Sonia Tallarida

Managing Director

Kirsten Makin

Associate Director - HR Consulting

Kirsten is a seasoned HR practitioner who brings her strategic nous and courageous authenticity to all that she does.

Prior to becoming a consultant, Kirsten worked in Human Resources for 25 years leading high performing teams, coaching and partnering with CEO’s and senior leaders.  Kirsten has extensive experience in HR strategy and planning, organisational development, remuneration and performance, talent management, policy and system development and project management.

Having worked in a leadership capacity in a variety of industries including retail, financial and professional services, manufacturing, telecommunications and not-for-profit, Kirsten has a strong commercial outlook and understanding of varying business needs.

Sarah Dunn

Project Coordinator and Office Genie

Sarah is our go-to gal for all things project related and IT support!  She manages all of our delivery coordination including client liaison, workshop scheduling and printing.  She also manages administration of our measurement surveys. Juggling the availability of multiple facilitators and moving dates is no mean feat and we are definitely over quota on our IOUs for Sarah!

She’s also pretty good with anything technical and has become our resident IT super sleuth. In fact, Sarah pretty much runs our office alongside being mum to her 3 young kids (all 18 months apart).

In her spare time, if that is possible with everything she juggles so well, she loves horses, music, all things Disney and is a bit of a history nerd.  Sarah – we salute you.  You really are our hero!

Lee Hew

Graphics Whiz

Lee is our easy going graphics dude who does such a fantastic job making sure everything we deliver looks, quite simply, amazing!  He often works at short notice and pulls many a rabbit out of his design hat to delight our clients.  We just love his no fuss, cool, calm, collectedness that helps make everything behind the scenes at The Coherence Group such a smooth ride.

Greg Collier

We love Greg’s personal commitment to getting the best out of every session, every design, every conversation, every time.

Greg has racked up a unique blend of senior leadership experience and a couple of decades at the front of room. A naturally engaging storyteller, Greg’s approach captivates teams from the first moment as he blends humour with pragmatic, business relevant examples (and the occasional “dad joke” – we’ve decided it’s endearing).

His broad range of international, corporate and community engagements bring insight and results. Greg is equally at home in a suit coaching the executive team, as he is in his footy gear mentoring local stars. He brings his passion for creating lasting culture change across communities by working with individual choices and potential.

Greg has led design and delivery for training and culture change projects in Australia and throughout the Asia Pacific Region. He has managed the Global Training Delivery Team for one of Australia’s largest companies, and has supported CEO’s, Commissioners, Management Boards, Senior Executive Teams, Managers, Frontline Staff, Graduates, Sporting Clubs, Community Groups.

A super star in team dynamics, change, culture, leadership and sales effectiveness.  Did we mention he also has 5 kids?!  – that explains all the dad jokes.

“Greg has worked very successfully with teams I have led for many years on leadership and cultural change. He is a masterful and talented facilitator who manages to connect with all individuals and teams to achieve the growth and success necessary in the required situation. He adapts his approach to suit the group dynamic and thereby achieves maximum impact and success. His approach of seeking a detailed brief and clarity on desired outcomes allows him to craft the right approach and ensure the outcome is of the highest quality, whilst challenging each group positively in the process”  John Velegrinis CEO, Australian Scholarships Group

Bray Cohen

Bray’s “gentle toughness” approach to facilitation and coaching allows him to ask the tough questions, skillfully manage difficult moments in team dynamics and support individuals through difficult personal transitions with ease.

With a blend of small business and big business leadership experience, his facilitation skills are backed by “I’ve been there too” – creating easy rapport with leaders and teams of all experience levels.

People who work with Bray feel his genuine aspiration for them to reach the “next level”. With a keen passion for positive psychology applied into team dynamics, Bray gets teams across the line. Bray’s belief is that leadership starts with the individual choices people make day to day and he finds ways to connect the insight into application.

He’s another crew member with FIVE children – is it something in the water at Coherence Central? We love the way he applies his encouragement of diversity and building passions by supporting his sons unexpected and enthusiastic love of the Richmond Footy Team – no one knows where that popped up from  – or why!?

