Working Hard,
Working Kind.

(Strengths: Bravery, Creativity, Humour, Kindness, Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence)

Anna Sheppard, Founder and CEO of Bambuddha Group strongly believes the power of Kindness is world-changing. With a deep commitment for creating equality based on her lived experience, Anna began Bambuddha Group to empower corporate leaders and their teams on how to ‘work kinder’. The team at Bambuddha developed an evidence-informed kindness curriculum which minimises risk and improves outcomes across all organisational areas. Bambuddha Group is a multi-award-winning social enterprise that provides leadership coaching, education, and corporate kindness programs.

BACKGROUND

Anna grew up in a caravan park on the northeast coast of England and is one of five sisters, several of whom have physical and learning disabilities. As a child, Anna spent most of her childhood fighting prejudice and finally went into the care system for a short time before braving the world alone, at the young age of 16. As a neurodiverse gay person, fitting into the systems in life has always been a challenge.

The good news? Anna was lucky enough to have found and understood her WHY from a young age. Early life experiences helped her develop a strong passion for equality and a vision for change. Anna worked hard and optimistically putting herself through college, university and a master’s degree.

After working on various community development projects in Europe, Africa, and Asia, Anna had the idea to set up an enterprise with a clear vision for social and environmental change. And so Bambuddha Group was born, to pay forward a percentage of business profits to work towards balancing the scales for equality.

Anna has added value to thousands of companies and inspirational leaders by showing them how to ‘work kinder’. She is also the founder of several other major initiatives, including The Corporate Kindness Awards, Working Kind Collective (the world’s first kind business centre), the Impact Studios, and The Corporate Kindness Project, which is an Australian-based research study focusing on the business benefits of working kind. The first white paper was released in 2019 and is now an upbeat, honest, and feel-good podcast show called ‘Project Good Boss’.

Anna Sheppard and Bambuddha Group have won multiple awards for work in this space, including being recognised as one of the ‘Top 10 Leadership Development Training and Coaching Companies 2021 in APAC’, ‘Top 50 leading light for APAC’, ‘Top 50 most impactful LinkedIn Influencers’, a 2021 NSW Business Awards finalist and currently a finalist for 2022 Telstra Best of Business Awards.

Throughout her career, Anna has raised millions in funds for charities via mutual partnerships created to reduce inequalities. She is an old hand when it comes to showing the big fish how to give back and do well whilst doing so.

Anna likes to keep things simple ‘If you work as hard as you do kind’ success is inevitable’.

Anna’s storytelling is relatable, down-to-earth and fun. She is a real powerhouse who is optimistic and engaging. Anna takes the audience on a journey leaving people feeling educated and inspired to be the change they want to see in the world. Book Anna to speak here.

(Strengths: Gratitude, Fairness, Humour, Curiosity, Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence)

Originally from the UK Rachel is our creative of the group. With an extensive background in marketing in both the corporate and NFP sector.

With a degree in design and communication, she works with Bambuddha members and partners to tell the stories of impact from our community and to build impact into every alignment we make.

Rachel set up Aroura Studio to pursue her personal goal of empowering companies to make more social and environmental impact. Her style is very positive and she works with a holistic approach. Rachel is truly interested in supporting businesses behind the scenes, to help accomplish their goals along with working to create a positive social impact, freeing up busy business owners to do what they love to do. Rachel is a trained yoga teacher and meditation devotee, who is passionate about authentic, positive work culture and employee well-being. Rachel works with Bambuddha Group to offer Virtual Assistance including copywriting, FB Ad creation, Pinterest Management, Workshop & Webinar set up, EDMs and more.

(Strengths: Kindness, diligence, fairness and love of learning  – with a few others thrown in to the mix when needed) Originally from NZ and with a long and diverse background from IT to customer service and business development, Fern runs her own Virtual Assistant business (Your PA and More). She is the team ‘Mum’, the glue that holds us together behind the scenes and assistant to Anna. Fern is passionate about getting things just ‘right’ and making sure procedures run smoothly.

Passionate about powerful stories of impact and change, Siena brings with her an extensive background in brand development, marketing strategy, and content production.

(Strengths: Kindness, Love, Honesty, Humour, Leadership)

Jason is a proven and passionate leader of people, successful in motivating, developing and inspiring others to exceed expectations. He has over 20 years of experience leading, coaching and mentoring technology professionals and managers, after having had an initial career in the hospitality industry in customer-facing roles.  Jason’s senior IT leadership experience includes two global NGOs, two-state cultural institutions, a religion-based benevolent organisation and an educational institution.

Now operating his own technology strategy and leadership consultancy, Jason spends much of his time coaching & mentoring tech leaders, building high-performing teams and re-designing service delivery models.  He is passionate about coaching for win-win-win outcomes and is a strong advocate of the philosophy that “…it’s not about getting a bigger piece of the pie but making the pie bigger for everyone”.

Outside of work, Jason has always been active in volunteering roles, having been the president of a university sports club, chair of the social committee of one of his workplaces and youth mentor for a community organisation supporting disadvantaged young people.  He is currently the president of the P&C association of his oldest child’s school, after having been the association’s foundation year treasurer.

(Strengths: Appreciation of Beauty & Excellence, Honesty, Love of Learning, Hope, Prudence)

Jeremy is passionate about supporting those working to create change. Specifically, his interests lie in human potential and sustainability, environmental and social issues, transformative learning and coaching, leadership and organisational change, and how our understanding of these fields can help create a more positive future.

