The Speakers

Kerry Grace is the conference founder and producer

Kerry Grace is known for her authentic approach and ability to get things done in communities.

A passionate regional Australian she learned from a very young age that many skills are required to enable the social change she is passionate about, the most important one being the ability to build trust.

Like many entrepreneurs Kerry is multi-skilled and while her skills may broadly be defined as community and economic development, writing and community advisory, through her decades in the workforce she has honed a unique mix of practical skills, connections, deep understanding and abilities which make her a sought after person for facilitation, MC and community advisory services.

Kerry works with clients at every level of government, not for profits, Aboriginal Corporations and Corporates.

At the heart of her work she thoroughly believes in healthy and sustainable regional communities. The methodologies surrounding the delivery of this goal vary.

www.kerrygrace.com.au

Jo-Anne Kelly is the Partnership lead of Learning the Macleay, Kempsey’s backbone organisation leading the Stronger Places, Stronger People Program.

Jo has experience working in the trauma informed space and family research with a demonstrated history of working with individuals and family services industry. She is skilled in Social Policy, Change Management, Leadership Development, Community Development, Engaging with Government, Culture & Heritage, Building Community Capacity and Program Management.

Jesse Taylor is dedicated to creating practical and inclusive solutions to societal challenges. With 25 years of experience leading place-based, co-design initiatives and reform campaigns across Australia, New York City, and the USA, Jesse excels in building high-performing collaborative teams and driving transformative change.

Jo has 25+ years of leading for-purpose organisations. Over her career, she has raised over $100m leading for-purpose organisations and has distributed more than $400m globally through philanthropic organisations. She knows how hard it is to fundraise, spend and donate money effectively if you want to create transformational change.

This experience has given Jo a deep understanding of the challenges of building resilient organisations focusing on impact and a burning passion for leaders to do their best work AND look after themselves. Jo has designed and led reflective leadership retreats and action learning programs for social change leaders, LGBTQI leaders, young leaders, social entrepreneurs, women, culturally and linguistically diverse leaders, directors and philanthropic leaders nationally and internationally.

Jo is the inaugural CEO of the Siddle Family Foundation, a non-executive director of the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) and Asthma Australia, the Chair of the Pay What it Takes coalition, a Leap Ambassador, an advisor to philanthropic organisations and a range of for-purpose organisations that are starting or deepening in their work. She lives in regional NSW with a partner, a tween and a teenager who keeps her engaged and a little bit exhausted.

Kerry Grace is the conference founder and producer

Kerry Grace is known for her authentic approach and ability to get things done in communities.

A passionate regional Australian she learned from a very young age that many skills are required to enable the social change she is passionate about, the most important one being the ability to build trust.

Like many entrepreneurs Kerry is multi-skilled and while her skills may broadly be defined as community and economic development, writing and community advisory, through her decades in the workforce she has honed a unique mix of practical skills, connections, deep understanding and abilities which make her a sought after person for facilitation, MC and community advisory services.

Kerry works with clients at every level of government, not for profits, Aboriginal Corporations and Corporates.

At the heart of her work she thoroughly believes in healthy and sustainable regional communities. The methodologies surrounding the delivery of this goal vary.

www.kerrygrace.com.au

Jo-Anne Kelly is the Partnership lead of Learning the Macleay, Kempsey’s backbone organisation leading the Stronger Places, Stronger People Program.

Jo has experience working in the trauma informed space and family research with a demonstrated history of working with individuals and family services industry. She is skilled in Social Policy, Change Management, Leadership Development, Community Development, Engaging with Government, Culture & Heritage, Building Community Capacity and Program Management.

Jesse Taylor is dedicated to creating practical and inclusive solutions to societal challenges. With 25 years of experience leading place-based, co-design initiatives and reform campaigns across Australia, New York City, and the USA, Jesse excels in building high-performing collaborative teams and driving transformative change.

With over 20 years’ experience working at the ABC on programs like Four Corners and Background Briefing, Liz has in-depth knowledge of story telling with purpose and audio production. Since she joined Headline Productions in 2020, Liz has produced their multi award-winning podcast ‘The Long Haul’, Seasons 2 & 3 of ‘We Are Lonely’ for Medibank, and ‘After The Disaster’ for The Red Cross and The University of Melbourne. She is currently working with the Global Institute of Women’s Leadership on Julia Gillard’s ‘A Podcast of One’s Own. Liz lives on Gumbaynggirr land with her family.

Tom Dawkins is a serial social entrepreneur with a passion for using technology and entrepreneurship to build a better world, and supporting others to do likewise.