“I‘ve worked with Bray on a number of leadership and personal development engagements and have been inspired by his energy, enthusiasm and contribution. He has deep knowledge and passion for leadership and is one of the best group facilitators that I have had the pleasure of working with in my career. His ability to understand people and his personal integrity and authenticity have had a big impact on my own leadership style and on the development of members of my leadership team. I have no hesitation in recommending Bray.”  Michael Jones, Managing Director at ANZ – Head Regional Risk Hubs

Amy Hart

Amy is a master in facilitating immersive leadership experiences.  We just love her ability to ask the important, evocative questions to shift a conversation from emerging awareness to insight to action and meaning.

She is passionate about connecting teams to the best version of themselves and draws out ‘the wise decision maker’ in any leader. With a background in psychology, business and mindfulness, she will bring ‘heart and humanity’ to any session.

Amy brings 18 years international experience across private sector, government, education and international development.  Those experiences range from coaching to strategy, right through to culture change, managing complexity and adaptive leadership.

In her spare time, Amy is a lover of good food, wine and coffee and sharing it with friends and family. She’s a yoga apprentice, enjoys scuba diving, travel and we’ve lately been spotting her shopping for hiking gear in her new quest to get right back into exploring an outdoor lifestyle after years consulting in London (yes we can’t ever help a dig at the weather!)

“Amy brings a unique blend of intellect creativity & intuition to her work with leaders and teams.  Having worked internationally across industry sectors she understands and is sensitive to different cultures how they learn and add value to the business agenda . Through a wide range of interventions matched to the client needs Amy ensures results are achieved with learnings and personal insights achieved along the way . I would highly recommend her to any organisation looking to achieve results with difference” Jackie Gittins, Leadership Consultant & Guru

Greg O’Meara

It’s a rare thing, to be able to stretch people to see beyond the limits of their comfort zone, and to manage resistance with ease but that’s what you get with Greg’s facilitation and coaching.

Having worked at senior levels extensively including many high pressure “must get this right” events, Greg’s easy going nature and humor is balanced with his cutting edge team dynamics and transformation approaches that always achieve outstanding results.

Internationally experienced across Asia, Pacific, Europe and US, Greg brings a wealth of experience, real life business case studies and an understanding of emerging corporate trends and approaches to learning and culture.  Managing a crowd of hundreds, leading high tech international hook-ups, or chairing more intimate gatherings of leaders or boards, Greg does it all with ease.

Greg is also a seriously awesome musician (…and if you look closely you may find he looks familiar – but we aren’t allowed to tell you why you think that….)

“Greg is our facilitator of choice for key CEO events at ANZ including the Executive Leadership Team off-sites, and the Global Senior Management Conferences for the top 600 Leaders. His engaging style and focused approach ensures that the desired outcomes are always achieved.”  Danielle Entwistle Events & Communications Manager, Office of the CEO ANZ

 “Greg is a fantastic facilitator and worked with my team so that we can move forward as a cohesive team in a positive and supportive manner. The change in my team was astounding and when they came back to work, everyone wanted to know what had happened as the difference was so noticeable.” Miriam Silva Commercial Opera0ons General Manager – Elders

Lordien Khosh

Lordien is a highly experienced Consultant, Facilitator and Executive Coach with more than 15 years in business change effectiveness.  She has worked with Senior Leaders, Change Agents, People Leaders, Operational Managers, HR professionals and Organisational staff across Australia as well as abroad in Malaysia, India and New Zealand.

Her passion is developing potential and making change stick.   Her belief is that within any system – be that an individual, the team or the organisation – something works. By shining a spotlight and highlighting those elements that work, systems emerge feeling whole, inspired and with greater clarity of purpose and the way forward.

Lordien is a bit of a surprise packet – older and wiser than she looks, her energy and infectious smile combine with grounded business smarts – teams are charmed by her challenge to step up a level!

