Clare Edwards - Principal
Clare’s early career was spent in hospitality, in Front Office Management for a European Hotel chain. She then spent 16 years working at senior management level with European and American organisations. During that time, she was Head of Corporate Development for XO Global Communications Inc., Customer Marketing Manager, SAP UK, and has worked in, and managed, multinational teams.
Clare’s fascination with the brain led her to be in the first cohort globally of an Advanced Diploma in the Neuroscience of Leadership. Accreditations include the i4 Neuroleader assessment, Team Management Systems and Everything DiSC profiling.
A Professional Member of the Professional Speaking Association (PSA), Clare speaks extensively at industry associations and professional development conferences, delivering a series of ‘Change your Brain’ keynotes and plenaries.
When not working you can find Clare immersed in nature, camping, riding her bike and dancing to her heart's content - especially Zumba and Tap!
Our Collaboration Network
We are proud to have the best of the best on our extended team. Each associate and partner has been chosen not only for their experience and expertise, but for their values, attitude and commitment to people being at the centre of everything we do.
BrainSmart Associates
Anne Paterson
A fellow Neuroleadership graduate and co-founder of the BrainSmart brand, Anne has over 25 years’ experience in global HR Management, Learning, and Development, and consulting within the UK, mainland Europe, and Australia. She has worked in both the public and private sectors, and in her corporate career with British Airways in the UK, she held the positions of Head of Human Resources and Human Resource Manager Europe.
As a consultant, Anne has worked across a diverse range of industries and organisations providing consultancy advice and support, designing and delivering development programs, and coaching executives.
Anne specialises in Emotional Intelligence, Change and Resilience and developing leaders to be great coaches.
When not working Anne likes nothing more than to spend time with her adorable Cavalier King Charles Spaniel 'Rosie'. She is also a passionate advocate for the orangutan project in Borneo.
Leesa Tongoulidis
Leesa has over 15 years in Human Resource and Organisational Development with a strong track record in strategic leadership and career coaching, leading diversity and inclusion initiatives, including culture transformation projects in complex, and often ambiguous circumstances. Her key strengths are helping individuals leaders and organisations navigate change and uncertainty, connecting people, ideas and opportunities.
Leesa has worked in multiple industry sectors including IT, government, private education, financial services, property, telecommunications, and managed services. She is a highly sought after Career and Executive Coach and has a deep understanding of 21st century leadership practice. Leesa leverages human centred design principles, systemic intelligence and experiential learning in all of her professional development practices.
Leesa's areas of expertise include Women in Leadership, Diversity and Inclusion and Mental Health and Wellbeing.
When not working Leesa engages in Music, Art, Theatre, Fitness, Travel, Cooking, Meditation, Spending time with Friends, Family and her Cavoodle Django.
Will and Helen Martin
Will Martin and Helen Martin from Waterline Leadership: Working with like-minded practitioners delivering extraordinary value to clients through a mentality around ‘service’.
Helen and Will have a combined history of over 40 years of service to the Australian community. Now, through their collective experience in Navy, local Government and customer service, they support senior leaders and leadership teams in unleashing dormant potential. They know that an organisation will maximise its ability to thrive within a highly competitive environment when its most senior teams and leaders collaborate in an extraordinary manner. To achieve this, organisational and personal silos must be eradicated, which Will and Helen achieve through team coaching.
The Martins are passionate Sydney Swans supporters and love early morning walks around Sydney Harbour’s inner west bays and waterways. And, while Will is golfing on Saturday mornings, Helen is usually busy creating something wonderful on her sewing machine(s).
Simon Smith
With over 30 years experience in brain-based leadership, coaching and consulting, Simon has an extremely wide range of training, coaching, facilitating and speaking experience. Simon describes his approach as humanistic, neuroscience-based, practical, down-to-earth, no BS training, coaching, facilitation & team building programmes.
As an executive coach, Simon specialises in Coaching Culture and Engagement, Neuroleadership and Teambuilding.
Outside of the office Simon loves SCUBA diving, squash, hiking, red wine (any wine really!), real ale and camping.
BrainSmart Partners and Collaborators
Earth 2 Mars - Human Centred Change Management Specialists
Earth2Mars are driven and inspired to be pioneers in co-creating an inclusive, dynamic and connected universe where anybody and everybody can realise their own meaningful place in the world and belong. Why? Because everybody deserves a place, now and in the future so that we can make history.
Their mission at the deepest level is to help people, teams and the broader business world create radical change through proven human-centric and ecological approaches to transformation. They empower people by igniting passion, energy and creativity so that they can lead themselves and others towards the greater good for our planet and beyond.
Glow Up Careers - Career Management Specialists
As an award winning Social Enterprise, Glow Up Career's mission is to "Empower everyone to have the career of their dreams no matter who they are or where they are from". They have over 120 accredited coaches delivering coaching via Zoom with an online platform tailored to job outcomes.
Glow Up work with organisations delivering flexible, cost effective and future focused career coaching and transition programs. They also work with community organisations to deliver pro-bono refugee & new migrant coaching. They have a passion for inclusion and giving everyone the opportunity to find meaningful work.
Leading Edge Professional Development - Team and Leadership Development with a Difference
Leading Edge Professional Development offers a unique approach to team and leadership development based on the concept of experiential learning with one major difference; they work with co-coaches who are totally honest and give immediate and unbiased responses to individual and group energy, intention, actions, and body language. The co-coaches are not human – they are horses!
Horses are so acutely intuitive and react immediately and honestly to external stimuli. They see through the corporate persona and know nothing of office politics. Basically, they either feel safe and comfortable with you and your team, or they don’t, and until the team members modify something e.g. their actions, intentions, communication or collaboration, the team will not progress. Experienced human coaches then help you to interpret the horses’ responses to individual and team interactions and, most importantly, assist you in examining how these responses apply to your team or leadership style when paralleled back to an office environment.
Visit Leading Edge Professional Development here
If you are based or looking to hold events in Victoria then the amazing team at The Matanya Effect will look after you there.
Lever Transfer of Learning - Learning Transfer Specialists
Lever-Transfer of Learning have been working in the learning transfer field for the last 19 years. Their mission is to end scrap learning and to ensure that what is learnt on training is transferred into sustained behavioural change back on the job.
Lever has a talented team working in 16 countries and 12 languages delivering the ‘Turning Learning into Action Methodology’. Coach M, an integral part of the team, is a conversational intelligence chatbot designed to deliver learning transfer conversations in a scalable and engaging way.