50 Outstanding Consulting Thought Leaders in ANZ

Introduction

The consulting industry in Australia and New Zealand is facing a question it has been quietly avoiding for decades. If an AI system can analyse a dataset, produce a strategy document, and benchmark an organisation against its competitors in under an hour, what exactly is a consultant for? The answer, for those watching closely, is becoming clearer by the month: a consultant is for the things that AI cannot replicate.

Judgment under uncertainty. Trust built across a relationship. The ability to read a room full of senior leaders who are politically at war with each other and find a path that actually sticks. The capacity to sit with a board through a crisis and tell them the truth they do not want to hear.

These are not technical skills. They are deeply human ones, and the thought leaders genuinely shaping ANZ consulting in 2026 are the ones who have figured this out first.

The Australian management consulting market is worth $45.9 billion in 2026, supported by 94,910 businesses employing more than 130,000 people across the country. New Zealand's consulting sector is smaller but equally dynamic, shaped by the distinct economic environment of a small, open, trade-exposed nation navigating housing affordability pressures, infrastructure deficits, and a unique bicultural governance responsibility that no global framework fully captures. Together, Australia and New Zealand represent one of the most interesting consulting environments in the world: commercially sophisticated, geographically connected to global trends, but small enough that relationships and reputation travel faster than in larger markets.

The voices who matter here are not typically the ones writing abstract white papers for global audiences. They are practitioners who have led real organisations through real change, authors who have translated their experience into frameworks that practitioners can actually use, and researchers who have embedded themselves in the ANZ context rather than importing answers from somewhere else. They are also an extraordinarily diverse group. The ANZ consulting community in 2026 includes economists and anthropologists, behavioural scientists and communications experts, Maori leadership voices and evidence-based wellbeing researchers, CEO-turned-advisors and organisational psychologists who have built world-class firms from nothing.

This blog brings together the 50 consulting thought leaders in Australia and New Zealand who most deserve to be followed in 2026. Each person on this list was selected on the basis of a substantive and documented contribution to the consulting conversation in this region, active engagement with practitioners through writing, speaking, or research in 2025 or 2026, and a deliberate effort to build a list that reflects the real geographic and disciplinary diversity of the consulting community across both countries.

To discuss bringing Jonno White in to facilitate your next leadership offsite, deliver a keynote on team dynamics, or run a Working Genius workshop for your executive team, email jonno@consultclarity.org. International travel is often far more affordable than organisations expect.

Why Consulting Thought Leadership Matters

The relationship between thought leadership and consulting outcomes is not soft or peripheral. Research on how buyers choose consulting services consistently shows that content, trust, and reputation built through public engagement are among the most significant drivers of initial consideration. In the ANZ context this dynamic is amplified. Australia and New Zealand are relationship markets.

The senior executive who reads a LinkedIn article by a consultant, engages with it, and eventually picks up the phone is not following a linear marketing funnel. They are following a trust accumulation process that unfolds over months or years.

The thought leaders on this list understand that dynamic intuitively. Their public writing, speaking, and research is not a lead-generation mechanism grafted onto a consulting practice. It is the consulting practice, expressed in public. Australian organisations navigating the post-AI productivity question, mandatory psychosocial safety compliance, and the challenge of building cohesive teams across hybrid workplaces are not doing so with a playbook written for their context.

The thought leaders who are genuinely valuable in 2026 are the ones making that translation.

Book Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out, to facilitate your next executive team session or leadership offsite. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

How This List Was Compiled

Every person on this list was selected on three criteria. First, a documented and verifiable contribution to the consulting conversation in Australia or New Zealand, supported by published work, active practitioner engagement, or a recognised credential or professional standing. Second, active public engagement in 2025 or 2026, through LinkedIn writing, conference speaking, publishing, media commentary, or research output. Third, a deliberate geographic and disciplinary diversity across both countries and across the full breadth of what consulting means in this region, rather than repeating the global names that appear on every list.

Category One: Leadership Consulting and Facilitation

The largest and most visible category of consulting thought leadership in ANZ is leadership consulting, encompassing executive coaching, facilitation, keynote speaking, organisational development, and the work of helping leaders lead more effectively. The practitioners in this category are doing some of the most commercially significant work in the region.

1. Kirstin Ferguson

Dr Kirstin Ferguson AM is an author, company director, and leadership expert who began her career as an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force before becoming CEO of an international consulting firm and serving as Acting Chair and Deputy Chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She holds a PhD in leadership and culture alongside honours degrees in law and history, and is an adjunct professor at QUT Business School. In 2023 and 2025, she was named in the Thinkers50 Top 50 Management Thinkers globally, becoming the only Australian on that list in 2025 and receiving the Thinkers50 Distinguished Leadership Award in 2023.

Her most recent book, Blindspotting, published by Penguin Random House Australia in 2025 and named one of the Thinkers50 Best New Management Books of 2025, argues that the most important leadership capability in an uncertain world is the capacity to see what others miss. Building on Head and Heart: The Art of Modern Leadership, which won the Royal Society of Arts Career Book Award, her body of work offers ANZ practitioners a rigorous, evidence-based account of what effective modern leadership requires, grounded in her own experience leading at the highest levels of Australian public and corporate life.

2. Sonia McDonald

Sonia McDonald is the founder and CEO of LeadershipHQ, a Brisbane-based leadership advisory and consulting firm she has built over two decades into one of Australia's most active leadership development practices. Through LeadershipHQ, the Leadership Association, and the Women Leaders program, she has worked with more than 100,000 leaders across Australia and globally. She is a keynote speaker, executive coach, and author of multiple books including First Comes Courage and Leadership Attitude.

