KONA consulting practitioners

Glenn Dobson Managing Director

Glenn Dobson is an International Ironman Triathlete and current World Record Holder, Business Builder and Sales and Marketing expert, as well as a highly in-demand Public-Speaker, MC & Presenter. With an extensive career in sales across UK, Europe, Asia and Australasia Glenn is a consummate professional who makes things happen when it comes to competitive sales environments.

Commercially aggressive, his ability to identify growth opportunities and drive activity to deliver results for his clients is astounding. The energy and discipline required to compete as an endurance athlete at the elite level is evident in every thing he does. As a Speaker, Glenn is inspiring, direct and highly motivating. All his business engagements are conducted with the highest level of integrity and results are always the number one priority.

See Glenn Dobson's profile here.

Mary O'Keeffe

An experienced Facilitator and Trainer, Accredited Coach, and Business Consultant, Mary has extensive business background in international services, commercial, government and not-for-profit environments. While she resides and works predominantly in Australia, she has also lived and managed projects in Singapore, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, India, UK and Europe. She is fluent in English, French and Spanish.

Mary has developed a wide portfolio of skills throughout her career as a senior manager within the services industries of Australia, Asia and the UK. The portfolio has also been acquired by her work as an external provider of consultancy services to corporate Australia and some of its overseas subsidiaries and through her involvement with government and non-government organisations in Australia:

Group Facilitation: strategy, planning and implementation, team building, team profiling, conflict resolution
Executive Coaching: performance, skills, transition
Mentoring: business advisory and counseling
Talent management: recruitment, assessments, competencies mapping, job specification, skills matrix, graduate recruitment programs
Training Design, Development and Delivery: leadership, sales, operations, customer service

Mary’s work in corporate Australia is primarily within the financial services, telecommunications and the business services sectors. Her involvement in government projects has been with large federal organisations as well as with state and local government bodies. Within the not-for-profit sector her experience has largely been with research, health advisory and training support services.

Mary’s qualifications include a Master’s degree in program design and development and a Bachelor’s in modern languages. She is an accredited consultant for Organisation Effectiveness Profiling (OEP), Team Effectiveness Profiling (TEP) and Sales Effectiveness Profiling (SEP). She is an accredited trainer of the Team Management Systems (TMS) tools, and is an accredited practitioner of The Majors Personality Type Inventory (MajorsPTI) and The Function Skill Development Indicator (FSDA). Her coaching credentials are certified by the International Coaching Federation (ICP). Mary is also a qualified psychotherapist and counselor.

She is member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD), the Australian Institute of Management (AIM) and the Counselors and Psychotherapists Association of NSW (CAPA).

Michelle Kay-Clough

Sales and Business Management Coach
Michelle Kay-Clough believes that to build an effective team means not to instruct but to instill ownership of success.
With over 20 years international experience in both corporate and private sales and marketing environments; her knowledge encompasses human resources, company administration; banking, real estate, building, hospitality, and the retirement industries.
Michelle works intimately with her customers to engage, enable, encourage and enhance results. She brings an enthusiasm and diligent belief that networking and relationship based marketing is an integral core of any successful business.

Andrea Westwood

Andrea Westwood has spent over 10 years helping organisations change and grow their businesses through transforming their people. She has worked extensively in Australia, Singapore, India and HK where she has developed her Cultural Diversity coaching skills and her roles within pharmaceutical companies have been instrumental in them receiving the Australian Quality Award.

Look to Andrea if you need an experienced executive to help take your business to the next level in areas including:

Staff engagement
Leadership development
Team building
Strategic thinking
Whole Brained organisations
Program / project management and delivery
Executive coaching

Kevin Cheung

Kevin Cheung is an experienced senior strategy and business executive. He has spent over the last 10 years helping many organizations transformed their businesses to achieve astounding results.