“I had the opportunity to sit in on the end-of-program presentations by our participants and seen first-hand the enthusiasm with which they shares the positive impacts the program has had on them and the teams they lead. The tools they’ve been provided with have clearly given them new ways of both understanding and tackling old challenges and the program itself has enabled strong relationships to be built across organisational boundaries. The staff who have taken part are better managers and leaders as a result, and the organisation as a whole is stronger for it. Thank you”  CIO, Government IT&T

Richard Ansell

Richard brings a seasoned approach to his career as a coach and facilitator having honed his craft over more than 12 years, across several countries and industries.

He has an easy laugh, and an abundance of experience working with teams and leaders in change, marketing, products, culture and team dynamics that earns respect and engagement from the get go.

Clients love his commitment to delivering a behavioural outcome, and generating commitment to action, rather than just delivering the content.  At ease with graduates, talent, HR managers, leaders and teams, Richard has a particular skill at working with people’s capacity for change and resilience in both coaching and facilitation.

A gifted coach one on one, Richard is also a coaching supervisor for newly accredited coaches. He is a strong mentor with capacity to effectively engage and stretch.

Richard calls himself a reformed economist – after holding senior roles in one of Australia’s biggest blue chips – but you would never guess it from his easy connection and emotional intelligence (Sorry Richard, we couldn’t resist).

Don’t ever try to walk a mile in Richard’s shoes – he walks way too far for the average liking – you might see him out on the Camino in Spain this year, or pounding the pavement, trails and hikes of Australia prepping for the annual Oxfam Walk (possibly muttering in broken Italian…)

“Richard is a fantastic facilitator and coach! His ability to listen to challenges and provide feedback is backed up by his arsenal of knowledge in techniques and methods for self-improvement. He constantly challenges my thinking, which has led to trying different ways of dealing with my team, my peers and my managers. As a result of my work wit him I’ve felt my professional and personal development accelerate. The changes have been recognised by others, with great benefits. I would not hesitate to recommend Richard, his coaching has been an invaluable experience for me”.  Senior Manager, Customer Insights & Analytics, ANZ 

Cara Spencer

Cara is a highly experienced corporate communicator with a background in government and community organisations. She has held executive and senior management roles in some of Australia’s leading charities and most innovative service providers.

Cara has been responsible for managing multiple service brands, diverse teams and executing national PR campaigns on behalf of government, such as Living Is for Everyone – the National Suicide Prevention Strategy. Her strong leadership skills have been instrumental in building and mentoring high preforming teams of marketing and communication professionals. Previously a professional fundraising consultant, Cara has a strong interest in community engagement to elicit social change. An experienced project manager, she is committed to strategic planning and consultation.

As a marcomms generalist, she has a passion for professional writing and the creative process. She is skilled in internal and external communication, social media, online communication, media relations, marketing, event management and business development.

“I, along with my team, have had the immense pleasure of working with Cara and her teams over the past few years. I believe a great practitioner becomes truly exceptional when along with brilliant core skills they also demonstrate a sincere enthusiasm and energy towards their organisation, their team and their combined goals. Cara’s ability to consistently reflect these characteristics and influence others to strive for the same is unmistakable and inspiring”.  Adam Foran, Director at U-bahn Pty Ltd

Drew McHugh

Drew is a pragmatic organisational development professional with a proven track record in business partnering, workforce development, values and cultural transformation, change management, performance development, strategic leadership development, executive coaching and transformational facilitation. His career spans more than 20 years in large corporates managing risk, senior sales teams, cultural change and business re-­engineering, leadership and cultural development planning and program design.

Drew quickly develops a deep and practical understanding of the challenges and opportunities of the client groups he works with. He believes that effective and successful interventions must be values-driven and strategically and pragmatically designed and executed, in order to support the delivery of key business and cultural imperatives of the organisation. Drew’s executive coaching clients always feel supported and challenged to make the behavioural changes that will materially develop the positive leadership impacts they will have on others

“Drew has deep knowledge and expertise across the areas of culture change, leadership development and executive coaching.   Drew is able to engage with teams at all organisational levels, building rapport quickly and driving change and business outcomes at all levels, as well as delivering valuable insight. I would not hesitate to recommend Drew for any engagement where an organisation is seeking to introduce new capability and to drive change while retaining focus on delivery of business outcomes for people, customers and shareholders.”  Suzanne Currie, Executive Manager – Strategy & Insights, Westpac Group.