Named one of the Top 250 Influential Women across the Globe by Richtopia, McDonald represents a practitioner approach to leadership consulting that puts the client's growth at the centre of everything. She partnered with Credly in 2025 to launch digital leadership credentials, including credentials from her signature Women in Leadership and Courageous Leader programs. Her LinkedIn writing on leadership, courage, and human-centred management is among the most consistently engaged consulting content produced in Queensland.

3. Michelle Gibbings

Dr Michelle Gibbings is a workplace expert, author, and keynote speaker based in Melbourne. As the founder of Change Meridian, she has spent two decades working with senior leaders and executive teams on the leadership, decision-making, and culture issues that determine whether organisations can sustain high performance over time. Her book Bad Boss: What to Do if You Work for One, Manage One or Are One, published by Wiley, addresses the leadership challenge most organisations prefer not to discuss publicly but deal with constantly in practice.

She is the author of three books in total and has been published in CPA Australia's INTHEBLACK, with regular contributions to SmartCompany and CEO World magazine. Her consulting work spans facilitating leadership offsites, coaching senior leaders, and delivering keynotes across Australia and internationally. Her specific contribution to the ANZ consulting conversation is her evidence-based, jargon-free approach to making leadership development practically useful rather than theoretically impressive.

4. Anneli Blundell

Anneli Blundell is a Melbourne-based communication expert, author, and keynote speaker known professionally as the Professional People Whisperer. She has built a practice focused on the communication failures that undermine organisational performance: the conversations leaders avoid, the feedback loops that never close, and the misunderstandings that fester into culture problems. She is a Certified Speaking Professional, an award-winning author, and a regular facilitator for leadership programs across Australia's peak professional bodies and corporate organisations.

Her contribution to the ANZ consulting conversation is her translation of interpersonal communication science into practical tools that leadership teams can apply immediately. Her ICMI speaker profile and extensive client testimonials confirm a practitioner standing that makes her content more than academic. She is active on LinkedIn and has delivered keynotes and workshops for organisations spanning banking, government, healthcare, and professional services across Australia.

5. Janine Garner

Janine Garner is an author, keynote speaker, and leadership expert based in Sydney. The author of three internationally published books, It's Who You Know, From Me to We, and Be Brilliant, all published by Wiley, she is a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School of Executive Education and holds an honorary doctorate in Science from Aston University in the UK. She is a Partner at Thought Leaders Global and has worked with senior leaders at organisations including EY, CBRE, and DXC Technology over more than two decades.

Her specific contribution to the ANZ consulting conversation is her work on connection and collaboration as commercial strategy: the evidence-based argument that the ability to build and leverage genuine professional relationships is the single most transferable skill for leaders navigating disruption. Her three Wiley-published books are distributed globally and her research on the commercial value of professional connection has been adopted as a framework in leadership programs across Australia's financial services and technology sectors.

6. Margot Faraci

Margot Faraci is an executive coach, author, speaker, and leadership advisor based in Sydney, with a corporate background spanning Macquarie Bank, NAB, SEEK, Commonwealth Bank, Amazon, and Coca-Cola. Through her independently commissioned Love Leadership research, which surveyed nearly 2,500 respondents across Australia, the UK, and the US, she has produced direct evidence on fear-based leadership and its commercial costs: nearly one in three emerging leaders are motivated primarily by fear, with a direct productivity impact estimated at $2.3 billion AUD annually in Australia.

Her writing has been published in Fast Company, Cosmopolitan, Sky News, ABC Radio, HR News, and Digiday, giving her a media reach that extends well beyond the consulting conference circuit. She brings a rare combination of senior corporate leadership experience with genuine research rigour, and her LinkedIn writing on leadership courage is among the most direct and specific consulting content available from an ANZ practitioner in 2025 and 2026.

7. Avril Henry AM

Avril Henry AM is the founder and executive director of Avril Henry and Associates, a Sydney-based management consultancy established in 2003 and focused on leadership development, diversity and inclusion, and cultural transformation. In 2024, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for her contributions to leadership consulting and diversity. Over more than two decades, she has delivered keynotes and leadership programs to tens of thousands of leaders across Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the US, and Asia for organisations including IBM, BHP, and the Department of Defence.

She is a Fellow of CPA Australia, a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management, a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and a regular ABC television and radio panellist. Her books on Australian leadership and gender equity, including Leadership Revelations II, named a Must Buy, Must Read by the Australian Financial Review BOSS magazine, represent a body of research that extends well beyond the speaker circuit and anchors her standing as one of Australia's most credentialed consulting voices.

8. Michelle McQuaid

Michelle McQuaid is the founder of the Michelle McQuaid Group, a Melbourne-based consulting and research firm applying positive psychology and wellbeing science to the challenge of helping people thrive at work. As an award-winning researcher and creator of The Wellbeing Lab, The Leaders Lab, and The Change Lab, she produces a body of research and practical tools that directly serves HR leaders and leadership teams navigating the psychosocial safety regulatory environment that has reshaped Australian and New Zealand workplaces since 2022.

She is a bestselling author and has spoken at conferences across Australia, the US, the UK, and Europe. Her consulting work bridges the gap between wellbeing research and practice in a way that very few ANZ practitioners manage: her tools are evidence-based and directly applicable in organisations of all sizes, which is why her Wellbeing Lab annual report is used as a benchmark by HR teams across both countries.