Tom is the Co-Founder and Chief Impact Officer of LendForGood, a platform that connects social enterprises with impact investors. Their mission is to grow the business for good movement by democratising impact investment, letting everyone invest in their values and unlocking the impact potential in small and emerging businesses globally.

Tom co-founded StartSomeGood, an innovation agency and global social enterprise ecosystem builder, in 2011 while living in San Francisco, and was CEO until March 2024, when StartSomeGood was acquired by General Good. He continues to work with StartSomeGood as Entrepreneur-in-Residence, hosting their accelerator programs and coaching promising founders.

Connect with Tom on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/tomdawkins

Geoff Woolcock is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southern Queensland’s Institute for Resilient Regions, an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast’s School of Social Sciences and an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Griffith University’s Creative Arts Research Institute (CARI), assisting with the evaluation of Brydie Leigh-Bartlett’s Future Fellowship. His doctoral thesis on the HIV/AIDS activist movement whetted his appetite for meaningful, applied community-based research. His long-standing work with the public, private and not-for-profit sectors concentrates on developing qualitative and quantitative measures of progress and community wellbeing, closely collaborating with local communities in place-based, early intervention/prevention initiatives. Geoff is an experienced social researcher with considerable expertise in social and community service planning and evaluation, including social  and ESG impact assessment and project evaluation, social capital and community capacity building. He has 35 years community-based research experience nationally and internationally, and has co-published over 175 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and community reports.  He has been an advisor to Communitas Community Development and Social Analysis, spoken at several writers festivals and written regular opinion pieces.

As a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (MAICD), he is a board director of the Brisbane Housing Company (since 2009), the Australian National Development Index (ANDI) (since 2012, Chair since 2019), Thriving Queensland Kids Partnership (TQKP) and co-established Logan Child-Friendly Community Ltd in 2012 overseeing the high-profile collective impact initiative, Logan Together. Geoff is also a Research Fellow of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, a member of the Anglicare SQ Research Evaluation and Advocacy Reference Group, and on the Centre for Just Places Advisory Board. As a founder and co-director of Global Talent Tracker, he has worked closely with the Australian Football League (AFL) for over a decade and is a Visiting Professor at Loughborough University’s Institute for Sports Business. He was the Australian member on the executive committee for the Asia-Pacific Child-Friendly Cities Network (2010-2013) and the inaugural Queensland convenor for the Australian Research Alliance for Children & Youth (ARACY) from 2013-2014. Geoff is a frequent public speaker and commentator about social and community development using a whole-of-community approach.

Youth Futures Theme Convenors

Futures Isle exists to support people, communities and organisations to find the next step on their journey.

We partner with organisations, projects and initiatives that share our values and have meaningful impact. We are facilitators, program managers/developers and consultants.

Most importantly though, we love people and places and want to see them shine.

Talitha ‘Taz’ Devadass

Taz lives and breathes futures. As one of Australia’s first Entrepreneurship Facilitators from 2017-2020, she mentored over 800 people to support them finding potential pathways for empowered futures and is thrilled to see so many participants’ businesses still thriving.

She believes in community development through the sharing of ideas, transfer of skills and relationship-driven collaboration. Taz’s dynamic approach was recognised when she was awarded 2018 ABC Trailblazer, 2018 Foundation for Young Australians: Young Social Pioneer and 2019 Telstra Business Women’s Awards: Emerging Leader Tasmania.

At her core, Taz is the ideas queen; she dreams audacious dreams and questions the status quo to achieve the best outcome, and refuses to settle for anything less.

She has also collected over 350 board games and also makes the best road trip playlists.

Emilee Rigby

Em loves impact. She has a background as a commercial specialist, providing high-level procurement strategy advice during her time at the Department of Defence. This role also saw her travelling (nationally and internationally) to deliver bespoke training courses, resulting in over 1200 commercial and project management professionals trained in contracting methodology. Her determination and facilitation skill in delivering these programs saw her recognised as Leader of the Future at International Association for Contract and Commercial Management’s 2018 Australasia Conference. (She’s still the most proud of being named Deloraine Drama Festival’s Most Promising Actor 2008).

Em’s strategic experience makes her your girl when it comes to implementation; she has the ability to comprehensively plan for successful outcomes, spot problems and logic flaws during concept ideation, and then report on these outcomes. Plus, she loves talking all things contracts!

Dr. Chad Renando

Dr Chad Renando is a Research Fellow (Innovation Ecosystems) with the Rural Economies Centre of Excellence at the University of Southern Queensland, with a focus on understanding the contribution of innovation and entrepreneurship on community resilience in rural economies.

