Mentor List

James is a strategic leader with an impressive track record taking local Australian business through significant growth and expansion into international markets. He was the Managing Director and CEO of Incitec Pivot (IPL). Over his 14 year tenure, first as CFO and then as CEO, the company increased in size 6-fold to an enterprise value of $8bn. Other significant highlights during his time at IPL included overseeing construction of two new $1bn world scale manufacturing plants (one at Moranbah, Australia and the other at Louisiana, USA), successfully integrating the $3.6bn Dyno-Nobel acquisition (which took IPL global) and restructuring the group to become a global industrial chemical company with operations in 13 countries around the world.

James is also Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at La Trobe University and in this capacity provides advice to the Vice-Chancellor and Senior Management on strategy, culture and operational excellence. James is also an Adjunct Professor at La Trobe Business School specialising in management, international business and digital. James passionately believes in diversity and is a member of the Melbourne Male Champions of Change group.

With deep expertise in driving strategic growth in multiple industries, James holds the position of Non-Executive Director to Australia Pipeline Limited; an ASX 50 company that owns and operates circa $21bn of energy assets in Australia, Rabobank Australia Limited; the world’s leading specialist food and agribusiness bank, Tassal Group Limited; Australia’s leading seafood producer.

James is currently the Chairman of Osteon Medical, a leading digital health business; and Manufacturing Australia, a CEO-led coalition of Australia's largest manufacturers who work with all sides of government, business and community to help the sector realise its full potential.

Mike Foster - ex CEO Fujitsu by The Mentor List

Joe Barr - CEO John Holland Group by The Mentor List

Shanyn Payne - Diversity Matters Leaders in Conversation Mini Series by The Mentor List

Anna Leibel is UniSuper’s Chief Delivery and IT Officer responsible for delivering strategic projects, member administration operations, developing and implementing the IT strategy, and information security management.

Since 2017 Anna has been leading the fund through transformational change to deliver better value and experience to members through digitisation of the business. As a highly accomplished senior executive and corporate adviser, Anna is renowned for her ability to blend customer-focused strategy development and transformational change across technology, business practices and growth culture. Anna’s cross-industry career spans more than two decades in transformation programs, IT advisory and technology start-ups with organisations including PwC, Telstra, seek and NAB.

She is a board member with Ambulance Victoria and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Anna has participated in two senior executive programs at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): Succeeding in a Digital Economy, and Driving Strategic Innovation. Anna is co-author of The Secure Board which will be published in early 2021

Ana Marinkovic is a senior executive whose career spans more than 15 years in financial services. Her current role is Executive General Manager, Business Direct and Small Business at National Australia Bank, where her team looks after the financial needs of over five hundred thousand businesses across Australia, through a suite of products and services to support every stage of a business’ journey.

Throughout Ana’s career in financial services, she has held senior roles across consumer and commercial banking, portfolio management, stratgey, digitisation and technology. These roles have seen her lead the delivery of enterprise wide transformations, complex technology programs and large-scale end to end businesses.

Ana is a passionate advocate for diversity, inclusion and equality of opportunity and believes in hard work, broad engagement and integrity as foundations to authentic leadership. She is an advisory Board Member for the Brilliant Women Global organisation, advocating for diversity and inclusion in Australia and internationally.

Sarah Adam-Gedge is an experienced leader in the digital and technology industry, as well as being a Non-executive Director.

Sarah is currently the Managing Director of Publicis Sapient Australia. Publicis.Sapient is the digital business transformation hub of Publicis Groupe, and helps clients drive growth and efficiency and evolve the ways they work, in a world where consumer behavior and technology are catalyzing social and commercial change at an unprecedented pace. With 19,000 people and over 100 offices around the globe, our expertise spanning technology, data sciences, consulting and creative enables us to deliver on complex transformation initiatives that accelerate our clients’ businesses through creating the products and services their customers expect. Sarah is also a Non-executive Director of Austal Ltd. Austal is 'The Australian Shipbuilder', defence prime contractor and maritime technology partner of choice; designing, constructing and supporting revolutionary defence and commercial vessels for the world's leading operators.

Sarah is also Chair of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee, and member of the Audit and Risk Committee. Previously Sarah was a non-executive Director of Ovarian Cancer Australia, and continues to support this important charity as a member of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee.

Prior to Publicis.Sapient Sarah was Managing Director of Avanade, and has held executive roles at IBM, PwC, and Andersen across Australia/NZ, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East and Africa. She is a graduate of the AICD, Chartered Accountant, member of ACS and on the ACS Diversity Council.

Div Pillay is the CEO & Co-Founder of MindTribes and social enterprise, Culturally Diverse Workforces (CDW). Both businesses focus on cultural inclusion delivering a business impact. MindTribes and CDW work with ANZ and global executive leaders, offshore staff, multicultural employees and customers to ensure that big brands extract the economic and business benefit of cultural diversity. They are concerned with the current & future customer and work and how this is optimised. Under Div’s leadership MindTribes has won several industry awards, the latest being recognised by Westpac as one of the 200 Businesses of Tomorrow, 2018. In addition, Div was named by the Australian Financial Review and Qantas as one of the 100 Women of Influence in the Diversity and Inclusion category, 2018.  High socially minded, she is on the Board of STREAT focussing on youth homelessness and a Plan International Ambassador giving 10% of MindTribes revenue to empowering girls globally.  Div is also National Chair of the America Chamber of Commerce’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

Rasha Abbas is a business transformation senior executive with strong track record of delivering outcomes. Delivered enterprise wide transformations, led complex technology programs and managed large scale operations and budgets (~$1.4B strategic project portfolio over 4 years).

She is recognised for delivering outstanding results, transforming business operations, translating strategy into actions, executing complex projects and building high performing agile teams.

Innovative, values driven and high paced change leader. A connector that builds strong relationships based on trust. Lifelong learner that enjoys the pursuit of knowledge. Experienced across Financial Services, Technology, Contact Centre, Operations, Distribution, Frontline Leadership and Complex Regulatory Business.

A board director and senior executive skilled in strategy, technology leadership, fast paced customer centric environments. Claudine has a demonstrated ability to build high performance teams and cultures, also leveraging her experience in the Australian Olympic Sailing Development Team.

Claudine has led innovation and transformations through technology leadership roles for the Jetstar Group of Airlines, Ridley Corporation. Strategy, consulting at KPMG, and strong career foundations in Sales, Marketing and Product Management.

Claudine was awarded Top CIO50 in Australia in 2016. She is a 2015 graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD), and boasts a wealth of international experience through Jetstar’s Branded Airlines (Singapore, Japan, Vietnam), Ridley’s Thai operations, work with KPMG in China and other international leadership roles. She has a Bachelor of Business from the University of Technology Sydney, Australia (B.Bus) and a Diploma of Business Management from the Ecole Supérieur de Commerce Reims, France (Dip.Mgnt).

Coach and mentor to talented young aspiring leaders from a variety of industries and a former Australian Sailing Development team member, experienced in high performance environments, leadership effectiveness.