Jeremy recently completed his PhD research, which explored how we can better support the resilience and effectiveness of those working to create change. In particular, how Focusing (a form of inward bodily attention widely used within the humanistic psychotherapy tradition) can be used within coaching to support self-care and help prevent burnout. This research aligns with Jeremy’s experience in transformative learning, sustainability education and leadership development, organisational change management, strategic government policy and program development (in particular, energy efficiency and climate change adaptation), and environmental impact assessment.

It is hoped that this research will help to stimulate dialogue within the transformative learning and coaching, and sustainability leadership and organisational change communities, regarding how embodied ways of learning can support both personal and social change. In other words, how transformation from the individual, micro level to the social, macro level can be viewed as a whole, ongoing process.

Areas of expertise

• Transformative coaching, whole-person (in particular Focusing) and facilitation techniques
• Organisational change management, leadership and behavior change for sustainability
• Education and learning for sustainability and Action Research
• Energy efficiency and climate change adaptation
• Project management and public policy development (State and Federal) aimed to achieve market transformation
• Environmental impact assessment, and related community and stakeholder engagement processes

Focused on Sustainability leadership, Transformative learning and Focusing-oriented coaching.

(Strengths: Zest, Curiosity, Love of Learning)

Mariane is unashamedly obsessed with all things related to human potential, and her work is driven by her big audacious goal to see all unnecessary emotional pain and suffering eliminated within her lifetime. With a history of research contributions and practical applications of fostering purpose and potential across the lifespan, Mariane co-founded The Posify Group with her sister and partner in possibilities, Jenna O’Connell. Together, they are working to support the growth of impact-driven organisations and foster compassionate and courageous leaders who can navigate their teams through change. Their organisational work helps to fund the delivery of their immersive career programs for youth that seek to close the gap between education and employment for the next generation.

A sought after keynote speaker, workshop facilitator and executive coaching psychologist on behalf of The Posify Group, Mariane’s thought leadership dances between science and spirituality to address the human upgrade that is required for us to create solutions to today’s challenges. Mariane’s top strengths of zest and love of learning are reflected in her academic path, which boasts a Bachelor in Performance, a Graduate Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy, and more recently a Masters in Clinical Psychology. Mariane has over 15 years experience in consulting, facilitation and corporate training for personal and strategic growth. Her work as a Leadership Coaching Psychologist in the corporate world further fuels her understanding of the necessary skills for the 21st Century workplace, and she has a particular interest in supporting our next generation to thrive.

Outside of The Posify Group, Mariane is proud to have extended her personal purpose to support a number of not-for-profit and for-purpose initiatives including The Luminosity Summit and Project Gen Z, and she currently extends her expertise in positive youth development as an Impact Leader on the Board for Ambisie.

(Strengths: Kindness, Perspective, Gratitude, Honesty and Social Intelligence)

With a background in Leadership Development, Diversity, Recruitment & Talent strategy, Georgia is deeply passionate about workaround mindsets and behaviours, diversity in leadership and supporting leaders to find meaning in what they do and lead as the most authentic versions of themselves.

Georgia has spent the majority of her career within the corporate world bringing about change within organisations by embedding strategic diversity practices and designing and delivering programs that support women to build a deep level of self-insight and an awareness of their own purpose and capability in leadership. This has in turn, supported them to thrive and lead in a powerful, authentic way. Her work looks to instil self-accountability and awareness as a way to build effective relationships through openness, kindness and sustainable impact.

With her early career in recruitment & talent strategy, Georgia has run programs and coached leaders through significant periods of change and career transition and supported them to uncover their ‘why’ as a guide to what they do and how they show up.

With her focus on the ‘inner game’ of leadership, Georgia is fascinated by what drives human behaviour and how this then manifests in the relationships people hold with themselves and others. She is all about supporting leaders to use their potential to make a positive impact in the world, reach their goals and have a really good time in the process of doing so!

Simon redefines leadership from the inside out and apply the latest in coaching psychology research along with evidence based assessment tools to create insights that facilitate development and growth. He walks with his clients to develop greater perspective taking capacity to enable them to lead in complex environments successfully.

Simon supports clients every step of the way with sensitivity and pragmatism whilst confronting whatever elephants are in the room. Results are achieved in shorter than standard timeframes thereby reducing cost commitments.

– Individual, Teams, Organisations
– Executive Coaching
– Leadership Team Development
– Accredited assessments & reports
– Supervision of coaches
– Management development programs
– Career Mentoring and Coaching

He has worked for over 20 years in management, coaching and consulting roles in financial services, Government, private and public healthcare, mining and occupational rehabilitation sectors.

A clinical background in mental health and academic qualifications in nursing, HR, IR and coaching psychology. This combination enables a richer understanding of diverse clients and the design of a truly agile coaching plan to meet their needs.

Jo Bowes started her career as a lawyer and risk and governance specialist who made money and reputations all over the world for financial powerhouses. Jo was a Macquarie Bank divisional director and a KPMG director, leading risk management support to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia following the Royal Banking Commission. Jo provides strategic, future-focused guidance and a no-nonsense but fun approach to support exceptional leaders who are ready to do things differently.

Shelly hails from Dublin and has been in Australia for over a decade.  Shelly has a Bachelor of Science in Media and Communications, specialising in television production. She also has a Diploma in Leadership and Management and is the Founder of Dream Culture.

Shelly previously worked as the Training and Development advisor for the Merivale Group which had over 3000 staff. She has managed large teams up to 120 people in her previous roles as General Manager and Licensee. Shelly’s in-depth understanding of people means she can work in a wide range of industries with people from all backgrounds. She is particularly passionate about maximising individuals’ potential which results in a greater contribution to the team.