Chad’s other roles include leading the innovation and policy mapping theme of the Queensland Decarbonisation Hub, mapping and measuring the Australian innovation ecosystem as CEO of the not-for-profit Startup Status, and Chair of Global Entrepreneurship Network Australia.

As co-founder of the Ready Communities two-year place-based program, Chad applies his experience towards practical outcomes for local impact and global relevance.

PRESENTATION:
View Chad’s Masterclass presentation as featured on Day 1 with Jo Kelly, Deb Samuels and Jesse Taylor HERE

With a 25-year career in the non-profit and philanthropic sector in consulting, fundraising and
partnerships, and organisation development roles, Natalie is passionate about facilitating effective
and enduring responses to issues facing rural communities.

Since becoming CEO of FRRR in 2015 she has led the organisation through a period of significant
growth and impact, facilitating over $100m in funding to remote, rural, and regional communities
through hundreds of partnerships and collaborations.

Natalie holds a B. Social Science (Public Policy/Research/Public Relations), Grad Dip Applied Science
(Organisation Dynamics), and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
She lives in the small rural town of Maldon in central Victoria.

Dr Dimity Podger is Co-founder of Regen Labs, a strategic design and innovation lab on a mission to catalyse local inclusive, regenerative economies across regional Australia that create wellbeing for communities and the planet.

The team does this through support for place-based regenerative enterprises, nurturing regeneration ecosystems in regional communities, and scaling the right finance. For Regen Labs, Dimity leads the Regen Economy Activator Program, is lead convenor for WEAVE Regen Economy Systems Lab, a 12 month place-based innovation collaboration learning community commissioned by Social Enterprise Australia for SEDI, is a core team member for the feasibility study of the Regen Community Investment Fund, supported by Paul Ramsay Foundation, and collaborated with Really Regenerative CIC on a global study commissioned by Joseph Rowntree Foundation to understand how philanthropy can more effectively catalyse Place-based Community-Led Regeneration. She also hosts the zesty Orchard Exchange, a peer learning space for regenerative enterprises from across Australia, and is a thought partner for regenerative enterprise leaders and backbone organisations.

Her work builds on her role as Regenerative Communities portfolio lead with WWF-Australia’s Innovate to Regenerate program supporting action across 30 communities, as well as her experience as a learning designer and facilitator for values-driven business, and as an agricultural economist across regional NSW, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia. She lives and works on Dharawal Country, with her family.

Parish Priest Father Jesse Poole’s background is all about service from jobs in hospitality, event management and even politics. At the age of 27, following 7 years in regional Ministry he relocated to Kempsey taking up the position of Parish Priest.

He knows that church communities are full of passionate people who love the communities they live in, that are an untapped nexus for supporting place-based community-led change.

Tom Allen is Founder and CEO of Impact Boom, one of Australia’s leading purpose-driven intermediaries, helping changemakers globally to create a better world. As social innovation experts, their advisory services, initiatives, programs and partnerships help people & planet to thrive. Impact Boom has worked intensively with over 335 purpose-led organisations to help them launch and scale and featured over 700 global leaders on their podcast.

Tom’s work has been recognised with two Australian Good Design Awards. He led the successful Australian bid for the Social Enterprise World Forum held in 2022; a project which catalysed sector growth nationally.

Ashley Watt, the visionary behind Why Leave Town, holds a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Sydney and has amassed over 15 years of experience in consumer market research. His impressive portfolio includes collaborations with major brands like Westpac, Telstra, and Dairy Farmers. In 2007, Ashley channelled his extensive knowledge into supporting smaller retailers, founding Why Leave Town with the mission of promoting local shopping.

Raised in the tight-knit community of Narrabri, NSW, Ashley, alongside his business partner Justin Smith, identified a gap in the market for local gift cards. This insight led to the creation of the Why Leave Town gift card, a pioneering initiative designed to keep spending within local communities. Since its inception, the program has expanded to over 80 communities, generating $26 million in local spending.

Crystal Taylor has spent over 20 years working alongside communities across Australia — from remote communities to regional towns and urban hubs. She brings a breadth of hands-on experience across complementary sectors and is known for a contagious passion for social justice and bringing people together for innovative ideas.

As the National Communities of Focus Lead for Mission Australia, her work supports backbone teams navigating complexity, coaches emerging leaders, and designs approaches to help communities lead their own futures. Specialising in community development, community organising, place-based approaches and deep collaboration, she holds fast to the belief that young people should not only be heard — they should be leading. Whether she’s making a balloon animal as she conducts deep community listening at a BBQ, volunteering in her own local, or leading a system-change initiative, Crystal brings warmth, strategic thinking, and a whole lot of heart to the work of place-based, community-led change.