Robert Meredith

Robert is our quintessential English gent who seamlessly blends the personal with the commercial.  He is our master of well-being, focused on what promotes it, what undermines it and how we can make the most of what we have in body, mind and spirit to be a truly ‘Well Being’.  

Starting the early part of his global facilitation career with McKinsey, Robert has built extensive experience in C Suite and senior team facilitation and coaching.  Notably Robert was on the team that developed and delivered the highly successful Breakout Culture Change Program for ANZ Australia, Asia Pacific and New Zealand.  

Robert’s knack is for getting to the core of the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of any situation and moving rapidly to the ‘how to’ of changes and actions required to reach a desired outcome. For a deeper level of conversation with Robert, just ask him about the magic of the mind. We guarantee a witty and thought provoking conversation – he’s one of our favourite “over dinner” conversation buddies. He is innately curious about consciousness itself, not just what makes us tick, but also to consider how it is that we have any internal experience at all!

“Robert was a founder member of McKinsey’s Performance Leadership Institute. He was a lead facilitator and designer on Woodside’s Performance Leadership program which John Akehurst, the then CEO of Woodside, said was responsible for creating the mindset shifts and resilience to withstand a takeover attempt from Shell. Woodside Performance Manager, David Rowell, stated that the results of the program had “surpassed our expectations”. Charles Goode, one time Chairman of Woodside, was also Chairman of the ANZ bank. He was also impressed by what he was seeing at Woodside and spoke about it to John McFarlane, CEO of ANZ. The ANZ undertook a companywide transformation program called ‘Breakout’ on which Robert was also lead facilitator. ‘Breakout’ is generally regarded as one of the most successful cultural transformation programs ever to have run in Australia. Over the course of the program, ‘staff satisfaction’ went up from 49% to 85%, and ‘employee engagement’ reached 64% – making the ANZ workforce one of the most engaged of any large banking organisation”

Nerida Guerin

Nerida is our resident HR Consultant with a sound understanding of business needs gleaned during her years working across a diverse range of industries including Banking and Financial Services, Information Technology, Retail and FMCG.

Nerida has a wealth of knowledge and experience in organisational redesign, process review, facilitation of teams and assisting in high stakes IR related activities. She has a proven track record of establishing vital HR functions within businesses including strategic planning, organisational change, recruitment, policy and procedure development, performance management, training and development, employee relations and Occupational Health & Safety. With a strong achievement profile, Nerida delivers results in line with an organisation’s strategic business plan.

On the weekend you’ll find Nerida prepping for tough mudder, running a marathon, renovating the beach house, taking guests on winery tours, exploring natural approaches to health, and planning her next fifteen mini projects! We have no idea how she fits it all in, either – but we love hearing her stories on a Monday morning!

“Nerida is a great breed of individual who can maintain calm and composure through difficult challenges, managing the people aspects of a business the way only a true’ people person’ can – with empathy, professionalism and a sense of understanding of the issue beyond the present moment. Nerida has an inclusive, open, and approachable manner; and her ability to engage across all aspects of the business is undoubtedly one of her great strengths. She is a HR professional who is both strategically minded and operationally hands-on.” Nuria Carricondo, Director, The Cache Group

Peter Shearer

Peter brings great clarity, integrity, warmth, humour and skill to his work. These qualities combined with his very open and engaging style enable him to quickly create a rapport with others. In our clients words he is recognised as someone who can be relied upon to design and deliver quality outcomes.

Peter delivers results that are measurable and lasting. He specialises in leadership development, performance improvement in individuals and teams, organisational culture transformation programs and executive coaching. His facilitation work has ranged from designing and delivering one-off workshops to encompassing organisational wide programs, facilitated over years and cascaded throughout entire organisations.

Over the last decade, Peter has served international clients with extensive work in Asia and South Africa as well as working with senior executives of many of the most respected consulting practices, internationally. His involvement as a lead facilitator, consultant and coach in organisational wide culture change programs also spans across the globe.

