experience I bring.
What I facilitate
The work
Strategy and decision-making. Helping leadership teams get out of habitual thinking and into genuine dialogue about what matters and why. Structured sessions that move from vague discomfort to clear direction — without forcing premature closure.
Organisational change. Working with teams navigating transformation, restructure or a shift in culture — using human-centred approaches that meet people where they are and build real momentum rather than managed compliance.
Cross-functional alignment. Bridging technology, business, design and customer experience conversations that typically talk past each other. Particularly effective when teams need a shared language before they can make shared decisions.
Stakeholder engagement and co-design. Facilitated sessions with diverse groups, designed to surface what people actually need, build genuine trust, and arrive at shared outcomes — not just documented ones.
Training
Facilitation training
I also deliver facilitation training for teams and individuals who want to build their own capability — whether they're running internal workshops, leading project sessions or facilitating stakeholder groups.
The training is experiential and grounded in the same human-centred philosophy that underpins my own practice. Participants don't learn a rigid step-by-step method. They develop an approach — the mindset, the listening skills, the tools and the confidence to adapt to whatever the room presents.
Training covers:
- Foundations — the mindset and stance of a human-centred facilitator; what it means to be in service with a group rather than simply managing a process
- Listening and questioning — how to listen deeply across different channels, and how to ask questions that open thinking rather than close it down
- Reading the room — noticing energy, body language and group dynamics, and knowing when and how to respond
- Workshop design — starting with purpose and outcomes, understanding your participants, and building a structure that creates the right conditions
- Storytelling and connection — using narrative to bring people in, build trust and make ideas land
- Improvisation and adaptability — building the confidence to change direction when the plan stops serving the group
- Tools and frameworks — empathy mapping, critique circles, mindful reflection, the five whys, listening channels, and more
Training is delivered as a two-day immersive program, with an emphasis on practice over theory. Participants design and run real sessions during the program, with structured feedback built in. The training is meta by design — the way it's run models the very approach it teaches.
Engagements
How we can work together
Most engagements start with a short conversation — free, no commitment — to understand what you're working on and whether I'm the right fit. From there, I'll propose a shape that matches the situation:
A single session
I designed and facilitated workshop or strategy session, from half a day to two days or more.
A program of sessions
A connected series of workshops across a transformation, strategy process or change initiative.
Facilitation training
A two-day program for your team, building internal facilitation capability grounded in human-centred practice.
The next thing, together
When an engagement ends well, clients often come back with the next challenge. That's how the work has compounded for twenty-five years, and how it still works today.
Whichever shape fits, the principle is the same: senior hands-on involvement, careful design, and a session your people will actually remember.
Ready to talk? Book a discovery conversation →