Category Two: Strategy and Business Advisory

Strategy consulting in ANZ has its own distinct character, shaped by a small domestic market, deep ties to Asia-Pacific trade, a resources sector that drives boom-and-bust cycles, and a service economy that increasingly competes on knowledge and talent rather than natural resources. The practitioners in this category are thinking hard about what strategy means in that context.

9. Peter Sheahan

Peter Sheahan is the founder and CEO of Karrikins Group, an international consulting and advisory firm he has built with more than 120 staff across 24 cities in nine countries. A former Australian now based internationally, Sheahan is the author of seven books including Flip, Generation Y, and Matter: Move Beyond the Competition, Create More Value, and Become the Obvious Choice. Named one of the 25 Most Influential Speakers in the World by the National Speakers Association and the youngest person ever inducted into the NSA Hall of Fame, he has delivered more than 2,500 keynote presentations in more than 40 countries.

His consulting work with organisations including Apple, Microsoft, Hyundai, Goldman Sachs, IBM, and Pfizer focuses on the strategic and leadership dimensions of business transformation under disruption. For ANZ audiences, he represents what is possible when a practitioner builds a genuinely global consulting practice from an Australian base, and his frameworks on how organisations move from commodity to differentiated positioning are among the most commercially relevant available from an Australian-born consulting voice.

10. Gabrielle Dolan

Gabrielle Dolan is a Melbourne-based keynote speaker, educator, and author considered one of the world's foremost authorities on strategic storytelling in business communication. The author of seven books published by Wiley, including Magnetic Stories, Real Communication, Stories for Work, and Ignite, her most recent title debuted at number two on Australia's bestselling business books list. She is the founder of Jargon Free Fridays and was named IABC Asia Pacific Communicator of the Year for 2020.

Her client list spans Accenture, EY, VISA, Telstra, Amazon, ANZ, and Salesforce, with consulting engagements focused on helping leadership teams communicate with clarity, authenticity, and impact. Dolan's specific contribution to the consulting space is her evidence-based case for storytelling as a leadership competency, grounded in her earlier career as a senior leader at National Australia Bank where she first observed how few executives could communicate the strategy they were paid to execute.

11. Amantha Imber

Dr Amantha Imber is an organisational psychologist and the founder of Inventium, Australia's leading innovation and behavioural science consultancy. With a PhD in organisational psychology, she has helped organisations including Google, Coca-Cola, Disney, LEGO, Red Bull, American Express, Virgin Australia, and Commonwealth Bank innovate more systematically. Inventium was awarded the Best Management Consultancy at the BRW Client Choice Awards and is the official partner of the Australian Financial Review Most Innovative Companies list.

In 2021, Imber received the Thinkers50 Innovation Award, described by the Financial Times as the Oscars for Management Thinking, recognising her as the thinker who contributed most to the understanding of innovation globally over the previous two years. She is also the host of How I Work, one of Australia's most downloaded business podcasts, with more than 2.5 million downloads. Her LinkedIn posts in 2025 and 2026 on AI's impact on how people work and lead are among the most evidence-grounded consulting content available in Australia.

12. Tim Duggan

Tim Duggan is an Australian author, media entrepreneur, and advisor whose work sits at the productive intersection of business culture, creativity, and the future of work. The author of three business books, Cult Status, which won the Best Entrepreneurship and Small Business Book at the 2021 Australian Business Book Awards, Killer Thinking, named one of Apple Books' Best Books of 2022, and Work Backwards, Duggan writes a weekly column on work and business culture for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Brisbane Times, and WA Today.

As the Chair of the Digital Publishers Alliance, representing more than 150 Australian independent digital publishers, he brings a publisher's understanding of how ideas spread to his consulting and advisory work. His Substack newsletter OUTLET reaches thousands of subscribers weekly with practical thinking on work, community, and purposeful business. His writing on what it means to do work that matters, and how organisations can build communities around their purpose rather than merely their product, is among the most widely distributed business content produced by an Australian author in 2025 and 2026.

13. Dr Karen Morley

Dr Karen Morley is a Melbourne-based executive coach, consultant, and author with a PhD in psychology and more than 20 years of experience working with senior leaders. Through Morley Consulting, she has worked with boards, executive teams, and leadership development programs across financial services, healthcare, professional services, and the public sector in Australia. She is the author of Lead Like a Coach, which draws on her research into coaching-based leadership as the most effective approach for contemporary organisations.

Her LinkedIn writing on inclusive leadership, psychological safety, and the specific demands of leading in complex organisations is regularly shared among senior HR leaders and executive coaches across Australia. She is a LinkedIn Top Voice in Leadership and her research-grounded approach to executive coaching gives her consulting work a credibility that is increasingly valued in ANZ organisations seeking more than the standard leadership development programme.

14. Trena Blair

Trena Blair is the founder of FD Global Connections, a Sydney-based strategic advisory firm specialising in helping Australian businesses expand internationally. With more than 20 years of executive experience spanning corporate finance, strategy, and international market development, she works with CEOs and senior leadership teams on the commercial and cultural challenges of building genuinely global businesses from an ANZ base.

Her content on LinkedIn covers international expansion strategy, global leadership, and the practical realities of navigating cultural and regulatory differences across markets. Blair's contribution to the ANZ consulting conversation is her focus on the expansion imperative for Australian businesses: the evidence-based argument that operating globally is no longer optional for organisations seeking to sustain growth in a small domestic market. She is a published author and regular conference speaker on global business strategy.

