Deborah May BA/LLB, MBA (HIGHEST HONS)

Fulbright Scholar, Organisational Development Consultant, Executive Coach and Champion of Gender Equity and Values Driven Leadership

Deborah May is a Fulbright Scholar, graduating from the only business school in the world specifically designed for women, Simmons Graduate School of Management, Boston, Massachussetts, USA. She has been consulting and coaching in Australia since 1999 and has a solid theoretical grounding and practical experience in organisational, behavioural and leadership issues both in the Australian and American environments.

Whilst in Boston (1996 – 1998), Deborah worked with Ibis Consulting Group, Inc., a leading organisational development firm, where she practiced innovative organisational development techniques and developed the coaching skills that make her so effective today.

Creating Inclusive Workplaces – Organisational Development Consulting

Deborah has undertaken a number of highly successful consulting and coaching engagements including:

• Designing and delivering a gender awareness program that included training and coaching to executive teams at Corrs, Westgarth and Chambers (2007), Kellogg’s Australia. (2008 – 2010) and the Australian National University (2010-11)
• Undertaking organizational review for Galilee to determine how it could more effectively deliver education and support to disadvantaged youth. (2008)
• Undertaking organisational review for Australian National University Enterprise to assist it become more effective and strategic in delivering educational programs for overseas students. (2008)
• Writing a research paper for Australian Public Sector Commission on Leadership Initiatives to Facilitate Cultural Change and Promote Diversity across the APS (2001)
• Women’s Advocate for ACT Department of Urban Services – a 12 month engagement to assist the Department increase the numbers of women in senior executive positions (2006 – 2007)
• Determining how two Indigenous Branches within DEST could work more effectively to deliver results (2006)
• Determining the impediments to women advancing into the senior executive service in Department of Transport and Regional Development and developing the organisational interventions required to effect a cultural shift; (2000)
• Undertaking a comprehensive work/home balance study within the Federal Department of Finance and Administration to:
  • determine the cultural impediments to employees implementing effective work home balance strategies;
  • recommend appropriate systemic and managerial interventions to redress the issue. (1999 – 2001)
• Identifying the cultural and systemic impediments to all employees being fully effective in a large national IT company (1999 – 2001)
• Undertaking a cultural audit for a law firm to identify barriers to retaining staff; 2002
• Developing a business model for Microsoft’s Canberra office to enable it to better utilize the expertise of internal staff and external strategic business partners, (1999)
• Working with the Australian Greenhouse Office to improve the leadership, effectiveness and service delivery of a number of internal teams; (1999 – 2002)
• Designing, implementing and delivering feedback on a membership survey for the Chamber of Women in Business. (1999)
• Assist design and facilitate a workshop of 200 employees of Boston University Dental School wishing to improve service delivery; (1997)
• Create a “Women in the Workplace’ program focused on retaining and promoting women employees, incorporating women focused coaching programs - Boston; (1997)
• Develop a diversity training aid focused on competitive recruitment and retention strategies for the 21st century – Boston (1997)
• Design a cross functional mentoring program for a large Federal Agency to enhance its training programs – Boston (1998)

Inspiring Leaders - Coaching

Transformational leadership coaching engagements with many executives and teams levels including:

• A senior Federal Government management team wanting to work more effectively and collaboratively together;
• SES and Executive Level Officers across the Department of Finance
• The General Manager and leadership team of a large national Consulting Company;
• The CEO and Executive Managers of the Australian Greenhouse Office;
• Senior associates and Partners of top tier legal and accounting firms
• Academics and university executives at the ANU and University of Canberra
• Division Head, Branch Heads and EL2s within the Attorney General’s Department
• Branch Heads and EL2s in the Australian Taxation Office,
• Branch Heads and EL2s at DEWR
• The General Manager and executive management team of a national IT company wishing to improve their group and individual leadership skills;
• Senior executive women from different public and private sector organisations, facing particular, gender related obstacles in their workplace;
• Appointment to APSC Coaching Panel 2005
• Appointment to PM&C Career Advisory Panel and Executive Coaching Panel 2006.

Clients include Department of Finance and Administration, SMS Consulting, Australian Greenhouse Office, ACT Department of Urban Services, Attorney General’s Department – PSCC, OFLC, Australian Taxation Office, Office of Status of Women, Department of Family and Community Services, Clayton Utz, Corrs Westgarth and Chambers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Department of Transport, Kellogg's Lorimar Associates, University of Canberra, Australian National University, Microsoft Ltd, Praxa, BHP/IT.

Advancing Women – Leadership Development Programs

Deborah has designed and delivered a number of in-house and public training programs in the areas of leadership, assertive communication, negotiations, change management, career development, time management and report writing.

She has also developed many women’s leadership programs and workshops that focus on specific issues women face in the workplace, including how to increase their sphere of influence and advance their careers within the context of their organisations. They incorporate gender theory, systems thinking, career planning, negotiations and leadership development.

Public workshops have been conducted in partnership with Synergy Plus Training and Acorn Training.

