Hillary Clinton, Julia Gillard, Kamala Harris and Julie Bishop will be among the more than 200 speakers at the Women UNLIMITED Leadership Summit, to be held across six Australian capital cities and seven venues from 29 September – 1 October. Photos: Supplied.
MasterCraft Series – AI in Government and AI’s role in capability and learning
Date: 23 September
Time: 1 pm – 2 pm
Duration: One one-hour face-to-screen session
Location: Virtual
Email: https://apslearn.apsacademy.gov.au/user_login
The MasterCraft Series event on “AI in Government and AI’s role in capability and learning” promises to be an insightful exploration of the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in the public sector. This timely discussion will delve into how AI technologies can be leveraged to enhance government operations, improve service delivery, and foster innovation in policy formation.
The event will provide some commentary on the alignment of AI implementation with the Australian Public Service Reform Agenda, emphasising the importance of citizen-centric approaches and cross-sector collaboration.
Distinguished panellists from across academia, industry and the not-for-profit sector will offer their expertise on the big picture of AI in government, framing the AI discussion within the context of purposeful innovation that supports the APS Reform Agenda and puts citizens at the centre of government service delivery.
They will explore how AI can be harnessed to better understand and respond to citizens’ needs, streamline administrative processes, and enable data-driven decision-making. The panel will also address the ways in which AI can facilitate improved collaboration between government departments and external stakeholders, leading to more effective and efficient public services.
Finally, the event will examine AI’s role in enhancing capability and learning within the public sector. Panellists will discuss how AI might augment our capabilities and change how we do things. The discussion will also touch on the ethical considerations and challenges associated with AI adoption in government, ensuring that its implementation aligns with the principles of transparency, accountability, and fairness.
Presenters will be:
- David Spriggs, CEO, Infoxchange
- Martin Stewart-Weeks, founder and principal, Public Purpose
- Madeleine Haughton, acting head of policy, Tech Council of Australia.
The facilitator will be Dr Paul Hubbard, co-head of AI CoLab, Department of Finance.
This content is suitable for all staff.
QLD Public Sector Grades AO 3-4 Essential Skills Workshop
Date: 23 – 24 September
Time: 9 am – 4:30 pm
Location: Cliftons Brisbane
Email: [email protected]
Overview
The starting point of your leadership journey.
- Enhance your professional competence to achieve results.
- Learn practical tools to communicate with impact and influence.
- Adopt effective change management principles to support strategic direction.
Speaker Miriam Henke is an experienced executive coach and health psychologist with the ability to have a significant positive impact on people and results. She achieves this by bringing more depth and focus on particular challenges and collaborating with her clients on strategic solutions and personal growth.
In her consulting role, Miriam supports individuals, teams and organisations with bespoke coaching and training programs, particularly incorporating positive psychology and neuro-linguistic programming tools. With a special interest in mind-body medicine, Miriam is also the creator of The Mainspring Method.
Lunch and Learn – Session 6: Make audio archives searchable with AI
Date: 24 September
Time: 12:30 pm – 1 pm
Duration: One 30-minute face-to-screen session
Location: Virtual
Email: https://apslearn.apsacademy.gov.au/user_login
Discover how the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) of Australia uses its custom language engine “Bowerbird” to convert sound archives into searchable text. This session demonstrates how AI can unlock access to historical audio content, support research workflows, and improve discoverability across large collections, even when dealing with complex or multilingual recordings.
Presenter Dr Keir Winesmith is the NFSA’s chief digital officer. His research and creative practice are focused on the intersection of digital and culture. He has experience across the galleries, libraries, archives, museums and records management (GLAMR) sector, with roles at the National Gallery of Australia, museums on two continents, multiple universities, and an artist residency at the State Library of Queensland.
Dr Winesmith holds a PhD in new media and speaks frequently at international conferences and symposia. His most recent publication is The Digital Future of Museums (2020), co-authored with Dr Suse Anderson.
The facilitator will be Daniel Parris, an engagement manager with GovAI, a whole-of-government program in the Department of Finance, working to enable responsible and effective AI adoption across the Australian Public Service.
This content is suitable for all staff.