15. Joydeep Hor

Joydeep Hor is the managing partner and founder of People + Culture Strategies, a Sydney-based boutique law firm and consulting practice specialising in employment, workplace culture, and leadership issues. For more than 20 years, he has advised organisations on the legal, cultural, and leadership dimensions of the employment relationship, with a particular focus on the intersection of employment law and organisational culture. He is a regular media commentator on employment law and workplace relations.

His annual Key Breakfast Briefing at Sydney's Four Seasons Hotel, which brings together senior business and HR leaders for a rigorous examination of current workplace challenges, has become one of the most anticipated practitioner events in the Australian HR calendar. In 2026, he chaired a panel discussion on Leaders: Born or Made? His Institute of Managers and Leaders engagement and his consistent public commentary on psychosocial safety compliance make him one of the most practically useful voices in the ANZ consulting space for senior leaders navigating the current regulatory environment.

16. Adam Franklin

Adam Franklin is a Sydney-based LinkedIn marketing strategist, keynote speaker, and Amazon number one bestselling author who has built one of Australia's most active consulting practices focused on how professional services firms grow through strategic digital presence. As a principal at Bluewire Media, he has delivered hundreds of workshops globally for consulting firms, professional services firms, and technology businesses on how to build genuine authority and generate pipeline through LinkedIn. His book Web Marketing That Works is an Amazon number one bestseller.

He is particularly valuable to ANZ consulting practitioners who are building their own thought leadership practices, offering a practitioner's framework for translating expertise into visible influence. His LinkedIn content is consistently among the most practically useful available for consultants navigating the challenge of standing out in a market where every professional has a profile but very few have a genuine voice. He has trained executives at organisations including Westpac, Optus, and the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Category Three: New Zealand Consulting Voices

New Zealand's consulting community has its own distinct character, shaped by a smaller market, a stronger public sector presence, a unique constitutional and cultural responsibility to te Tiriti o Waitangi, and an economy that punches above its weight in research, education, and professional services. The voices below are contributing to the national conversation with a clarity and depth that the rest of the region should be paying attention to.

17. Bruce Cotterill

Bruce Cotterill is one of New Zealand's most respected business advisors, a five-time CEO who led Colliers New Zealand and Australia, Kerry Packer's ACP Magazines, and Canterbury International through transformation, and who now operates as a professional director, advisor, author, and podcast host through his practice InterAct Business Advisory. His book The Best Leaders Don't Shout, which has been adopted as a leadership text by organisations across New Zealand's private and public sectors, translates his experience turning around broken businesses into a jargon-free framework for better teams and workplaces.

As the host of the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast and a regular columnist for the New Zealand Herald and Newstalk ZB, he is one of the most accessible business voices in New Zealand for senior leaders who want practical advice grounded in real commercial experience. His LinkedIn posts in 2025 and 2026 on New Zealand's economic conditions, governance challenges, and what board directors need to focus on have been widely shared among directors and senior executives across the country.

18. Shamubeel Eaqub

Shamubeel Eaqub is the Chief Economist at Simplicity, New Zealand's largest KiwiSaver scheme by member count, a position he took up in October 2024 after founding Sense Partners, a boutique economic consultancy. He is the author of several influential books on the New Zealand economy, including Generation Rent, co-authored with Selena Eaqub, and Growing Apart: Regional Prosperity in New Zealand. A regular voice on RNZ National and in the New Zealand Herald, and a sought-after keynote speaker at major industry conferences, he is widely regarded as the economist who makes economic and policy complexity most accessible to non-economist business leaders.

His ongoing social cohesion research, released as an annual report through Simplicity and shared on LinkedIn in May 2026, represents a genuine contribution to New Zealand's public policy conversation that extends well beyond his formal role. His consistent contrarian willingness to say uncomfortable things about housing, productivity, and economic inequality in New Zealand makes him one of the most important strategic thinking voices available to ANZ consultants and organisations working on strategy in a small, open economy.

19. Cheryl Doig

Dr Cheryl Doig is the founder of Think Beyond, a Christchurch-based leadership and futures consultancy, and one of New Zealand's most respected leadership futurists. An Adjunct Senior Fellow at the University of Canterbury, she is the founder of both the Otautahi Futures Collective and Oceania Futures, and one of 12 people selected globally to support the Dubai Future Forum as a Friend of the Forum. Her facilitation work helps organisations in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors develop strategic foresight capability.

Her 2026 project developing the Futures Barometer for Aotearoa, and her co-facilitation of workshops at the Dubai Future Forum 2025, represent a contribution to futures thinking that extends well beyond New Zealand's borders. Her LinkedIn posts in 2025 and 2026 on intergenerational leadership, futures literacy, and climate foresight are among the most substantive strategic thinking content available from a New Zealand practitioner, and her facilitation work with boards and executive teams across New Zealand is grounded in a systematic futures methodology rather than simple trend-listing.

20. Leanne Holdsworth

Leanne Holdsworth is an Associate with Cultivating Leadership in Auckland, an independent business advisor, and the co-author of Human Work: Five Leadership Mindsets for Humanising Workplaces. Her work focuses on the challenge of making workplaces genuinely human: not as a wellbeing initiative grafted onto commercial operations, but as the foundational design principle that enables organisations to achieve their purpose while people go home in good shape. She delivered a leadership masterclass for Leadership New Zealand in 2024 on humanising workplaces in the age of AI.

