Meet our facilitators

Mark Soar

Swinburne Edge facilitator – Auditing

Mark has a diverse background in Work Health and Safety (WHS) consulting and is an experienced WHS facilitator. He is passionate about promoting and delivering training to professionals and works effectively with employees from all backgrounds and industries to improve safety culture and safe work practices.

Mark specialises in creating opportunities to identify and explore improvement potential that assist individuals and organisations to achieve best practice industry benchmarks. With a diverse client portfolio, Mark’s consultancy and professional coaching services empower both individuals and businesses alike, to achieve work practices that meet industry demands and legislative requirements, while ensuring effective resource management and sustainability.

Kathy Papafotiou

Swinburne Edge facilitator - Business Skills

Kathy brings 20 years of broad industry experience to her consulting, facilitating, and coaching.  She has consulted and worked in national and state-based management roles with industries such as insurance, manufacturing, scientific research, and health services.

Passionate about workplace and personal efficiency, Kathy incorporates positive psychology to inspire learning and develop her clients’ capabilities.  Her approach incorporates both mind and body to help grow and develop skills that become an inert part of an individual. 

When working with her clients, Kathy connects with clarity, focus and self-management to help them achieve sustainable and productive outcomes.  

Her style can be described as dynamic with enthusiasm and outcomes focused.

Marisa Dantanarayana

Swinburne Edge facilitator – Coaching

Marisa has been an executive coach and facilitator since 2002, has coached hundreds of executives (over 2,000 hours) and has international business and not-for-profit board experience. Her experience spans a diverse range of clients from large corporations to small businesses, from the public to private sectors. She works with teams, groups and individuals, from C-suite to middle management.

Prior to executive coaching and leadership development, Marisa had a highly successful track record as an executive in the corporate world, having worked for leading global companies; and has a track record of growing businesses across multiple industries. 

As an IT sales executive, she worked across banking and finance, telco, utilities, retail, government and transport and logistics. Marisa was a Regional Board Member of the International Coach Federation Australasia and President for the Victorian Chapter. She is also the co-founder and Director of footprint, providing a leading software solution to the mentoring and coaching market.

Rachel Moore

Swinburne Edge facilitator - Communication Skills

Rachel specialises in emotional intelligence (EI) profiling and feedback, coaching, and career development. With 20 years of experience in the learning and development field, she works with individuals to develop their self-management and relationship management skills, and to improve their professional performance and career success. Her focus is on providing opportunities and knowledge to become successful at work.

Rachel is a passionate professional with years of experience working with EI profiling tools and coaching senior executives, people managers, and frontline employees in the development of their individual EI goals. She is accredited in the tools of Genos, Six Seconds, EQ-i 2.0 and EQ360 Emotional Intelligence.

Rachel has a strong interest in health and wellbeing and facilitates programs in workplace wellbeing and brain health.

Mechelle Moore

Swinburne Edge facilitator - Hybrid Working

Mechelle is a creative and skilful facilitator, instructional designer and coach, working in learning and development for over 20 years.

Mechelle had a successful career holding various management positions in medium and large companies. In her current role she works across a variety of sectors including private and corporate businesses, not for profit, local, state and federal government departments. 

With an academic background in Adult Education and Leadership and Management, she combines her experience and love of learning to help leaders, managers and teams grow and develop.

Mechelle focuses on expanding their skills to thrive in a work environment that is team-based, collaborative and centred on developing and engaging the best people. 

Terry Gaven

Swinburne Edge facilitator – Finance

Terry brings to management and leadership development a wealth of experience gained over 20 years at senior executive level. He has worked as a consultant and facilitator for the past twelve years, specialising in business management. Terry's background is in corporate management, with an emphasis on business finance and administration. He has worked with public sector organisations at local, state and commonwealth levels, as well as private sector companies. 

Terry is a Fellow of Certified Practising Accountants Australia, an Associate of the Institute of Corporate Managers, Secretaries, and Administrators, an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, and a member of the Australian Institute for Learning Practitioners.