Crystal’s passion is contagious, rooted in social justice and grounded in the strengths of local people coming together for good. Outside of work, you’ll find her running up trails or jumping off cliffs (with a paraglider, don’t worry) — always chasing adventure, new opportunities and a great sunset picture.

My name is Paul Dutton, I am a Barkindji man from far western NSW, I belong to the Corner Country.

I am the First 2000 Days Programs Manager at Child & Family Wellbeing Hub, Grafton.

“The Hub” works with supporting families with children aged 0 – 5 years of age.

I am a member of the Stolen Generation and grew up in Liverpool, south-western Sydney.

I returned home as a 18 year old where I met many family in Wilcannia and Broken Hill.

I have worked in numerous Federal and State Govt Departments including, Immigration for 10 years, NSW Department of Housing for 2 years, NSW Department of Communities and Justice for 10 years, as well as NSW Link-Up reuniting Stolen Generations families, AbSec (NSW Aboriginal Child, Family and Community Peak Body) and several other NGO agencies in Coffs Harbour and Grafton.

My partner Shelly Phillips and I have six children Merinda working with NSW Legal Aid Senior Solicitor, Manduway working Gumbayngirr Giinagana Freedom School teach , Keeden mining vehicle engineer, Alinta recently NSW Transport Manager, Talara Dept Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation Brisbane and Jara’na, student.

Teresa Bullock-Smith is a highly experienced economist and demographer with expertise in interpreting complex data to support regional development and planning. At REMPLAN, Teresa helps government, industry, and community stakeholders “know their numbers, plan for the future, collaborate deeply, and tell a compelling story with data.”

Her passion lies in transforming detailed demographic and economic insights into clear, actionable strategies. With a strong focus on population and employment forecasting, Teresa supports clients in planning for growth, navigating market shifts, and making confident, evidence-based decisions. She specialises in place-specific insights that address critical regional challenges such as housing affordability, service provision, and job creation.

A firm believer in breaking down silos, Teresa works across economic development, infrastructure, and social services to embed impact and alignment in decision-making processes. She is particularly skilled at turning data into visually compelling, easily digestible narratives that foster stakeholder engagement and drive informed action.

Werner blends leadership development, data, strategy and design to strengthen social impact across rural, regional and remote communities, always asking deeper questions to understand what drives change, and the values underpinning it. With a PhD in Psychology and an academic foundation in human behaviour, he brings a sharp, curious mind to the work of systems change.

At the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation, Werner leads impact strategy, designing tools and systems that centre community voices and measure what matters. He has contributed to initiatives ranging from impact evaluation, sense-making, program facilitation, community resilience, First Nations partnerships and participatory governance.

Grounded in principles of transformational leadership and adaptive thinking, Werner’s work champions changemaking that is collaborative, values-led and community-driven. He believes leadership is most powerful when it enables others, especially in the face of complexity and inequality.

Werner serves on the RDA Hume Committee and is a Board Director at Merriwa Industries in Wangaratta, a social enterprise that creates meaningful employment for people with a disability. His approach is anchored in place, guided by purpose, and fuelled by curiosity. He draws strength from the power of nature, spending time hiking, exploring Country, travel, and being with his family.

Jen Parke has worked alongside young people and as a senior manager in a wide range of settings including Juvenile Justice, youth homelessness, counseling, and youth development and leadership. She has a Social Science degree and graduate diplomas in Counselling and Mediation.  She also has a bush regeneration and horticulture background and knows the power of reconnecting with nature to reconnect with yourself. Jen is currently the CEO of Human Nature Adventure Therapy.

Jen is passionate about supporting young people to be heard, and to have meaningful, genuine opportunities for participation in systems and decisions that affect their lives.

Marcus Watson is CEO at BackTrack, and was previously Executive Manager. With a diverse background spanning the engineering and construction industries and the community sector, Marcus is a senior leader in youth training and employment initiatives, and social enterprise. He spearheaded the BackTrack Network to scale the impact of BackTrack’s life changing work, and also established the social enterprise, BackTrack Works, to provide a holistic approach to training and employment opportunities for BackTrack’s young people. He is keenly aware of how entrenched disadvantage makes young people vulnerable to incarceration, substance abuse and homelessness and has built multiple initiatives that operate in the gap between youth work services and the labour market.