Photos and bios of speakers will be detailed below as they are confirmed.
Sophie Zadeh, empowers people to take communication to the next level—unlocking the secrets of the body and voice. Sophie conveys complex, science-based, content in a way that’s easy to understand, exciting and empowering. She puts this down to her inherent creative flair, over twenty years experience in training and presenting and spending the early years of her career working with children—when you can explain concepts to children, most adults should also grasp them.
Driven by awe and obsession with her topic and a passion for sharing it to help people achieve and improve, Sophie works with executives and leadership teams from government and industry giants, including Rio Tinto, PwC, Commonwealth Bank, Northern Star, Woodside and Alcoa.
She’s coached public speakers, TEDx presenters and educators, helping them to convey their message with impact. Sophie has worked with TED-Ed, creating an animated lesson–Are There Universal Expressions of Emotion? She has featured across various news and media platforms, including ABC radio, The West Australian, The CEO Magazine, Seven News Media and Foxtel Networks. Her blog has been rated in the top five body language blogs on the web for the past two years.
Sophie is incredibly passionate about her topic and what she enjoys most, is watching her audience let down their guard, open up and become excited about it too. Her mission is to enrich their lives and create positive outcomes.
Combining her two passions of being a mother and AFL coach, Michelle’s amazing story is a tribute to what all of us can achieve with enough guts, grit and determination. With over 18 years of coaching experience in the WAFL, AFL and AFLW a long and successful career that has contributed to the game’s exciting evolution.
At 21 Michelle became Australia’s first female WAFL assistant coach and put West Perth through its paces. Her role at West Perth was followed by a three year stint at South Fremantle Football Club as midfield coach.
Michelle later took on a dual role at Melbourne Football Club as the Senior Coach of their Women’s Team and Development Coach for the Men’s team before being appointed by Fremantle Football Club (Dockers) to be the inaugural coach of their AFLW side 2016-2018. In early 2019 Michelle was appointed as Assistant Coach of the West Coast Eagle’s AFLW team and in 2021 was offered the opportunity to become Head of Operations & Player Wellbeing for the team.
Michelle was awarded the AFL Football Woman of the Year in 2013.and in 2014 was announced as AFL DSR Coach of the Year. Her achievements have made it clearer for the next generation of women in football proving that when it comes to football or business, gender is no barrier to kicking goals.
Karen has been a regular face and voice of ABC TV and radio sport since joining the ABC in 1989. In 1997, she made the move to ABC Radio as the presenter of the weekend national sports program ‘Summer Grandstand’ – a role she still enjoys from her adopted home town of Perth.
Karen co-hosted ABC Radio’s cover of the Sydney, Athens and Beijing Olympics, Kuala Lumpur and Manchester Commonwealth Games and has hosted six Paralympic Games (Lillehammer, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Beijing and London) with ABC TV. She was part of the Friday night fun of ‘Live & Sweaty’ on ABC TV in the early nineties and for six
years presented sport on ABC TV’s weeknight news in Perth.
Karen was also the regular host of ABC TV’s annual coverage of the Hopman Cup tennis tournament from 1994 to 2010.
She was the Media Award winner at the 2000 and 2001 Australian Sports Awards and in 2020 Karen received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sport Australia Media Awards in Sydney.
Tanya Finnie is a global cultural strategist with expertise in building meaningful relationships and instilling confidence within individuals. As multi award winner, who worked on every continent, Tanya brings global experience pertaining to culture and diversity. Tanya assists organisations in growing their human capital and increasing their cultural intelligence to be more collaborative and leverage their diversity.
She is a TEDx speaker (2020), certified Global Goodwill Ambassador and voted as one of Perth’s Top 100 Small Business Influencers (2016). She is a Patron for Roots TV – a not for profit supporting youth at risk to become media producers; a long-standing mentor for UWA postgraduate students and mentor to CALD communities on boards via the Office of Multicultural Interests (OMI.)
Tanya is passionate about bringing people together through rapport building and culturally appropriate communication. Her work has a strong focus on diversity and inclusion, body language, and motivation, all of which ultimately increase confidence and grow stronger, more innovative, and collaborative teams and leaders.
Amy Coombe is a National Speaker, Facilitator, Author, accredited Life and MBIT Coaching Practitioner and PRINT Personality Coach and Practitioner.
Amy has appeared live on the ABC News, on Channel 10, Channel 7, and been featured in CLEO Magazine, The Mental Health Commission Magazine ‘Head 2Head’, WA Family Magazine ‘Offspring’, The Sunday Times, Perth Now & The Australian Online. In 2014 she was the official Ambassador for Mental Health Week in Western Australia. In 2013 Amy was nominated for the Australian Education and Leaderships ‘Most Positive Role Model of the Year’ award.
Amy has worked as a Presenter, Facilitator and Coaching Practitioner for over a decade with clients in Perth, Melbourne, Hobart, Canberra and Queensland. For 5 years she worked as an Independent Facilitator Contractor facilitating alongside renowned Facilitators and Comedians, Andrew Horabin and Malcolm Dix.
Before diving into the world of presenting, Amy worked as an Executive Assistant for the General Manager of Operations at CBH Group. So she understands the level of stress and pressure that both PAs and EAs are under on a daily basis.
Amy speaks with heart, humour and honesty, creating moments of reflective silence followed by roars of laughter and a positive shift of energy.
Dr Norman Swan is Australia’s most respected health journalist, broadcaster and commentator and is in high demand as a facilitator and speaker.
Dr Norman Swan has emerged as the go-to health correspondent during the COVID19 pandemic and is regarded as one of the most trusted voices in the country on Coronavirus. He hosts the daily ABC podcast Coronacast which aims to help answer questions about coronavirus or COVID19. The podcast breaks down the latest news and research to help the community understand how the world is living through a pandemic.
Dr Norman Swan hosts The Health Report on the ABC’s Radio National, a regular panelist on The Drum and a guest reporter on Four Corners on ABC Television. The Health Report is the world’s longest running health programme in the English-speaking world and Norman has won many awards for his work including Australia’s top prize for journalism, the Gold Walkley.
Norman trained in medicine in Scotland and paediatrics in London and Sydney before joining the ABC and has hosted many other programmes on radio and television. He was the medical host on Channel Ten’s Biggest Loser for six seasons and two of his recent Four Corners have had a high impact. One of was on waste in the healthcare system and the other changed the debate about doctors’ out of pocket charges. Norman has consulted to the World Health Organisation, co-chaired a global meeting of health ministers in Bamako West Africa and has been the Australian correspondent for both the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
Ruth is an international Executive Assistant coach and mentor and founder of Hoxton Hyde, a one to one and group coaching program provider for Assistants.
Ruth specialises in helping Assistants to move from transactional to strategic thinkers and operators, streamline systems and processes and increase their business acumen.
As a former Senior Executive Assistant and Project Manager, Ruth has over 13 years’ experience in managing time for C-Suite Executives in Australia and in the United Kingdom, predominately for large global corporations.
“This Summit was absolutely incredible. The number of high-quality presenters is always amazing.”
Enforcement ACT Branch, ACCC