Her LinkedIn writing in 2025 and 2026 spans sustainability reporting compliance, climate disclosure for not-for-profit leaders, and the specific challenges facing New Zealand associations and cultural organisations navigating technological disruption. Her contribution to the consulting conversation is the breadth of her practical engagement: she moves between the philosophical foundations of human-centred leadership and the specific operational questions that leaders of smaller New Zealand organisations face week to week.

21. Jonno White

Jonno White is the founder of Consult Clarity, trading as Clarity Group Global, a Brisbane-based leadership consulting practice that works with schools, corporates, and nonprofits across Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the US, Singapore, Canada, India, and beyond. As a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, he delivers team assessments using Patrick Lencioni's Six Types of Working Genius framework, which has now been completed by more than 1.3 million people globally since its launch. He is the bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out, with over 10,000 copies sold globally, a book focused on the difficult conversations leaders need to have about performance and accountability.

He hosts The Leadership Conversations Podcast, which has reached listeners in more than 150 countries across 230 or more episodes, and founded The 7 Questions Movement, which has engaged more than 6,000 leaders. Jonno achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his keynote and Working Genius facilitation at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. His specific contribution to the consulting conversation in ANZ is his work helping leadership teams understand why certain types of work energise them while other tasks drain them, creating the shared language that allows executive teams to allocate work, manage friction, and build genuine accountability. To book Jonno for your next leadership offsite, Working Genius workshop, or conference keynote, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

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22. Amy Scott

Amy Scott is the creator of the Dots Communication System, a New Zealand-developed communication framework that has been used with more than 37,000 people to help individuals and teams understand the different communication styles at play in their workplaces. Operating through Amy Scott Communication, she delivers workshops and keynote presentations for organisations across New Zealand and Australia on how to reduce communication friction, improve collaboration, and build the shared understanding that high-performing teams require.

Her less friction, more fun positioning reflects a consulting philosophy that takes seriously the commercial cost of poor communication while keeping the experience of her programs genuinely engaging. She has presented at major conferences across New Zealand and Australia and is known for delivering frameworks that are immediately applicable in the room. The Dots system has been adopted by leadership development programs across the New Zealand public and private sectors.

23. Dr Lucy Hone

Dr Lucy Hone is a research director at the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing and Resilience, an internationally recognised authority on resilience, and the author of Resilient Grieving and Raising Resilient Kids. Her TED talk, Three Secrets of Resilient People, has been viewed by millions globally and is among the most widely shared pieces of wellbeing content produced by a New Zealand practitioner. Her research, conducted with co-founder Dr Denise Quinlan, provides the evidential foundation for wellbeing consulting across New Zealand's schools, government agencies, and private sector organisations.

Her combination of academic rigour with personal experience of profound loss, the death of her 12-year-old daughter Abi in 2014, gives her work a depth and authenticity that is rare in the wellbeing consulting space. Her framework for what resilience actually requires, as distinct from the motivational framing that dominates most wellbeing programs, is directly applicable to the professional contexts ANZ organisations are navigating in 2026.

24. Dr Denise Quinlan

Dr Denise Quinlan is the founding director of the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing and Resilience and one of New Zealand's foremost researchers and practitioners in the science of wellbeing. Working alongside Dr Lucy Hone, she has built an evidence-based consulting practice that helps schools, government agencies, workplaces, and communities apply the findings from positive psychology and wellbeing science to the practical challenge of supporting people to thrive.

Her framework development, keynote speaking, and school-based wellbeing programs have reached thousands of New Zealand practitioners. Her approach to future-focused leadership grounded in wellbeing research is directly relevant to organisations navigating the post-pandemic combination of psychosocial safety requirements and genuine workforce wellbeing challenges. Her contribution is the consistent translation of academic wellbeing science into practitioner tools that ANZ organisations can actually implement.

Category Four: Culture, Change, and Performance Consulting

No dimension of consulting is growing faster in ANZ than the work of culture change, organisational transformation, and human performance. The regulatory environment around psychosocial safety, the AI-driven disruption of knowledge work, and the persistent challenge of engaging increasingly demanding workforces have all combined to make culture consulting the most commercially consequential growth area in the region.

25. Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson is a corporate anthropologist and the founder of Cultures at Work, a New Zealand-based consulting practice focused on culture transformation for organisations of all sizes. With a degree in anthropology and history from the University of Auckland and more than 40 years of experience studying and advising on organisational culture, Henderson has supported more than 300 culture transformations across industries and countries. He is the author of eight books on organisational culture, leadership, and performance, including Above the Line and The Corporate Tribe.

His contribution to the ANZ consulting conversation is his consistent insistence that culture is not a soft metric to be managed around the edges of strategy, but the primary driver of organisational performance that most leadership teams do not yet understand deeply enough to actually change. His corporate anthropology framework gives organisations a rigorous lens for understanding why their culture is what it is and what it would take to change it, grounded in decades of fieldwork across industries.

26. Dr Paul Wood

Dr Paul Wood is a New Zealand psychologist, author, and speaker whose personal story of transformation from a period of imprisonment to a doctorate in psychology has given him a platform for some of the most credible practical psychology content available in the ANZ consulting space. His book How to Escape from Prison, published by Penguin, uses his own experience to build a framework for escaping the psychological patterns that limit human performance in workplaces and in life.

He works with organisations across New Zealand on resilience, mindset, change, and the psychology of sustained performance. His keynote speaking at leadership conferences engages audiences who have been through every other resilience programme without the depth of experience that gives Wood's content its authority. His specific contribution is making the neuroscience and psychology of behaviour change accessible to practitioners in a form that applies directly to real leadership and culture challenges.