He has worked extensively in Australia as well as in Asia Pacific such as Singapore and HK. He built his consulting skills and experience from world renowned management consulting company, Accenture (previously known as Andersen Consulting). In addition, Kevin gained his line management experience in the corporate world where he held the position of Head of Planning and Governance for QBE Insurance (Australia), overseeing the operational strategy development and execution, business planning and corporate governance for the Australian operations.

His multi-lingual skills in English and Chinese have enabled clients to transition and build new businesses in Asian countries much more easily.

Contact Kevin if you need an experienced strategy and business executive to help take your business to the next level in areas such as:

Strategy formulation and development
Business planning
Organic growth within Australia or expansion strategy into Asia Pacific
Improve sales and marketing effectiveness
Program / project management and delivery
Executive coaching & management

Jamie Rowe

Jamie Rowe is an experienced Senior Instructional Designer and Technical Writer. He has extensive learning and development experience with over 15 years in the industry providing an exceptional learning solution to meet yours and your teams/organisations needs.

Jamie has worked for and with some of Australia's largest organisations such as Citibank, QBE, Perpetual, ING Direct and Commonwealth Bank, just to name a few. He brings a wealth of experience in areas such as learning and development team management as well as project management through to design and implementing a learning solution to meet the clients needs. Jamie is also is an experienced Learning and Development Consultant.

If you are seeking an experienced learning and development professional to partner with you in the education and growth of your team or organisation, Jamie can bring to your organisation:

Instructional Design (including eLearning) and Technical Writing
Consultation
Learning Project Management
Learning Project Team Management
Senior Stakeholder Management
Strong Communication
Learning and Development Problem Solving
Business Process Reengineering (Six Sigma)

Grahame Murphy

Grahame Murphy is a well regarded executive coach and management consultant. He combines lessons learnt in corporate business with experiences from extreme physical endeavour. From this base, the principles have been forged that underpin high performance in teams, relationships and individuals.

He is passionate about realising human potential and fervently believes that valued results in any context depend on healthy relationships supported by effective personal leadership. Colleagues compliment him on his people interaction skills, particularly in the areas of conflict resolution and critical workshop facilitation.

His past management roles have included chief information officer for the Fujitsu Australasia Group, consulting practice manager for Infinity International (a mid-sized consulting firm) and chief operating officer of i7 – Channel Seven’s internet subsidiary.

Grahame’s areas of specialisation are:

Organisational Effectiveness
Conflict Resolution & Crucial Conversations
Rewarding Human Relationships
Change Leadership & Management
Personal Coaching & Development
Facilitative Leadership

Grahame is a double world record holder, having participated in the first ever mass skydiving expedition to the Geographic North Pole and the first ever novice trek to the Geographic South Pole, a 68-day non-stop sled-hauling expedition from the Antarctic coast.

Sonny Mathews

With over 25 years of International Business expertise, across a number of wide range of functions, and as a business consultant and coach, Sonny is a highly credible and empathetic asset capable of inspiring individuals at CEO, senior and middle management positions. (A number of his coaching counterparts have risen to lead their respective organisations as a result of Sonny’s insight and mentoring.)

His background included being the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for AstraZeneca, a leading global pharmaceutical organisation and he has worked across Latin America, Western Europe, the Middle East and all major countries in Asia Pacific region. He was instrumental in facilitating global brand launches, post merger strategies and setting up the commercial arm of AstraZeneca in India.

His clients include major brands such as Novartis and GlaxoSmithkline and Lend Lease. Sonny’s expertise includes cross cultural relations; performance management, leadership and career coaching.

Sonny can assist your organisation by providing coaching to individuals or teams in the key areas of:

Cultural Diversity Coaching
Supporting senior managers in the “first 100 days” of their appointment
Inducting and developing first-line managers
Dispute resolution, especially those with cultural overtones
Working effectively with key stakeholders

David Wilson-Dowse

David is a Corporate Communications specialist who helps our clients take their communication skills to the next level whether presenting to the board, engaged in a must-win sales pitch or leading teams. David has worked in Australia, the US and Japan across multiple levels of organisations from CEO to individual contributors, with organisations such as Microsoft, Fujitsu, Kone, Miele, IBA Health and the Australian Department of Defence.

