MRWED Learning Leaders Summit 2011. Brisbane

Adrian Greig

Adrian has worked in education for over 19 years, working in preschool and primary school settings. His work in these areas resulted in a nomination for a National Excellence in Teaching Award (NEiTA) as well as winning the Queensland Society for Information Technology in Education (QSITE) Emerging Leader of the Year 2003. His current role is with the ICT Learning Innovation Centre as a Principal Project Officer - Digital Pedagogy. He designs and delivers adult learning professional development in both face to face and online environments to teachers and schools from across Queensland. Adrian provides advice to schools and to the Department of Education and Training (QLD) on his areas of research i.e. new and emerging technologies in education and how they can support deep student learning.

Anthony Josephs

Anthony brings over 20 years of Training and Facilitation experience from all over the globe to the MRWED team. He has a passion to develop confident and highly effective participants and his high energy style inspires candidates to work at their best. He balances his MRWED commitments with community work encouraging resilience and confidence in a faith-based context.

Basil Coleman - Facilitator, Coach and Mentor - Learning Potential International

Basil is a descendent of the Kokatha and Pitjantjajara people of South Australia with family and cultural connections to many communities state wide and is an activeand respected member of the Indigenous community in Adelaide. Basil has extensive experience in community development and successfully managed various multi-million dollar community organisations over the past 15 years. He has a commitment to supporting young people; developing and providing skills and practical advice in career development. He is a Facilitator and Coach for the FacHSIA Indigenous Leadership program. In 2009 Basil established his consultancy Tjukonaru focussing on supporting individuals and organisations to develop their leadership potential.

Bob Pike, CSP, CPAE-Speakers Hall of Fame

Bob is known as "The Trainers' Trainer". As founder and Chairman of The Bob Pike Group and Creative Training Techniques Press, Bob leads sessions over 150 days per year on a variety of training and leadership related topics.

He is author of the popular Creative Training Techniques Handbook, Third Edition which, with over 285,000 copies sold is now the best -selling train-the-trainer book ever published. His newest book is "The Fun Minute Manager." He is also co-author of One-on-One Training, Dealing with Difficult Participants, 50 Creative Training Openers, 50 Creative Training Closers as well as the iconic 101 Games that Trainers Play.

More than 125,000 trainers on five continents have attended his Creative Training Techniques™ workshops. In 1991 Bob earned the professional designation of Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) from the National Speakers Association (NSA). In 1999 he inducted into the CPAE (Council of Peers Award of Excellence) Speakers Hall of Fame.

Dr. Brian Gray – Principal, Education Queensland

Brian is an educator with 25 years experience teaching in Victoria and Queensland. Currently he is the Principal of Morayfield East State School on the Sunshine Coast. His passion and enthusiasm is supported with a wealth of knowledge and breadth of experience in relation to leadership practices in Education. Brian brings to his workshops a real sense of connectiveness to everyday work of leaders in schools. He is committed to making a positive contribution by providing information and quality advice for educators and education administrators to embed sustainable change in their organisation.

Damian Noud

Damian has more than 20 years of experience training and assessing at universities and private colleges. Through his roles as a Director of Studies and then Principal at NSW and QLD private training organisations, Damian has had substantial practical management experience in Australia's VET sector. After completing an Honours degree in Economics, he obtained a Masters of Business Administration in addition to relevant vocational qualifications in Training and Assessment. Damian relies upon his extensive experience in the VET industry in his current role as MRWED's Quality and Strategic Development Manager. In addition to this role, Damian led the development of MRWED Online and has delivered in excess of 500 days of face-to-face instruction in trainer training.

Jason Ash, MRWED Trainer of the Year 2010

Jason has over 8 years of experience training and assessing in corporate environments specialising in sales, communication, coaching and management courses. During this time Jason has also developed online training programs and has been involved in the development of training material to meet client focuses and increase profitability. Since moving to Brisbane to extend his training career, Jason has completed both a certificate IV in training and assessment and a Diploma of Training and Assessment through the MRWED program and is excited about sharing that experience with others. Jason won MRWED Trainer of the Year for 2010, as voted by our students. Congratulations Jason!

Karen Schmidt

Karen Schmidt describes herself as a workplace gardener who is on a mission to grow managers into engaging leaders. The seeds for her role as a speaker, workshop leader and facilitator were planted early in her career when she encountered disengaging managers and colleagues who were performing below their capabilities. In order to help people to not just survive but thrive at work, she made it her goal to grow herself into an employee engagement expert. Along the way she experienced the workplace from the point of view of a staff member, manager, recruiter, contractor and consultant working in organizations of all shapes and sizes.

To add to her 20 plus years of practical experience she has formal qualifications in Human Resource Management and Adult Education and is the author of two books. She is also accredited in DiSC personality profiling system and Team Management System profiing wheel.

Today she works with current and future leaders across Australia, New Zealand and Asia in a diverse range of industries to help them create more engaging workplaces. Her clients include corporates, government departments, small business, professional associations, educational institutions and Not for Profits.

Karen continues to grow her knowledge base and practical experience through her membership of organisations such as the National Speakers Association of Australia (NSAA), Australian Institute of Management (AIM) and the Institute of Learning Practitioners (ILP). She is the 2011 NSAA Queensland Chapter Vice President - Membership.