27. Ziena Jalil

Ziena Jalil is a changemaker, former diplomat, governance specialist, and keynote speaker based in Auckland. With experience spanning government, corporate, and non-profit sectors in New Zealand and internationally, she brings perspectives on equity, inclusive leadership, and creating organisations where diversity of thought translates into better decisions. Her diplomatic background gives her a level of cross-cultural intelligence that is directly relevant to ANZ organisations building genuinely diverse and inclusive cultures rather than simply meeting representation targets.

She speaks at major conferences on inclusive leadership and has been a trusted voice in national conversations about how New Zealand's public and private organisations can genuinely reflect the communities they serve. Celebrity Speakers NZ lists her as one of the most sought-after voices on equity and inclusive leadership for corporate conferences. Her contribution is the practical translation of inclusion theory into the specific organisational decisions that determine whether inclusion is real or performative.

28. Jazz Thornton

Jazz Thornton is the co-founder of Voices of Hope, a mental health advocacy organisation she built alongside Genevieve Mora into one of New Zealand's most influential platforms for destigmatising mental health challenges in workplaces, schools, and communities. Her documentary work, speaking tours, and social media presence have reached millions of people globally, and her keynote speaking brings the mental health conversation into boardrooms, HR conferences, and leadership summits where it genuinely needs to be.

She is the author of Stop Surviving Start Fighting and You Are Not Your Darkness, and her work represents the most authentic practitioner voice in the New Zealand mental health and wellbeing consulting space. Her contribution to ANZ organisations is the direct connection she makes between psychological safety as an abstract aspiration and the specific leadership behaviours that create environments where people can actually speak up, seek help, and perform at their best.

29. Genevieve Mora

Genevieve Mora is the co-founder and former general manager of Voices of Hope and an independent speaker and advocate whose work on mental health in workplaces brings both organisational experience and personal story to the consulting conversation. Where Jazz Thornton's work focuses primarily on individual mental health and lived experience, Mora's contribution is the organisational dimension: how do workplaces build systems and cultures that genuinely support mental health rather than simply offering an employee assistance programme?

Her speaking at HR conferences across New Zealand has made her one of the most sought-after voices on the specific challenge of converting psychosocial safety intentions into daily practice. She brings operational credibility from running a scaling social enterprise alongside the lived experience of mental health challenges that gives her work an authenticity that purely academic voices cannot match.

30. Ngahihi o te ra Bidois

Ngahihi o te ra Bidois, known as The Face of New Zealand, is one of New Zealand's most awarded keynote speakers, a multiple winner of the NZ Speaker of the Year award and the Inspirational Speaker of the Year designation. He combines Maori leadership wisdom with contemporary frameworks for purpose and identity, offering organisations a genuinely different lens on what it means to build a high-performing culture that reflects who New Zealanders actually are.

His consulting and facilitation work helps organisations navigate the bicultural responsibilities of operating in Aotearoa, and his keynote work for organisations across New Zealand and Australia brings a depth of cultural context to leadership and performance conversations that global frameworks cannot replicate. His contribution is the consistent demonstration that the wisest thinking about leadership in New Zealand does not come exclusively from imported frameworks, but from deep engagement with the indigenous wisdom traditions that have sustained communities in this region for generations.

31. Nigel Latta

Nigel Latta is a clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and television presenter who has become one of New Zealand's most trusted voices on human behaviour in workplaces, families, and communities. His television programmes on mental health, family resilience, and social policy have given him a public presence that extends the reach of his consulting and speaking work well beyond the professional conference circuit. He is a keynote speaker for HR, education, and leadership conferences across New Zealand and Australia.

His ability to make psychology genuinely accessible to general audiences, without sacrificing the accuracy that clinical training requires, makes him one of the most effective translators of behavioural science research into practical workplace guidance available in New Zealand. His books, including NZ Brain and Civilisation and What Makes It Worse, have given him a body of published work that anchors his public credibility and extends his consulting impact beyond individual engagements.

32. Alexia Hilbertidou

Alexia Hilbertidou is the founder of GirlBoss NZ, a youth leadership organisation she built from a secondary school project into a national movement, and a Forbes 30 Under 30 honouree. Named the Headmistress of Gen Z by the New Zealand Herald and a sought-after voice on future workforce trends, she brings a perspective on the next generation of talent, leadership, and workplace expectations that most senior consultants simply cannot credibly offer.

Her keynote speaking at HR conferences, technology events, and leadership summits across Australia and New Zealand addresses the specific challenge of what organisations need to change about how they lead, develop, and retain their youngest professionals. Her contribution is direct access to the worldview of the cohort that will define the ANZ workforce for the next three decades, translated into practical implications for the organisations that are trying to engage them right now.

Category Five: Innovation, Future of Work, and Purpose-Focused Consulting

A fifth cluster of ANZ consulting voices operates at the intersection of innovation, the future of work, and what it means to build organisations with genuine purpose. These practitioners are working on the questions that will define what consulting looks like in 2030.

33. Suhit Anantula

Suhit Anantula is the founder of The Helix Lab, an Australian consulting firm focused on co-intelligent organisations: enterprises that blend human expertise and machine intelligence into adaptive, compound-thinking systems. He works with CEOs, boards, and policy leaders to architect AI strategy, build private large language model environments, and redesign organisational decision rhythms in complex environments. He is the author of The Helix Moment and co-author of The Policy Playbook.