Peter O'Donnell

Swinburne Edge facilitator - Health and Safety

Peter has a passion and enthusiasm for learning which sees him inspire others. With over 25 years working in leadership, coaching and mentoring roles, he works to combine his experience and facilitation skills to share his knowledge and encourage others to develop themselves in their chosen fields.

Peter has worked in both the private and public sectors with clients varying in SMEs, large Australian and international organisations and federal agencies including Origin Energy, Coles Myer, Diners Club International, GE Money, Telstra, the Australian Electoral Commission, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia Post and major banks. He has been responsible for relationships, human resources management and staff development in his career.

His experience has led him to work across a range of cultures, industries and organisations; embracing the diversity that exists in each client group.

Vanessa Eckhaus

Swinburne Edge facilitator – Human Resources

As a highly regarded business professional, Vanessa has extensive experience in delivering strategic learning solutions to a large range of sectors and industries including corporates, the health sector, and not-for-profit organisations. She has worked with a diverse portfolio including the Alannah & Madeline Foundation, Berry Street Victoria, InTouch Multicultural Family Violence Service, Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency, Australia Post, Crown, Herbert Smith Freehills, and Metro Trains.

Vanessa initially qualified and worked as a solicitor in employment law. She was regularly involved in legal and industrial litigation as well as creating learning programs on employment-related topics for management teams, unions, and solicitors. After a number of years in legal practice, she moved into the human resources profession where she has successfully utilised her legal knowledge and training experience to help managers develop their skills and lead high-performing teams.

Vanessa is an engaging facilitator, able to develop a rapport with all levels of an organisation to determine their needs and to provide tailored interventions. Her areas of expertise include effective workplace communication, resolving workplace conflict, bullying, harassment and discrimination, and increasing team effectiveness (including managing poor performance).

Nick Mills

Swinburne Edge facilitator - Hybrid Working

Nick is a relaxed, thoughtful, and insightful facilitator and coach.  With many years of experience in travel, insurance, finance, and other industries, he is able to adjust his delivery for many types of audiences. 

While facilitating and coaching, Nick also works part time for the University of Tasmania completing his PhD in inclusion for LGBTQ+ leaders in the finance and professional services sectors.

Nick is motivated to help leaders have more meaningful interactions and more effective and sensitive conversations with all team members across their organisations.  This work will be published in 2024.

Recently, Nick was lead facilitator for two major inclusion and awareness program rollouts.   Both of those programs are centred around organisations making real change.

Terrence Yakub

Swinburne Edge facilitator - Information Technology

Terrence has over 25 years of experience in Training and Management. His success is in developing an interest and aspiration for learning within people and to assist individuals to develop competence and confidence in using software programs in a relevant, enjoyable, and interactive manner.

Terrence delivers courses and manages multi-national projects both overseas and in Australia for clients such as Australia Post, ANZ Bank, Telstra and Realestate.com.au. He also incorporates training needs analysis and creates and develops software training programs for the retail, manufacturing, educational, finance, and the food industries, as well as government departments.

John Mitchell

Swinburne Edge facilitator – Innovation

John has a passion for communication and believes that it is the cornerstone to solving many of the problems faced by businesses and those who work in them. He also recognises and is passionate about the critical role emotional intelligence plays in the success of our lives, both within and outside the workplace.

John is a highly-engaging facilitator who uses a range of media and methodologies to engage different learning styles, whether it be in face-to-face, blended or online delivery. He has had extensive experience delivering training to a range of different groups in the government, industry, para-military and general public spaces.

John’s training has a focus on the practical application of theories and models taught that ensures that workshop participants gain the ability to not only practice their skills within their training session but also leave with the confidence to practice them in a real-world context.