A 12 month Women’s Leadership Development Program developed and delivered for Swinburne University, incorporating cultural change initiatives and leadership training is being rolled out 2007-2008

A three month Women’s leadership program was developed for Senior Associates and lawyers at Corrs Chambers and Westgarth, 2008. This included senior executive gender awareness briefings to Executive Partners and Board members.

In-house women’s workshops have been provided to Kellogg’s, ANU, Department of Finance, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Clayton Utz, Dept of Family and Community Services, ComCare, Attorney General’s Department, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, ACTEWAGL, Australian National University, NICTA, Australian Greenhouse Office and SMS MT.

Deborah’s latest initiative is the development of an on-line resource website www.advancingwomen.com.au designed to provide greater access to the resources, networks and advice to assist women better navigate their workplace and lives.

Action-Oriented Strategic Planning

• Designing and facilitating workshops for Australian Soccer (80 people from different States and Territories) and the Australian Shooting Association (25 people from 10 different shooting associations) to gain stakeholder support of governance arrangements and a unified approach to managing all facets of their sport and stakeholder interests (2002)
• Designing and facilitating a strategic planning workshop with the Partners of a top tier law firm that resulted in agreement to a vision, the development of a comprehensive and specific strategic plan and staff engagement strategy; (2003 – 4)
• Designing and facilitating a strategic planning workshop for 80 faculty and staff of School of Health, University of Canberra (2005)
• Visioning and planning to be an international leader – SRES, ANU (2006)
• Assisting an ACT Government business unit make the transition into privatization; (2001)
• Working with the Office of Status of Women to gain staff buy in and ownership of its business plan (2000)
• Designing and delivering several team building workshops for AGO, (1999 – 2002)
• Design and delivery of Classification Operations Branch strategic planning day (to facilitate integration with Attorney General’s Department) (2007)
• Designing and Facilitating 2 day Executive Retreat for 80 SES and Executive Level Staff in Budget Group (2007)
• Design and delivery of branch planning workshop, Australian Electoral Commission, (2007)
• Design and delivery of values and vision workshop for Galilee (2007).
• Design and delivery of 2 day executive retreat for AIATSIS to reinvigorate and focus the leadership team (2009)

Previous Career (1985 – 1995):

Deborah worked for ten years with IBM in Canberra in a number of Account Management positions. During this time, she was responsible for managing account teams, client relationships and achieving challenging revenue targets. She has extensive knowledge of the APS and the organisational and cultural issues surrounding the implementation of information technology. Her clients included the Australian Taxation Office, the Department of Defence, Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, Attorney Generals and the Health Insurance Commission.

(1984)

Deborah worked with Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (AAT Section) as a legal advisor for eight months.

Professional Conferences, Training and Affiliations (1999-2011):

• June 14 - 18, 1999, The Theory and Practice of Making Adaptive Change, Merelyn Emery, Sydney, Australia
• July 2 - 6, 2000, International Coaching and Mentoring Conference, Linkage International, London, UK
• July 16 - 19, 2000, The 4Mat System Mastering Training Design (level 1), DGL International, Eltham, Victoria
• October 18 - 21, 2000, Women Leading Change, Teleran, Adelaide
• January 01 - 15, 2001, Learning Exchange, Simmons Graduate School of Management, Ibis Consulting Inc and Institute of Womens Leadership, Mercer International, Boston, Redwood City, USA
• September, 01 – Speaker at OSW's National Women Speak Out Conference.
• July, 2002 – Attendance at Macquarie University's Women in Management Conference
• February, 2003 - Convenor and presenter at "Leading Diversity Conference" Canberra
• March 2003 – Speaker at Chamber of Women in Business Conference, Canberra.
• May/June 2003 Convenor at "Leading with Innovation and Participation" Conference held by Department of Family and Community Services
• May 2003 – Speaker at Ausport's "Sport Needs More Women" Conference, Sydney
• October 2004 – Speaker at Dept of Finance Women’s Network Dinner.
• October 2004 – Attended Senior Executive Women and Workplace Cultures Conference, Sydney
• March 2005 – Key note speaker at International Women’s Day Forum – DEWR
• August 2005 – Key note speaker at Women on Boards Function, ACT
• February 2006 – Key note speaker – Women and IT, ACT
• July 2006 – Rosabeth Moss Kantor seminar
• February 2007 – Global Leadership Conference, Sydney
• April 2007 – Positive Psychology Seminar
• September 2007 – AIM High Management Conference, Sydney
• March 2009 – Building a sustainable and high performance organization in challenging times
• May 2009 – Accreditation in Use of Values Barrett Centre Cultural Transformational Tools
• November 2010 – Speaker at CPA Congress, Adelaide. Topic: ‘Women in Leadership – Soar Through The Glass Ceiling’
• November 2010 – Speaker Singapore Institute of Management Topic: ‘If Men Don’t Listen and Women aren’t Heard, How do I get Noticed by my Boss?’
• March 2011 – Speaker at AHRI Conference. Topic: ‘Coaching to Improve the performance, profile and career prospects of women.’