MasterCraft Series – Workforce Planning for Leaders
Date: 25 September
Time: 11 am – 12:30 pm
Duration: One 1.5-hour face-to-screen session
Location: Virtual
Email: https://apslearn.apsacademy.gov.au/user_login
This MasterCraft Series event presents leaders with an opportunity to understand and address workforce challenges in their teams. The session will provide evidence-based workforce insights, highlight priority workforce risk areas, and articulate the role of leaders in addressing and mitigating workforce risks within their teams. The session will demonstrate workforce management tools and strategies for leaders to address these risks and build engaged, highly capable and high-performing teams.
The presenters are Grace Liew and Marlee Law.
Grace is a senior adviser in the APS Centre of Excellence for Workforce Planning. Before joining the commission in April 2022, Grace worked in the private sector for more than 15 years, in roles focused on organisational culture and processes that enable the achievement of strategic goals. Grace’s experience spans across strategic planning, management systems and processes, project management and various HR roles with a strong focus on organisational leadership and culture. Grace holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Commercial Law).
Marlee Law is the assistant director of Workforce Strategy & Planning at the Australian Public Service Commission. In her role, Marlee works across multiple project areas within the APS Centre of Excellence for Workforce Planning to build capability across the APS. Marlee specialises in providing hands-on support for agencies’ workforce planning initiatives, such as workforce plan development, workshop development and delivery, and customised capability development for public sector workforce planners. She has more than five years’ experience in public sector workforce management and holds a bachelor degree in commerce, specialising in HR and strategic management.
This content is suitable for all staff.
Finance for Non-Finance Professionals Workshop
Date: 25 September
Time: 9 am – 4:30 pm
Location: Online
Email: [email protected]
Overview
Finance foundations for better-informed decisions to support your organisation’s strategic goals.
- Understand and appreciate the value of developing and applying financial management tools and acumen.
- Develop a good grasp of financial levers, budgeting processes, performance indicators, and financial statements and reports.
- Increase your confidence and credibility in contributing to finance discussions and strategy.
- Achieve more positive engagement with finance departments to deliver better performance outcomes.
Trainer John Le Mesurier is an educator, consultant, and practitioner, with more than 40 years’ experience in corporate settings. He has been general manager of the large Chinese multinational Asia Pulp & Paper. John works as a management consultant in the Americas, Europe, and Asia for companies such as Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Colgate-Palmolive, Coca-Cola, AstraZeneca, and Vodafone. He has also consulted to the Australian and British governments. John is a corporate trainer at the University of Sydney, an executive coach at UNSW, and a lecturer for Laureate International Universities.
QLD Health Emerging Leaders & Managers Workshop
Date: 29 – 30 September
Time: 9 am – 4:30 pm
Location: Cliftons Brisbane
Email: [email protected]
Overview
Develop your leadership style and master effective management for lasting success.
- Discover the essential fundamentals of leadership and management.
- Align your leadership style with the demands of the health system.
- Utilise strategies to provide input into, interpret, and monitor team performance.
- Enhance your communication and interpersonal skills.
From battlefields in South Sudan to boardrooms across Australia, trainer Matthew Brice brings a global lens to the pursuit of high performance in leadership. Over the past 13 years, he has worked alongside teams in the US, UK, China and the Middle East, translating insights from complex environments into meaningful shifts in healthcare and public sector leadership.
With experience spanning the Australian Defence Force, Federal Police, and health systems across Victoria, NSW and Queensland, Matthew understands the conditions that enable teams to thrive. A compelling speaker on high-reliability organisations, he connects stories with science to illuminate what high performance really looks like, and what it takes to get there.
Women Unlimited Leadership Summit 2025
Date: 29 September – 1 October
Time: 9 am – 4:30 pm
Location: In-person and online
Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth
Email: [email protected]
Bringing the best in global leadership to Australia for two days of inspiration and empowerment, the Women UNLIMITED series is built on the belief that true power lies in the collective spirit of people unbound by limits.
Join more than 3000 attendees across seven venues and six Australian capital cities for the Women Unlimited Leadership Summit 2025. That’s why we’ve brought together global powerhouses — former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard, 49th vice-president of the US Kamala Harris, and Australian Natonal University chancellor and Australia’s first female foreign minister Julie Bishop — and other inspiring minds in leadership to share their experiences in the pursuit of progress.