Karen has been recognised by the Global Speakers Federation (GSF) as a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), the highest level of accreditation for speaker’s internationally and held by only 10% of members. Karen was also the winner of the NSAA Queensland "Speaker of the year" award in 2006.

In her spare time she likes to tend her own garden, volunteer at her local community garden (www.nscf.org.au) and grow her skills as a social ballroom dancer.

Marc Ratcliffe - CEO MRWED

Marc is the CEO and Founder of MRWED Training and Assessment, a private Australian registered training organisation, specializing in trainer training. He has been involved in workplace and vocational education for 18 years and has delivered training to thousands of students in areas as diverse as business management, health and safety, marketing, team building and training and development. This experience includes conducting over 250 courses in “trainer training” in the last 10 years. In addition to this, he has presented training-related workshops internationally in North America, Africa and Asia. His organisation MRWED is Australia's leading providers of trainer training and was recently rated as one of Australia’s Best Places to Work by the Great Places to Work Institute for a third consecutive time. Marc won a personal accolade in 2009, by being named as one of the top 10 young trainers in the world by US Training Magazine.

Maree Davidson

Maree has 23 years experience working in a range of community service and learning and development roles. She began her career as a youth worker coordinating a support service for homeless young people in Melbourne. She has since worked in metropolitan and regional settings managing projects, developing teams and promoting partnerships for the development of social and affordable housing. Most recently however, she has focused her passion for learning and development of the VET sector, acquiring a broader range of skills to offer as a workforce development consultant. She has a proven track record managing teams, project management and community engagement and manages to combine her busy schedule with a part time role with CANH, the South Australian peak body for Community Centres and Neighbourhood Houses. Her role is to develop training programs and other initiatives aimed at building the sector's workforce capacity. Additionally, she is the service excellence project officer for Indigenous services.

The Amazing Nigel

Nigel is a multi-talented entertainer who enthralls audiences with magic and comedy. He's truly one of Australia's best value for money entertainers.

It's Nigel's amazing ability to use his memory that sets him apart. This unique combination of interactive magic, comedy and memory must be seen in action to be believed. It's sure to leave your audience intrigued and entertained.

Skye Craig

Hailed for her unorthodox methods and decadent desserts on the second series of the ratings juggernaut MasterChef Australia, Skye Craig fast became known in lounge rooms across Australia as the dessert queen. Her years working as a graphic designer paid off as Australia watched her create stunning sweets made with creativity and flair.

Her insatiable passion for desserts has propelled her into her new business Wild Sugar where she continues to inspire and delight Brisbane shoppers with her unique and decadent sweets.

From a sumptuous chocolate mousse to lemon myrtle and raspberry semifreddo made from all organic, raw and healthy ingredients, you'll find a sweet treat in the Wild Sugar range to put a smile on your face.

"I love to give people options when it comes to desserts." I have a huge passion for healthier option desserts as well as some rich and decadent sweets too. "The reason why you would lean towards using whole raw foods such as cashews or avocadoes in a dessert is that the ingredients are alive – all of the nutritional content is retained and it hasn't been cooked out. The textures created with these ingredients are truly incredible, plus there's a real vitality and freshness about that kind of food."

Skye has come along way since she learnt to make pikelets as a seven-year-old from a child's cookbook that her mum gave her. Her six months of hard work in the MasterChef kitchen, her warmth, effervescence, infectious smile and desserts to die for have seen Skye become a much loved household name. The dessert queen has since enjoyed tv appearances on The Circle, A Current Affair and shortly Mornings with Kerry-Anne and is about to launch an incredible line of Wild Sugar desserts, attending personal appearances, magazine shoots and considering writing her own Wild Sugar dessert book

Stephen Murphy - Lead Trainer, MRWED

For more than 10 years Stephen has trained and developed training programs for the corporate sector. He brings an extensive history of sales-based training as well as customer service, process and systems training. Stephen spent the bulk of his 10 years in corporate training as the Queensland state trainer for several organisations, before moving into a National Management role. Stephen is a very dynamic, engaging speaker with the ability to break down complex information in a relevant easy to understand fashion.

Steven Fox

Steve comes to MRWED from and Outdoor Education background, but he is equally effective in traditional learning environments. He has more than 13 years of experience in instruction and facilitation and his career has involved roles in team-building, leadership development, planning and organising, event management, and training program design. In his spare time he is involved in the mentoring and coaching young people at risk via experiential learning in outdoor environments.

Vijay Naidoo

Vijay is an accomplished Learning and Development practitioner with substantive experience in health and education sectors and has specialist expertise in quality management systems and continuous improvement in learning. Vijay has worked in both the Higher Education sector and within Vocational Education and Training and brings an enthusiastic and participant-centred approach to the organisation. She has held numerous Quality Improvement and Accreditation positions within the NSW Health system facilitating state benchmarking projects and developing and delivering in house training programs. A very rewarding 5 year stint as the Subject Coordinator and Lecturer in Quality Management in Health in a postgraduate program at Wollongong University enabled Vijay to hone in her natural Learning Leader talents. She has a "can do" attitude, energy and passion for nurturing and supporting individuals, organisations and communities to perform at their best.

Vincent Creighton - Open Universities Australia