Our Founder, Bernadette O’Connor
Vale Bernadette (d. 6 July 2025)

Bernadette O’Connor, founder of Management Governance Australia, CEO of Workforce Plus Inc, Chair of the Australian Renewables Academy and Executive Chair of DEC Housing, passed away in July 2025.

We continue to honour her life, leadership and legacy.
For more than 40 years, Bernadette dedicated herself to strengthening communities across Australia — championing employment, education, disability inclusion, governance, accessible housing and renewable‑energy workforce development.

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Josh brings over a decade of leadership experience across the hospitality, youth development, social services, and education sectors. As a former practitioner for family violence services and project manager, Josh’ skills bring a diverse and energetic approach to the MGA group.

Josh holds an Advanced Diploma of Leadership and Management; Advanced Diploma of Human Resource Management; Advanced Diploma of Business; Diploma of Vocational Education and Training; Diploma of Hospitality Management, Diploma of Community Services and formal qualifications in Radio Broadcast, Event Management and has completed his Teaching Practicum.

Josh has worked with some of the largest organisations in the social and youth sectors including The Salvation Army, The Orange Door, Scouts Australia and Youth Affairs Council Victoria.

David brings over 30 years of leadership experience across the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors.

He is a former CEO and Victorian State Manager of National Disability Services, and previously led the Victorian Government’s central agency team that helped shape the NDIS. David has deep expertise in disability policy and the challenges faced by people with disability, their families and supporters.

Starting his career as a lawyer, David has held senior executive roles in the Victorian Public Service, where he led national health and safety reform, strategic WHS policy and legislation, regulatory frameworks, and departmental budget and corporate planning. A registered lobbyist, David is also a Director of Workforce Plus Inc. and provides strategic, business, and governance advisory services to a range of organisations and companies.

A commercial guy at heart, Bill has recently established his own consultancy that currently supports the development of the energy sector as it makes the transition from fossil fuels to renewables. Providing support to one of the first licensed Offshore Wind Farms – Gippsland Skies, Bill acts as the technical advisor in the national interest area of skills, jobs, research and innovation. Immediately prior to commencing his own consultancy Bill was the driving force behind Federation Universities APRETC initiative, nationally recognized as the leading wind energy vocational Training Centre in Australia.

In a community capacity Bill Chairs, the BEN Project Group for the Committee for Ballarat a project aiming to deliver a community energy response to Ballarat and, is committed to ensuring where he see’s or finds growth opportunities Ballarat always figures large in those opportunities.

Mary is an experienced facilitator, trainer, coach, and business consultant. She has held senior management positions in Australia, Asia and the UK. In these roles she has developed a broad range of skills and an in-depth understanding of business. In recent years Mary has worked as a private consultant with organisations in Australia and internationally. Her work has been focused primarily in the financial services, telecommunications and business services sectors but she also has experience of working with government and not-for-profit organisations.

Mary established the BlueFox Group in 2010 in response to a growing demand for training and consulting services that assist organisations be more customer centric. BlueFox now works with companies whose focus is on the delivery of their business strategy through enhanced customer experiences. BlueFox does that by improving the way their people engage.

Mary’s tertiary qualifications include a Masters’ degree in Instructional Design and Development and she is an accredited member of the International Coaching Federation (ICP). Mary is also a qualified psychotherapist and counselor. She is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (MAICD), the Australian Institute of Management (AIM) and the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia (AMCHAM).

Miranda is a change and transformation specialist who has worked across diverse industry segments including: government, telecommunications, retail and financial services. She has led multiple large scale transformations to achieve a range of business outcomes.

Miranda is an experienced consultant having worked for KPMG and the Litmus group as well as independently consulting into organisations. She is motivated by challenging the status quo and developing new approaches to realise outcomes in more efficient and effective ways. She stays ahead of the game on emerging technologies and has modeled the paperless office since 2010.

Through her PhD research based on Phenomenological enquiry, she has experienced new ways of thinking which has led to consideration for ‘how things transform’. This thinking has enabled the creation of the Transformation3 methodology, a dynamic, real time management of large scale change. The approach is reflective of what she has been delivering against in leading change programs. It has now been developed into a suite of materials enabling the expertise to be shared to assist others in leading transformational change against this dynamic approach.

Liz Newman has run her own service focused businesses since 1980 and transitioned from global logistics management for aerospace and defence industries to human resource consulting with a focus on leadership development. She is a Master Practitioner in NLP, a Meta-Coach and Accredited Fluid Intelligence Developer, as well as an experienced trainer and facilitator. Liz has worked extensively in commercial, government and not for profit sectors.

A keen advocate of the Kolbe Concept, Liz has trained and facilitated teams ranging from 4 – 80 in size with the focus on optimising individual, team and organisational strengths to build innovative resilient cultures. With a passion for facilitating positive outcomes Liz engages with her clients with enthusiasm and authenticity.