His expertise is in;

Presentation and facilitation skills
Pitching and public speaking skills
Influencing and negotiation skills
Building business partnerships
Channel management
Executing sales and marketing campaigns
Brain research around performance, communication and learning
Neuroplasticity and NLP

Dr David Markham

An experienced Manufacturing & Supply Chain leader who has operated at a senior level for 12 years in blue chip businesses in Australia & UK with exposure to manufacturing in Asia, Europe & the US.
Holds an excellent record of adding customer and business value by driving productivity programmes to reduce cost, improving quality and service for the customer and leading operating teams to run a safer & leaner workplace
A bright and highly credible specialist with proven ability in initiating and implementing successful organisational change through people
Able to transform ideas and business goals into realistic and achievable plans and actions

Philippa Storey

Extensive background in relationship marketing, dedicated to helping companies capture and harvest their most valuable resource – their existing customers!
14 years experience assisting companies such as Toshiba, OSRAM, AAT Kings, Nu Skin Enterprises, RetireInvest, Tick Yes, Castrol, Parbury Building Products, Alsco Linen, IPC Magazines, Lancaster Cosmetics, ENZED, and a host of others in focusing on building customer relationships and developing loyalty programs to increase revenue and profits
Is a sought after speaker, trainer and facilitator on loyalty marketing and customer service & customer retention, who has presented for AIM, Australia Post, Business Sydney, The Australian Hotels Association, NSW Chamber of Commerce, Pan Pacific Direct Marketing Expo, First National Real Estate, the Business Enterprise Centre, Australian Business Limited and IIR Conferences
Travelled around Australia for 10 months in 2007, facilitating training workshops for 3,000 Bendigo Bank management and staff to enhance their sales & service culture

James Michael

Ex-Australian Special Forces, Lend Lease and Workforce Innovations (a part of the global Adecco Group)
Specialist in high-performance culture, team & management development
Lead facilitator of immersion-learning and action-learning projects
Project leader of organisational development projects throughout Asia Pacific and South Africa
Adjunct member of staff Griffith University - Queensland

James Michael is passionate developer of middle-managers - helping them to be more effective at 'leadership in action' and maximising operational effectiveness.

He is also a raving fan of the 'Hedgehog Principle' and ‘Disciplined People, Applying Disciplined Thought and Taking Disciplined Action’. James’ training, development & coaching team specialise in working with middle-managers (from Team Leaders, to Project Managers to GMs) in delivering 'Real Results in Real Time'.

If you’re looking for action-based learning rather than ‘death by PowerPoint’ then you need to speak with James. James and his team teach Leadership In Action... not leadership in theory.

Specialist Expertise:

Operational leadership development
The people side of project-management
Sales leadership (vs. management) development
Helping executives translate strategy into execution
Helping managers maximise the 360 hours per annum they have to lead
Maximising operational effectiveness

Jodette Cleary

Jodette is an Executive HR Consultant who is passionate about assisting clients achieve fantastic business results via tailored, innovative and proven people practices.

Improve your employee’s engagement and productivity
Coach & Mentor your HR staff to deliver best-in-class HR service
Develop a business aligned people strategy to assist you reach your business goals
Ensure your policies and procedures are Fair Work Australia compliant
Recruit and retain top talent for your organisation
Provide IR & Employment Law Assessment & Advice

Jodette’s last full-time post was as the Asia Pacific HR Director for Honeywell Building Solutions. Prior to Honeywell, Jodette worked in various HR roles in IT&T, mining and recruitment.

For the past 4 years Jodette has consulted to various organisations, including on-line experience gift supplier Red Balloon, improving employee engagement and creating their HR function; and headed the global HR function of Australian global software house Atlassian, enhancing their employer brand and recruitment capability. Notably, both Red Balloon and Atlassian were 2009 Hewitt Best Employers, with employee engagement levels of 97% and 87% respectfully (the average is 54%).

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