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Deborah May
BA/LLB, MBA (HIGHEST HONS)
Organisational Development Consultant
and Executive
Coach
Deborah May is a Fulbright Scholar, graduating
from the only business school in the world specifically
designed for women, Simmons Graduate School of Management,
Boston, Massachussetts, USA.
She has a solid theoretical
grounding and practical experience in organisational,
behavioural and gender issues both in the Australian
and American environments.
Whilst in Boston, Deborah worked with Ibis Consulting
Group, Inc., a leading organisational development
firm, where she practised innovative organisational
development techniques to:
- Assist design and facilitate a workshop of
200 employees of Boston University Dental School
wishing to improve service delivery;
- Create a "Women in the Workplace"
program focused on retaining and promoting women
employees, incorporating women focused coaching
programs;
- Develop a diversity training aid focused on
competitive recruitment and retention strategies
for the 21st century;
- Design a cross-functional mentoring program
for a large Federal Agency to enhance its training
programs;
- Clients included BankBoston, Federal Airports
Authority, Digital Corporation, Center For
Women and Enterprise, Houghton Mifflin, Massachusetts
Legal Assistance Commission and Simmons Graduate
School of Management.
Since her return to Canberra, Australia, Deborah
has undertaken a number of highly successful consulting
and coaching engagements including:
- Designing and facilitating a strategic planning
workshop with the Partners of a top-tier law firm
that resulted in agreement to a vision, the development
of a comprehensive and specific strategic plan
and staff engagement strategy;
- Undertaking a cultural audit for this law firm
to identify barriers to retaining staff;
- Determining the impediments to women advancing
into the senior executive service in Department
of Transport and Regional Development and developing
the organisational interventions required to effect
a cultural shift;
- Undertaking a comprehensive work/home balance
study within the Federal Department of Finance
and Administration to:
- determine the cultural impediments to employees
implementing effective work home balance strategies;
- recommend appropriate systemic and managerial
interventions to redress the issue.
- Identifying the cultural and systemic impediments
to all employees being fully effective in a large
national IT company;
- Developing a business model for Microsoft’s
Canberra office to enable it to better utilize
the expertise of internal staff and external strategic
business partners
- Designing and facilitating workshops for Australian
Soccer (80 people from different States and Territories)
and the Australian Shooting Association (25 people
from 10 different shooting associations) to gain
stakeholder support of governance arrangements
and a unified approach to managing all facets
of their sport and stakeholder interests;
- Developing an inclusive, flexible mentoring
program for the employees of the Department of
Finance and Administration;
- Assisting an ACT Government business unit make
the transition into privatization;
- Working with the Office of Status of Women to
gain staff buy in and ownership of its business
plan;
- Working with the Australian Greenhouse Office
to improve the leadership, effectiveness and service
delivery of a number of internal teams;
- Designing, implementing and delivering feedback
on a membership survey for the Chamber of Women
in Business.
Coaching
Transformational coaching engagements with individuals
and teams at all levels including:
- The General Manager and executive management
team of a national IT company wishing to improve
their group and individual leadership skills;
- Senior executive women from different public
and private sector organisations, facing particular,
gender related obstacles in their workplace;
- A senior Federal Government management team
wanting to work more effectively and collaboratively
together;
- The General Manager and leadership team of a
large national Consulting Company;
- The CEO and Executive Managers of the Australian
Greenhouse Office;
- Senior associates and Partners of top tier legal
and accounting firms.
- Clients included Microsoft Ltd, Praxa, BHP/IT,
Department of Finance and Administration,
SMS Consulting, Australian Greenhouse Office,
ACT Department of Urban Services, Office of
Status of Women, Department of Family and
Community Services, Clayton Utz, Deloitte
Touche Tohmatsu, Department of Transport,
Kellogg's and Lorimar Associates
Leadership Training
Deborah has designed and delivered in-house and public training programs in assertive communication, negotiations,
change management, career development, time management
and report writing.
She has also developed women’s
leadership programs and workshops on
specific issues facing women in the workplace. These
programs are designed to assist women accelerate
their leadership development, increase their sphere
of influence and advance their careers within the
context of their organisations. They incorporate
gender theory, systems thinking, career planning,
negotiations and leadership development.
Public workshops have been conducted for Synergy
Plus Training. In-house workshops have been provided
to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Clayton Utz, Dept of
Family and Community Services, Australian Greenhouse
Office.
Previous Career:
Prior to her work in Boston, Deborah worked for
10 years with IBM in Canberra in a number of Account
Management positions. During this time, she was
responsible for managing account teams, client relationships
and achieving challenging revenue targets. She has
extensive knowledge of the APS and the organisational
and cultural issues surrounding the implementation
of information technology. Her clients included
the Australian Taxation Office, the Department of
Defence, Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, Attorney
Generals and the Health Insurance Commission.
Community Work and Professional Associations:
Convenor of 'Five in Five' initiative which has
as its aspiration the appointment of five women
to Secretary positions at the Federal Government
level within five years.
- Fellow of Australian Institute of Management
- Convenor, AIM Change Management Network, Canberra
- Gender Equity Committee, Ainslie Public School
- Canberra Re-evaluation Counseling Community
- Founding and committee member of A.C.T. Chamber
of Women in Business
- ACT& Region Chamber of Commerce &
Industry
- Australian Human Resources Institute
- International Coaches Federation
- Australian Federation of Business and Professional
Women (1992-1995)
- Member of judging panel for A.C.T. Small Business
Woman of the Year (1994)
Professional Conferences, Training and Affiliations
(99-03):
- June 14 - 18, 1999, The Theory and Practice
of Making Adaptive Change, Merelyn Emery, Sydney,
Australia
- July 2 - 6, 2000, International Coaching and
Mentoring Conference, Linkage International, London,
UK
- July 16 - 19, 2000, The 4Mat System Mastering
Training Design (level 1), DGL International,
Eltham, Victoria
- October 18 - 21, 2000, Women Leading Change,
Teleran, Adelaide
- January 01 - 15, 2001, Learning Exchange, Simmons
Graduate School of Management, Ibis Consulting
Inc and Institute of Womens Leadership, Mercer
International, Boston, Redwood City, USA
- September, 01 – Speaker at OSW's National
Women Speak Out Conference.
- July, 2002 – Attendance at Macquarie University's
Women in Management Conference
- February, 2003 - Convenor and presenter at "Leading
Diversity Conference" Canberra
- March 2003 – Speaker at Chamber of Women
in Business Conference, Canberra.
- May/June 2003 Convenor at "Leading with
Innovation and Participation" Conference
held by Department of Family and Community Services
- May 2003 – Speaker at Ausport's "Sport
Needs More Women" Conference, Sydney
- October 2004 – Speaker at Dept of Finance
Women’s Network Dinner.
- October 2004 – Attended Senior Executive
Women and Workplace Cultures Conference, Sydney.
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