Jessica Strutt (summit MC)
Jessica Strutt has worked as a political reporter in Western Australia for more than a decade and has experience across all media platforms including print, radio, television and on line. She joined ABC News Perth four years ago, after two years out of journalism working as a senior media adviser in Government. She is currently ABC’s State political reporter.
Prior to working in Government Jessica worked at Nine News as their state political reporter. She started her journalism career as a print reporter with The West Australian newspaper. Before entering journalism, Jessica completed a Bachelor of Arts majoring in politics and history at the University of Western Australia.
Jessica completed all of her journalism training on the job, which started when she secured an internship with The Australian’s Perth office in 2003. From there she landed her first journalism job with Rural Press, working as a cadet reporter in the Wheatbelt farming town of Merredin. But after a few months she left the sheep and wheat reporting behind after being offered a cadetship with The Sunday Times in Perth.
In 2005, Jessica was poached by The West Australian and during her time with the newspaper won awards for her political and resources reporting. In 2008 she won the top State print news award for a series of reports exposing child sex abuse, violence and alcohol problems plaguing the remote Aboriginal community of Oombulgurri. In 2016 Jessica was the joint winner of WA’s top political reporting prize.
Dr Jenny Brockis
As a doctor, speaker, author and mentor, Dr. Jenny is passionate about all things ‘brain’. Her mission is to become the Jamie Oliver of brain health fitness, empowering others to create their own brain that is fit, healthy and optimised to help them work at their best.
Dr. Jenny has devoted her career to the health and wellbeing of others. Concerned by the alarming increase in the amount of stress, stress related illness and mental health problems she was witnessing in society as a whole, she realised the need to promote brain health to elevate mental performance and wellbeing.
As the Director and Founder of Brain Fit! she works with those who seek to thrive in our increasingly complex world, translating the complexities of the neuroscience into easily understood strategies that can be readily integrated into our busy lives.
Dr Jenny is featured regularly in the media, has authored three books including the best seller Future brain (Wiley) and is a keen blogger and writer.
As a wife and mother to two young adults, when not writing, researching or presenting, Dr. Jenny loves to spend her time travelling and challenging her long-standing fear of heights.
Rabia Siddique
International humanitarian Rabia Siddique has been held hostage by Iraqi terrorists, garnered world-wide attention for winning a fight for justice against the British military and been a catalyst for policy change to ensure a fairer workplace for women and cultural minorities in the British military.
Born in Perth, to an Indian father and Australian mother, Rabia spent her early childhood in India before the family returned to Perth in the 1970s, when Rabia was five. Living in Perth’s south, where Rabia attended the local primary school, the family, and particularly Rabia’s father, were subjected to racist taunts.
Motivated to help humanity, provide justice and a voice for the voiceless, Rabia obtained a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts at UWA. As a student she volunteered for the Aboriginal Legal Service, before spending her early career representing prisoners seeking clemency on death row in Singapore.
Returning to WA she joined the Legal Aid Commission and became the youngest federal prosecutor with the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.
Moving to London in 1998, the criminal and human rights lawyer, terrorism and war crimes prosecutor undertook human rights and community aid work in the Middle East, South America, the United Kingdom and Australia.
She joined the British Army Legal Services, and was appointed sole legal adviser to the 12th Mechanised Brigade in Basra, Iraq in 2005. As an Arabic-speaking Muslim, Rabia won the trust of the Iraqi authorities and found herself negotiating the release of Special Forces Soldiers. Since the launch of her best-selling memoir, Equal Justice, which highlights how she was silenced about being held hostage while negotiating the soldiers’ release, Rabia has been in demand as a keynote speaker.
Receiving a Queen’s commendation in 2006 for her work in Iraq, Rabia was runner-up Australian Woman of the Year UK in 2009, one of our top 100 Women of Influence, a finalist in the Australian Business Woman of the Year and the 2016 Australian of the Year Awards, a nominee for the Woman Lawyer of the Year Award and a case study at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York.
Julie Meek
Performance is a funny thing – it means different things to each of us and there’s no doubt it’s one thing to perform and yet another to achieve success. It’s this link between performance and success that inspired Julie to discover what some of the world’s top performers do to enable them to be the best in their fields. Innate talent and motivation are common threads, but more often it’s the tactics and strategies they’ve developed and honed over the years that allow them to gain an advantage and stay at the top of their game.
Julie Meek is a thought leader and keynote speaker in peak performance. She inspires leaders to achieve personal success by utilizing the strategies of world class athletes and performers at the top of their game. In sport, some of Julie’s high-profile clients include the Fremantle Dockers football team, the champion Perth Wildcats team and many Olympic athletes across all sports at the Western Australian Institute of Sport. She brings the attributes of elite athletes to business to assist leaders and their teams in achieving high performance.
Julie is known for her signature no-nonsense approach and unique ability to inspire immediate action. Over the past 20 years, Julie has partnered with many top performers across business, elite sport, politics, health, medicine, arts and culture, property, philanthropy and many other industries, helping them achieve the highest levels of professional and personal success.
She is a coach, qualified sports dietitian and degree qualified in Health Promotion. Julie Meek is also the author of truth, lies and chocolate (Finalist in the World Food Media Awards) and ‘Ready, Set…Go’. She is the resident performance expert on a top rating Australian radio station and her expertise is sought across all media channels. Julie loves to challenge herself by running marathons.
Kasia Orlowska-Meinen
Kasia is a facilitator and coach, focusing on achieving individual and team high performance, leadership skills development and employee engagement for over a decade.
Kasia’s love of personal and professional development started during her time as a Trade and Investment Manager for Education at Western Australian Government Office in London, where she focused on business development and the promotion of Western Australian universities across Europe. This led to training at Coaches Training Institute in London and later evolved into facilitating 360 leadership profiles in Australia.
Kasia designs and facilitates training focused on leadership skills development, employee engagement and higher performance. Her expertise lies in emotional intelligence development, resilience training, authentic leadership, effective communication skills including handling difficult conversations and influencing and persuading skills as well as strategic and engagement planning sessions.
She emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and mindfulness as the foundations for better leadership and communication skills. Self-awareness and self-regulation (amongst other emotional intelligence skills) enable decision-making, conducting difficult conversations, negotiating and persuading.
She incorporates mindfulness in her regular executive coaching and training sessions and was featured in ABC TV’s Australia Wide story on the benefits of teaching mindfulness and meditation in a corporate environment for leadership and personal development.
Nyssa Lambkin
Nyssa is an Advanced Executive Assistant and Federal Government Tender Coordinator at Ernst & Young (EY). Nyssa is Executive PA Media’s 2017 PA of the Year Australasia, and runner up of Page Personnel’s EA of the Year 2017. In her current role, Nyssa supports EY’s Oceania Health & Life Sciences Leader, working as an advisor, managing all aspects of engagement delivery and driving business outcomes.
Peter Dhu
Peter has been speaking professionally full time for 10 years. He began his working life working for the WA Health Department as a Medical Scientist. In his 30 years as a scientist, he managed various pathology labs and WA’s Organ Donation Agency.
He now specialises in helping people overcome their fear and find their voice by training them in public speaking. This is a remarkable transition because Peter is a person who stutters, and chose not to speak for much of his life. He brings a real-life success story and courage to his work, where he inspires people with his own compelling story.
He is a living example that anyone can overcome their fears and unlock their hidden potential so they can have the courage to speak up and inspire the world with their stories. He shows people how they can change the world one conversation at a time.