Rob Anderson is Head of Unit, Living Conditions and Quality of Life at Eurofound, a European Union Agency. He worked previously at the World Health Organisation European Office, and at research institutes in the UK and Germany. His research has been concerned with changing workforce demographics and access to the labour market for vulnerable groups.

He is currently involved in the European Quality of Life Survey, as well as in European projects on the impact of demographic change on work-life policies, the creation of employment in the care sector and social/employment inclusion of young people.

Eurofound has led the European research on the characteristics of young people ‘not in employment, education and training’ and Rob was coordinator of the study examining the implementation of active inclusion policies for young people with disabilities or health problems. Work is underway analysing the social situation of young people in Europe and a 10-country study is being launched to look at measures for social inclusion of young people at higher risk of marginalisation.

Shannon Carruth has worked in various roles in community, government and corporate sectors over the last sixteen years. Working in organisations such as the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, NSW Community Relations Commission, Starlight Children’s Foundation, MBF and the ING Foundation, Shannon’s experience brings a unique perspective to collaborative partnerships.

Shannon currently manages ING DIRECT’s Community Impact program that invests in innovative programs that help realise the potential of young people. This strategy sees not only financial investment in these programs, but also a genuine commitment to work together with community partners to make a difference in the lives of young people. With a view to create shared value from these partnerships, Shannon established the STEP volunteering program that sees ING DIRECT employees use their Skills, Talent, Experience and Passion to inspire and support young people on a path to employment.

David Gonski is Chairman of Investec Bank (Australia) Limited (the Australian subsidiary of Investec Bank PLC), the Guardians of the Future Fund, Coca-Cola Amatil Limited and Ingeus Ltd. 

David is also Chancellor of the University of New South Wales, Chairman of the National EHealth Transition Authority Ltd, the UNSW Foundation Ltd, Swiss Re Life & Health Australia Ltd and the Sydney Theatre Company.

He is also a Director of Singapore Telecommunications Limited and Infrastructure NSW, a member of the ASIC External Advisory Panel and the board of the Lowy Institute for International Policy and is a Patron of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation. 

He was previously a member of the Takeovers Panel, President of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Director of ANZ Banking Group Ltd, Singapore Airlines Limited and the Westfield Group, Chairman of the Australian Securities Exchange Ltd, the Australia Council for the Arts and the Board of Trustees of Sydney Grammar School.

Lauren Cassar brings 16 years of property experience to her role in managing Community Development Partnerships and programs for Stockland. Lauren has established key partnerships with Beacon Foundation and Smith Family Partnership Brokers to embed relationship building with schools into everyday practice for Stockland’s asset teams. Students in both disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged situations have the opportunity to engage with Stockland staff within Stockland assets, to learn and build confidence in their knowledge about everyday working life in the asset based roles and the interesting and varied career paths taken to get there.

Patricia Frost has been CEO of Inner West Skills Centre Inc (IWSC) for more than twenty years. Over this time, she has seen Employment Services go from committed community leaders providing ad hoc assistance to young people under the CYSS Scheme through the wonderful SkillShare years to the very structured and highly governed Job Services Australia program. IWSC provides services including JSA, Disability Employment Services, Indigenous Mentor Program and Links to Learning. We are also a Registered Training Organisation. We have an office in Darlinghurst where we provide JSA and DES specialist services to people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Our training services run from our Burwood offices and at Auburn we provide a specialist JSA service to youth at risk. Auburn is second on the SEIFA index of disadvantaged. It is one of the most multicultural areas in Sydney and has high levels of youth unemployment. Over 25% of our JSA clients are refugees and people on humanitarian visas. We have recently successfully implemented the BTN project for young people who are disengaged from school and the labour market. This stands for Better Than Nothing. Literally – this describes the service. It is the only option left for these highly disadvantaged young people. After 8 months delivering this program, we are achieving employment and education outcomes of over 50% - this is a great result. The leader of our Youth Services team at Auburn, Ash Castro, can really be proud of the way he is changing lives.

Sally Anne Gaunt started her career in London with the Financial Times (FT) Magazines Group, where she ran one of their major sales departments. In 1995 Sally Anne joined Dow Jones publishing in Singapore as Regional Business Manager for the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER),  a monthly magazine on economic, political and business issues in Asia Pacific. In 2002 Sally Anne worked in Fiji for the marine conservation NGO Coral Cay. Since moving to Australia Sally Anne has specialised in helping Australian companies communicate with stakeholders from the Asia Pacific region. Sally Anne started her own training consultancy in
2009 and Chameleon Training has established a track record of success with a number of different organizations in helping their staff achieve more effective multi-cultural communication. Her clients have included: Marsh, Charles Sturt University, and Geoscience. Sally Anne holds a Masters in Asian Studies from the University of New South Wales, covering Australian/ Asia relations, China & Asia-Pacific Security, International Aid and Australian and Indonesian foreign policy. Sally Anne is now UNSW’s Lecturer in Charge of the ‘Cross Cultural Management’ program and has recently co-published a case-study in PACIBER (Pacific Asian Consortium for International Business Education & Research) International Business Casebook Contributions.

Kanina Mackay as worked in the education sector for more than a decade and has a wealth of experience in equity and diversity policy, career and transition support, school and community engagement strategies and community-based capacity building.

Kanina re-established the University of Newcastle’s UniLink schools outreach program in 2007 and was pivotal in the development of the University of Sydney’s Compass: Find Your Way to University school community program from 2009-2011.

Currently Partnership Development Manager with Sydney Business Education Partnerships Kanina has successfully brokered a number of partnerships to improve the outcomes of at risk youth and facilitates the Alternative Education Alliance (AEA) Sydney a network of more than a dozen not-for-profit organisations supporting at-risk youth

Mia is a proud Gamilaraay woman from Lightning Ridge in northwest NSW. She joined CareerTrackers in 2012 once graduating from Griffith University with a Bachelor of Public Health- double majoring in health promotion and nutrition. Mia hopes to be actively involved in increasing the awareness and acceptance of the CareerTrackers Program. She will be involved with the Queensland operations to expand community engagement, focusing on student support services and employment opportunities within the private sector for Indigenous university students.

Emma Tomkinson has just returned from a year in the UK where she talked to everyone she possibly could and worked on social finance and investment projects the rest of the time. She most recently had the pleasure of working with Social Finance Ltd., the nonprofit that developed the first Social Impact Bond. Prior to that she created the Social Impact Bond Knowledge Box for the Centre for Social Impact Bonds at the UK Cabinet Office. In NSW Emma worked with the Centre for Social Impact and the NSW Government on Social Impact Bonds and open data projects.

twitter: @emma_tomkinson
blog: emmatomkinson.com

Associate Professor Lucas Walsh is Associate Dean (Berwick) in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Lucas has worked in corporate, government and not-for-profit sectors. He has held three academic research fellowships and managed the International Baccalaureate’s Online Curriculum Centre in the UK. Prior to his current position he was Director of Research and Evaluation at The Foundation for Young Australians, where he was responsible for commissioning the annual report "How Young Young People Are Faring". He has been invited to advise local, state and federal governments, including the National Curriculum Board (now ACARA) and the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, presented nationally and internationally, and published one co-edited book and two co-authored books on education and young people. His research has covered a diverse range of areas related to young people, including:
• Youth transitions, wellbeing and economic, political, social and cultural participation
• Creating effective school-community partnerships
• Creating cultures of diversity in schools
• Information and communication technology and young people
He is currently also Senior Research Fellow at the Foundation for Young Australians.