He was a keynote speaker at the All Actuaries Summit 2026 in Australia, where his two-part keynote with Jules Yim explored how consultants can balance human and AI reasoning in a complex world. His work represents the most practically grounded consulting approach to the AI integration challenge available from an Australian practitioner: not speculative futurism, but specific frameworks for how organisations can make AI work for them without losing the human judgment that makes that work worthwhile.

34. Dr Michelle Dickinson MNZM

Dr Michelle Dickinson MNZM is a nanotechnologist, science communicator, and keynote speaker based in Auckland, widely known as Nanogirl. As a global technology and innovation leader, she has made science and engineering accessible to audiences from primary school classrooms to international conferences, and her work democratising STEM education provides organisations with a model for building cultures of curiosity and experimentation. She is a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to science education.

Her consulting and speaking work helps organisations understand the practical implications of emerging technologies and build the internal capability to engage with them thoughtfully rather than reactively. Her specific contribution to the ANZ consulting conversation is the demonstration that technical expertise and engaging communication are not in tension: that the clearest minds on technology can also be the most accessible voices in a room full of non-technical senior leaders.

35. Gilbert Enoka

Gilbert Enoka is the All Blacks mental skills coach, one of the most influential performance psychology practitioners in New Zealand's history. With decades of work developing the mental skills culture that underpins New Zealand rugby's extraordinary sustained success, he has translated frameworks from elite sport into consulting and speaking work for leadership teams across the public and private sectors in New Zealand and Australia. His keynotes at executive leadership events offer organisations a glimpse of what genuine mental performance culture looks like when it is embedded rather than bolted on.

His frameworks around leadership identity, pressure management, collective accountability, and what he calls sweeping the sheds, the idea that no one is above the culture regardless of their status, are among the most practically applicable available from a New Zealand practitioner. His specific contribution is the evidence from the world's most successful sports team that culture eats strategy, and that the team with the most talent does not always win if the team with less talent has more deeply internalised values.

36. Dr Libby Weaver

Dr Libby Weaver is an internationally acclaimed nutritional biochemist, bestselling author, and keynote speaker based in New Zealand. With a career spanning more than 20 years, she has become one of the most recognised voices in the ANZ region on the science of human health, energy, and sustainable performance. Her books, which have sold millions of copies globally, her sold-out live events, and her consulting work with organisations on human performance and wellbeing make her one of the most commercially significant wellness thought leaders operating from an ANZ base.

Her contribution to the consulting space is the evidence-based case for treating human energy as a strategic resource that organisations have a responsibility to support rather than deplete. Her work connects the biochemistry of stress, nutrition, and recovery to the organisational behaviours and leadership decisions that determine whether people can sustain performance over careers and not just quarters.

37. Donna McGeorge

Donna McGeorge is an Australian consultant, author, and keynote speaker whose work focuses on productivity, the future of work, and how individuals and organisations can do more with the time and energy they actually have. The author of 12 books, including four bestsellers: The 1.5 Hour Meeting, The 25-Minute Meeting, The First 2 Hours, and Red Brick Thinking, she has built a consulting practice addressing one of the most universal leadership complaints in ANZ organisations: too many meetings, not enough thinking, and too little actual progress on what matters most.

She was a speaker at the AHRI National Convention and Exhibition 2025 in Australia and presented at the ALGRNZ local government conference in Wellington in 2026, confirming her active ANZ reach. She is an ICMI-represented speaker with an extensive Australian and international keynote record, and her frameworks on strategic subtraction, removing the unnecessary to unlock what actually matters, are among the most practically applicable consulting ideas available from a Queensland-based practitioner.

38. Kevin Biggar

Kevin Biggar is a New Zealand adventurer, author, and keynote speaker who has built a consulting and speaking practice on the foundation of two genuine world-firsts: winning the Trans-Atlantic Rowing Race alongside Jamie Fitzgerald and completing the first recorded journey from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole without any assistance. With a Masters degree from Cambridge University and a background as a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group, he bridges the credibility gap between adventure storytelling and business strategy.

His specific contribution to the consulting conversation is his research and framework development around what he calls the real work of leadership: the uncomfortable decisions, the sustained effort, and the team-building that actually separate organisations that achieve ambitious outcomes from those that do not. His book Not Dead Yet translates the lessons of extreme expeditions into leadership and organisational frameworks applicable to ANZ executives navigating their own ambitious targets.

39. James Adonis

James Adonis is an Australian author, speaker, and culture consultant who has written extensively on employee engagement, leadership, and organisational culture. He has authored more than 15 books and has been a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and the Australian Financial Review on work and leadership. His consulting work focuses on the practical implementation of engagement and culture strategies, with a particular focus on the questions that most organisations are afraid to ask about why their people are disengaged.

His broad readership and sustained public presence make him one of the most consistently visible Australian voices on the culture side of consulting. His column for major Australian mastheads over more than a decade has given him a reach that extends well beyond the consulting conference circuit to the senior leaders and HR professionals who read the business press for practical guidance rather than academic theory.

40. Lindsay Adams OAM

Lindsay Adams OAM is a Brisbane-based consultant, facilitator, keynote speaker, and business coach who has spent more than 20 years working with executive teams, entrepreneurs, and business owners across Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and the United States on leadership effectiveness and team performance. He was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in January 2020 for his service to the professional speaking industry, having served as the 2009-2010 President of the Global Speakers Federation and as National President of Professional Speakers Australia.

