Sally Elson, MYOB:
Sally Elson is the Head of People at MYOB, the leading business platform helping more businesses in Australia and New Zealand start, survive and succeed. Sally has over 25 years of experience in the Human Resources sector, across Australia, Asia and the UK.
Sally is incredibly passionate about Employee Experience and is an experienced leader of large teams across a variety of industries, including technology, mining, FMCG, and agribusiness. She has led large-scale change management programs of work in Australia and Asia and has prior to starting at MYOB, spent four years as the Manager of HR Business Partnerships at BHP, giving her direct experience in transformational change projects.
In her role at MYOB, Sally collaborates strongly across the organisation with Executive, Functional and Vertical Senior Leadership Teams to deliver shared outcomes. Leading the development and delivery of the MYOB Strategic Workforce Plan, to determine the organisational size, shape, partnerships and capability required for MYOB’s evolution to a SaaS business management platform. MYOB operates across three key segments: Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), Enterprise and Financial Services.
Passionate about health and community, Sally has been a volunteer at Casper Aged Care, working with residents living with Alzheimer’s, as well as volunteering her time as a Committee Member at Lilian Cannam Kindergarten. She holds a Bachelor of Business (Human Resources & Marketing) and an MBA in Business Administration and Management, both from the University of South Australia.
Helen Hovenga, most recently at Telix Pharmaceuticals:
Helen is a talented HR Executive who has worked with Executives, CEO’s and Boards in developing and delivering transformation, the ideal Culture and the People Strategy with passion, courage, innovation, curiosity, kindness, drive and effective performance outcomes. Her most recent permanent role was as Executive Director, People & Culture with Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre for 3500 Health practitioners and Research employees.
As well as having broad and deep HR expertise, she is a deep thinker, high achiever, quick learner, influencer, early adopter and futurist with diverse experience across large, complex organisations and sectors, including Public Health, Finance, Manufacturing, Mining, Automotive and service industries such as Retail.
Her HR and business experience has been developed with organisations such as Afterpay, Mars, Toyota, Coles, CUB, Cleanaway, Newcrest and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Executive roles along with extensive strategy development and project delivery.
Helen has a Masters of Business (HR) with distinction from Charles Sturt University; a Graduate Diploma in HR Management and Industrial Relations from RMIT and a Bachelor of Arts, Double major in Psychology and Politics from Swinburne. Helen’s passions are in change, transformation, agility, developing and implementing Strategy, people leadership, stakeholder partnerships, high performance, digital solutions and improved commercial outcomes.
Donna Burr:
Partner, Interim Executive
Donna’s background combines a career of 25 years in chartered accounting, assurance, advisory and human resources partnering with businesses.
Her passion for seeing businesses thrive and solving problems has led her to her role at Watermark. She has local and global experience across financial services, manufacturing, utilities and the not-for-profit sectors. Her curiosity, authenticity and a passion for making things better, has seen her involved in major transformational and performance work for many corporates. She is an advocate for-purpose-led business management and economic empowerment for women.
Donna has been a partner at Watermark since 2018, deploying senior level interim executives in both private and public sectors. She has a particular focus on CEOs, CFOs, COOs, HR Executives, and change and turnaround professionals. She has successfully completed interim search assignments across a diverse range of industries including Financial Services, Government agencies, Peak Member and Regulatory bodies, Not-for-Profit, Healthcare, ASX listed, Energy and Utilities.
Donna is a qualified chartered accountant (1996), affiliate of the AICD (2021) and Melbourne Business School alumni (2007). She is passionate about health, fitness and wellbeing with a particular focus on nutrition (pursuing further studies in this area).
Jacinta Whelan:
Partner, Interim Executive
An author, thought leader and popular speaker on the concept of Interim Executive, Portfolio Careers and future ways of working. Jacinta has more than 25 years’ experience starting and leading Interim businesses in Hong Kong, New York and Australia. Jacinta advises corporates and governments and is regularly asked to work with Boards and business leaders looking to stay abreast of the way organisations are engaging executive talent.
Jacinta is the lead partner for Watermark Melbourne and focuses on Interim Executive appointments in both public and private sectors. The roles are C-Suite and include CEOs and other executive level positions.
Jacinta has a BA Bus, is an GAICD (2008) and a Harvard Business School Alumni (2018).
Caroline McAuliffe:
Senior Partner
Caroline has over 25 years broad commercial experience gained in the UK and Australia working closely with executive teams of large corporate international businesses and since 2005 has specialised in Interim Executive placements.
As a founding, Senior Partner of the Watermark Interim Executive practice since 2011, Caroline leads the Interim Executive team in Sydney, deploying numerous senior C-suite Interim Executives, with deep functional and leadership experience, into a diverse range of organisations, across a number of industry sectors.
Sector expertise: ASX 300, Government, For Purpose (NFP), Human Services, Higher Education, Infrastructure, Transport, Energy, Utilities, Industrials, Manufacturing.
Functional expertise: CEOs, CFOs, HRDs, COOs, CIOs, CROs, General Counsel.
Caroline is currently completing a Bachelor's Degree, Social Sciences (Psychology) through Swinburne University and has a Post Graduate Certificate in Career Education and Development through RMIT University. Caroline has completed an Advanced Professional Development Certificate in Executive Coaching from the Institute of Coaching and Consulting Psychology, Sydney.
Co-Author: The Rise of The Interim Executive (theinterimexecutive.com.au)
Lisa McAuliffe:
Partner, Interim Executive
Lisa has over 20 years’ experience in HR related services specialising in recruitment, career transition and leadership development in both Europe and Australia.
During her career, Lisa has been successful in the management and growth of three start-up recruitment companies, managing teams and clients nationally. She has extensive experience in partnering with business leaders across multiple industries including Banking and Finance, Professional Services, Legal, Media, Telecommunications, FMCG and Retail. A natural relationship builder, Lisa has been a trusted advisor to many organisations experiencing major transformational change working alongside them to find the best solutions for their needs.
In her previous capacity as a coach, Lisa has assisted Senior Executives from a variety of industry sectors and functional roles, transition successfully into a portfolio career. Some of her most recent Interim assignments include CFOs, CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, Senior HR, Marketing and Operations roles.