Peter is also one of the most engaging storytellers we know, we each have our favourite “Pete story” – from trekking snow laden mountains to wrestling inner crocodiles. Peter’s martial artistry in aikido further demonstrates his passion for focus and flow.

“Peter’s first rate skills as a facilitator helped our team table issues that had remained unspoken for some time. He then helped us work through them in a way which unified the team, and allowed us to build a collaborative way forward.” Richard Stewart, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Australia

Charity Becker

Charity is one heck of a coach.  She is our ‘go to’ coach internally when we need to shift a mindset fast.  Our clients give unsolicited feedback about her impact, support and stretch – every time. When training leaders to coach, her ability to draw real world examples of where coaches get stuck, and unstuck, and her comfort with working with process as well as content, mean every audience gets a tailored experience every time.

She is a sought after mentor by some of Australia’s best coaches, and offers real value in post workshop support for leader as coach training.   Charity brings a unique blend of attributes to every assignment including her innate curiosity, in-depth behavioural based change and other accreditations, an instinct for the perfect killer question and a thirst for driving “change that sticks”.

Internal Coaching panels often need attention to maintain quality, value for money and continued alignment with the culture. Charity also has expertise in reviewing panels, offering feedback to executive coaches and generating a sound coaching panel strategy – there aren’t many people in Australia who have that under their belt.

Charity’s wicked sense of humour may be due to her ridiculously early morning wake up time – we think it’s made her quite mad, actually.

“Charity is simply one of the most talented coaches I have ever worked with—and you need to be a great coach to supervise and coach other coaches! Charity has an uncanny ability to take you as a coach to the heart of the matter, in a considered, compassionate and ultimately expert manner. If you want your coaching to move to the next level and beyond, I cannot recommend Charity more highly” Mel Trask, Executive HR Professional and IECL Accredited Coach 

Robin Miles

Robin is our infrastructure and negotiations guru, with a focus on strategy and high performance.

He has more than 15 years’ experience in the visionary leadership of teams and has excelled in collaboration and relationship development. Robin has a diverse background working in the private, government, not-for-profit and military sectors and has worked in numerous locations around the world.

Robin lectures at Deakin University School of Law and provides training/consulting services to global clients in the areas of collaboration, negotiation and positive influence.

When not gallivanting around the world, Robin lives with his family in Byron Bay where, as the sign says when you enter Byron, they live the lifestyle of “cheer up, slow down and chill out!”

“Robin inspired and impassioned my leadership group to be awesome leaders. The tailored program covered change management and strategic leadership at an executive level, helping each of them to raise the bar personally and collectively to achieve sensational results through outstanding influencing and leadership of their teams.” Trevor Boyd – Engineering Executive

Fiona Lee

Fiona is a grounded, direct, heart based coach and facilitator who elicits pragmatic solutions to “unsolvable” team issues with ease and a sense of humour. Backed by years of experience within corporate teams, combined with her work in London and Australia on groundbreaking culture transformation for teams, Fiona offers a very different twist on change and team dynamics.

In our team, we call Fiona “the alchemist” because she has an uncanny knack of moving the team dynamic and her coaching clients to a new place – and she makes it seem effortless. Fiona also works on our corporate retreats with Sonia, creating a nurturing and thought provoking space where the corporate warrior can recharge and rejuvenate.

“Fiona is an inspirational and transformational coach, therapist and mentor to connect with when you know something needs to shift. She will powerfully yet gracefully help you clear the crud clouding your view forward and open new doorways of insight and possibility for you to access consciously and move through!” Sandy Humby, Psychotherapist

Annalise Jennings

Global Coherence

International Team

With senior Coherence Group practitioners dotted across the globe, we’re able to help you and your teams, wherever you might be.

Our associates have worked with hundreds of organisations, worldwide, from Australia to New york, Canada, Finland, Switzerland, Germany, South Africa, France and New Zealand, to cultivate work cultures and transform teams.

Drop us a line and let us know where you need help, and we’ll put you in touch with a Coherence Group Specialist in your neck of the woods.