Discover how other women of action are leading the charge in the pursuit of progress, including former director-general and the first woman to head an Australian statutory intelligence agency, Australian Signals Directorate, Rachel Noble; former host of 7.30, journalist, author, podcast co-host and current Australian Story presenter on the ABC, Leigh Sales; and leadership futurist, podcaster and multiple award-winning author, Holly Ransom.
The biggest leadership event for the public sector in Australia is running concurrently in Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. This year’s theme is “The Pursuit of Progress”. Each city boasts a phenomenal line-up of speakers. Check the website to choose your preferred location and view each tailored program.
Gain once-in-a-lifetime advice from some of the nation’s most senior female leaders as they share their powerful lived experiences in pursuing progress, and learn from enlightening and empowering discussions on the most critical topics for leaders.
Don’t miss this opportunity to soak up redefining insights, grow your confidence and make life-affirming connections that will empower you to pursue your leadership goals.
MasterCraft Series – Buying better and consultancy value for money
Date: 30 September
Time: 1 pm – 2 pm
Duration: One one-hour face-to-screen session
Location: Virtual
Email: https://apslearn.apsacademy.gov.au/user_login
Aligned to the Commonwealth’s APS reform agenda, this presentation by Australian Government Consulting will feature guidance on how to derive greater value for money from the work of consultancies. The presenter will be Andrew Baechle, Assistant Secretary, Australian Government Consulting, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Andrew brings a wealth of experience across state and federal government, management consulting and non-profit executive roles. He has been a senior executive in the NSW and Victorian governments, where he led a range of strategic policy and service delivery reform initiatives. Most recently, Andrew led operations and delivery for large community sector organisations such as Anglicare and Settlement Services International.
Andrew was a director in strategy and operations consulting at Deloitte in the US and Australia and has also worked in the US Department of State. Having started his career in social work in the US, Andrew has worked across a diverse range of health and community services.
This content is suitable for all staff.
Excel Foundations for Government
Date: 14 – 15 October
Time: 9:15 am – 1 pm
Location: Online
Email: [email protected]
Strengthen foundational Excel skills and elevate proficiency to drive greater efficiency and impact. Create clean, precise and comprehensive Excel spreadsheets using good design and documentation principles.
Levelling up your Excel expertise is vital for anyone working with data in government, where precision, efficiency and clear communication are essential.
If the below describes how you wish to use Excel, this 100 per cent online course is tailor-made for you.
- I feel comfortable with data entry but want to use Excel to analyse and manage data more effectively.
- I want to be more proficient with tables, charts, and graphs.
- I understand basic formulas but want to be more nuanced and intuitive when applying them.
- I’d like to fill in gaps in my knowledge and be more confident overall.
- I’d like to be more efficient with Excel and understand how it can help save time, make informed decisions, and visualise data.
This practical course will expand your knowledge and help you create more efficient, accurate and well-developed workbooks.
How to embed child safety in organisational culture
Date: 16 October
Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Location: Online
Email: [email protected]
Protecting with purpose: Creating a culture where child safety is everyone’s responsibility. It’s not just policies – it’s people who keep children safe. Every day, headlines remind us that our systems and services – whether early learning, residential care, or online platforms – are still failing the children they are meant to protect. From alarming revelations about childcare breaches and state care exploitation to legal and technological gaps demanding urgent reform, the time for complacency has passed.
In this powerful and thought-provoking session, we’ll challenge the assumption that safety comes from paperwork. Australia already has an abundance of frameworks, child safety standards, reporting schemes, and national principles, but checklists and policies don’t protect children. People do.
True child safety lives in culture, not compliance. We’ll explore how real protection comes from embedding child safety into the DNA of your organisation — where inappropriate behaviour is never tolerated, never normalised, and never goes undetected.
Join us to uncover how to elevate your organisation’s approach to child safety with this hands-on seminar designed to equip and empower.
The facilitator will be Brad Poynting, a tenacious advocate for the wellbeing of children and young people. From working in frontline child protection in Queensland to developing child-safeguarding frameworks for some of the largest providers of early education in Australia, safeguarding strategies for faith-based organisations and child safeguarding and prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse roles for international humanitarian aid agencies, Brad is on a mission to prevent children and young people from experiencing abuse and neglect.