Joanne Marriott

Swinburne professional facilitator - Leadership and Management

Joanne is an accomplished facilitator, speaker and coach who is passionate about Leadership and particularly Emotional Intelligence (EI). She works with a broad range of clients, across many different industries helping them understand what EI is and how to build their EI skills. She is accredited with Genos International’s Emotional Intelligence assessment tools.

Joanne has vast leadership experience from a successful 20-year marketing management career in a broad range of industries, including Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Hardware, Hospitality, Financial Services and the Not for Profit sector prior to starting her own business in 2002. Her expertise was gained in her native Canada and since 1997 in Australia. She held senior Management roles such as Director of Marketing at Dulux Australia. She was a member of the Board of Directors of Engineers Without Borders Australia from 2010 – 2014. Joanne enjoys working with clients across all levels of the organisation.

Mark Lewis

Swinburne Edge facilitator - Organisational Change

Mark has had an extensive Human Resources (HR) career commencing with Crown as their Customer Service Development Training Manager through to major casino and hotel openings. He then moved to Caterpillar where he enjoyed a long career in senior HR leadership roles both in Australia and in the Asia Pacific. More recently Mark was the Principal and Asia Pacific HR Leader for Mercer Outsourcing.

Earlier this year Mark completed the Executive Coach Certificate Program through Swinburne and is currently providing executive coaching and HR consulting within several organisations, as well as completing an international MBA.

Mark’s ongoing career mission is to assist leaders to achieve significant and sustainable results through their people, to leave a legacy of high-performance organisations with engaged work cultures and to build best in class HR practices that deliver optimal organisational capability.

Stephen Abrahams

Swinburne Edge facilitator - Project Management

A graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, Stephen’s military and business career of over 30 years includes leadership in logistics support, asset management, program and project management, business management and training roles in both operations and corporate environments.

Stephen’s clients include a broad range of medium to large government and commercial clients in diverse industries including automotive, agriculture, construction, education, entertainment, human services, immigration, police, retail, logistics, utilities, travel, security and professional services. Stephen specialises in developing the creative potential in organisations by linking strategy to execution and empowering individuals and teams.

Gillian Harris

Swinburne Edge facilitator - Risk Management

Gillian is an experienced facilitator and trainer in project management, agile project management, business analysis, organisational change management, innovation and leadership. With over 20 years’ experience in senior executive roles, she has developed and launched new services and products for business and consumer markets and has led both small and large teams.

She works in the private and public sectors, with small start-ups supporting innovation, and with large organisations to build project outcomes and develop project and leadership capabilities. Committed to organisational performance, Gillian takes a systemic approach which recognises the need to blend process, people and project skills.

Gillian brings a breadth of experience, an enthusiasm for innovation, and she drives the advancement of sound processes, good stakeholder collaboration, and ultimately, a pragmatic approach.

Elle Taurinskaite

Swinburne Edge facilitator – Strategy

Elle brings 20 years of business experience including marketing, leadership and education management. Prior to starting her consultancy, she worked for the government and the private sector.

Elle has extensive international experience, having worked in the European Union’s economic development and investment programs and later with global marketing communication networks Saatchi & Saatchi and FCB as an Account Director. She led strategic brand communication projects, engaging mostly with Scandinavian clients and has been involved in designing new products and developing brand strategies for manufacturing organisations and facilitating strategic planning in not-for-profit organisations.

As a professional facilitator and instructional designer, Elle collaborated in international business education programs with UK universities and guest-lectured in Asia and Europe.

Anna Mastwyk

Swinburne Edge facilitator

For the past 25 years, Anna has worked as a Learning & Development Consultant providing competency-based training and assessment in industry, and facilitates nationally accredited courses and customised programs. She has a diverse background having worked in both the public and private sectors. Anna is passionate about sharing her knowledge and encourages a friendly, experiential and flexible learning environment with a strong emphasis on the transfer of learning into the workplace.

As a training consultant, Anna liaises with training and personnel managers across a wide range of organisations and is committed to working with clients to identify training needs and work towards providing solutions in line with performance requirements.