Raelene’s career in the service and hospitality industry spans over 30 years. Starting in operational roles, leading and managing service departments in a hotel/casino environment shaped the path for the future. The past 17 years have been in senior HR roles with a focus on Industrial Relations and all aspects of people management. The past 15 years at GCCEC have been exciting and challenging as the Executive Manager – HR and also the Deputy General Manager since 2007.

Raelene attained her MBA in 2011, completing a thesis on employee engagement. She also has a diploma in management and has been honoured with 2 awards recognising her leadership and management skills and experience.

With a passion for people and service, Raelene’s philosophy in work and life is, “people before paper”

Diana Dawid has extensive experience in driving a high performance culture in global and national professional services firms.

After completing a Bachelor of Business, Diana progressed to senior roles at leading international firms PwC and Accenture. There, she developed a deep specialisation in business transformation, change management and workforce optimisation, engaging with cross-functional global teams to re-align the management of resources to a dynamic, rapidly evolving professional services landscape.

In 2013, Diana joined Mills Oakley, a leading Australian law firm where she is currently Chief Human Resources Officer. Since then, Diana has helped facilitate Mills Oakley’s ambitious transformation from a mid-size Melbourne practice to a national firm ranked in the Australian Top 10 by lawyer and staff count. She has helped deliver a number of signature initiatives, including ‘root and branch’ overhaul of the firm’s Diversity Strategy, the largest graduate intake in the firm’s 150 year history and fostered a performance culture which has seen the firm’s largest and most diverse round of internal promotions ever.

Diana is passionate about challenging the status quo and motivating teams to engage with organisational vision and strategy. She is a strong advocate for the role of HR as a trusted business partner, delivering outcomes which are both commercial and responsive to changing market and community expectations, allowing organisations to successfully build and retain their human capital.

Vern proudly steals techniques from Marketing and Manufacturing to deliver a tangible difference in HR. As the Global Head of HR Service Design and Delivery at QBE, a leading global insurer, Vern leads a team of 60 responsible for the delivery of HR Services, People Data Analytics and HR Business Analysis to 12,000 people in over 30 countries. Prior to QBE, Vern worked in large-scale HR transformation programs at some of the world’s best-known global companies, including Shell, BP, British Telecom and Deloitte. As a curious watchman of the rise of Artificial Intelligence in HR and the workplace, Vern is the founder and curator of the news website www.machinesinsuits.com.