He holds the first-ever Global Speaking Fellow designation, awarded by the Global Speakers Federation, the only internationally recognised designation for professional speakers. His active LinkedIn presence and March 2026 presentation at the Global Speakers Summit in Cairns confirm his ongoing engagement with the ANZ consulting and speaking community. His work as a Working Genius facilitator and DISC practitioner gives him frameworks directly relevant to the leadership team dynamics challenges that ANZ organisations are prioritising in 2026.

Category Six: Research and Academic Consulting Voices

A final category of ANZ consulting thought leaders operates at the intersection of academic research and practitioner consulting. These individuals bring the rigour of peer-reviewed research into the consulting conversation in ways that make the academic work practically useful.

41. Dr Libby Sander

Dr Libby Sander is the MBA Director, Director of Executive Education, and Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Bond University in Queensland. She is the founder and director of the Future of Work Project, an Agenda Contributor at the World Economic Forum, and a TEDx speaker. Her research on workplace design, the future of work, and how physical and digital environments shape thinking, emotion, and performance has attracted more than 3.2 million readers through her articles on The Conversation.

She has written for Harvard Business Review and her research has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC, Guardian, and Fast Company. She has worked with Google, Microsoft Europe, Jefferies, and Lend Lease implementing her research. Her April 2026 LinkedIn post on the IMC Australia conference and her keynote at the Workplace Strategy Summit VIC 2026 confirm her active engagement with the ANZ consulting community. Her contribution is the translation of internationally recognised future-of-work research into practical guidance for ANZ organisations redesigning how and where their people work.

42. Sam Stubbs

Sam Stubbs is the co-founder and CEO of Simplicity, a not-for-profit KiwiSaver and fund manager that has become one of New Zealand's fastest-growing investment providers since its launch in 2016. With a career that includes 10 years at Goldman Sachs in London and Hong Kong, the role of CEO at Tower Investments, and membership of the New Zealand Government Taskforce on Financial Services, he brings a level of financial markets credibility to his public thought leadership that is rare in the ANZ consulting space.

His contribution to the consulting conversation is his consistent, evidence-backed advocacy for long-term thinking about economic policy, housing, and capital allocation in New Zealand: the kind of systemic, structural analysis that most financial services commentators avoid for fear of antagonising clients. His LinkedIn writing and media commentary in 2025 and 2026 on KiwiSaver policy, housing investment, and New Zealand's productivity challenge represent some of the most commercially grounded strategic thinking available from a New Zealand business leader.

43. Prof Brigid Carroll

Professor Brigid Carroll holds the Fletcher Building Employee Educational Fund Chair in Leadership at the University of Auckland, one of the most significant endowed leadership research positions in New Zealand. With a PhD examining leadership identity and practice, she is one of New Zealand's foremost academic authorities on what leadership actually looks like in organisations and communities, as distinct from what leadership theory prescribes. She teaches organisational theory and qualitative research methods alongside her leadership research program.

Her research on how people develop as leaders through practice rather than through formal learning programmes has direct implications for how ANZ organisations design their leadership development investments. Her contributions to the academic literature on leadership identity and her engagement with the New Zealand business community through the university's executive education programs make her one of the most credible academic consulting voices available in Aotearoa New Zealand.

44. Dr Mahsa McCauley

Dr Mahsa McCauley is an Associate Professor at the University of Auckland, an AI and technology leadership expert, and the founder of She Sharp, a New Zealand organisation dedicated to supporting women in technology and STEM fields. She is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honouree and a sought-after keynote speaker on artificial intelligence, women in technology, and inclusive innovation. Celebrity Speakers NZ lists her as a leading voice on artificial intelligence and gender equity for conference audiences across New Zealand and Australia.

Her contribution to the ANZ consulting conversation is the intersection of technical AI expertise with the inclusion and diversity dimensions that most AI strategy consultants overlook. Her research and advocacy work at the University of Auckland, alongside her public speaking and community leadership through She Sharp, make her one of the most practically credible voices available for ANZ organisations navigating both the AI transformation agenda and the inclusion imperatives that will determine whether that transformation benefits everyone.

45. Marcus Crow

Marcus Crow is a Sydney-based executive coach and leadership consultant operating through Conscious Leaders. He works with senior executives and leadership teams on the personal development and mindset dimensions of leadership that most conventional consulting programmes avoid: the internal work that determines whether external frameworks actually change leadership behaviour, or simply add new vocabulary to old patterns. His approach is grounded in both neuroscience and psychological research on what actually drives lasting behaviour change.

His LinkedIn writing in 2025 and 2026 on leadership consciousness, emotional intelligence, and the specific challenges of leading organisations through uncertainty is among the most psychologically sophisticated consulting content produced by an Australian practitioner. His coaching work with senior leaders across ASX-listed companies, government agencies, and fast-growth businesses gives his public content a practitioner grounding that distinguishes it from purely academic treatment of the same themes.

46. Gilbert Enoka

46. Dr Claire Braund

Dr Claire Braund is an Australian governance specialist, author, and consultant whose work focuses on board effectiveness, director development, and the governance dimensions of organisational leadership. She is the co-author of Governing the Family Business and the executive director of Women on Boards, one of Australia's most influential organisations supporting the advancement of women into board and leadership roles. Her work has contributed directly to measurable increases in board gender diversity at Australian listed companies over the past decade.

Her contribution to the ANZ consulting conversation is the consistent translation of governance research into practical guidance for directors, chairs, and CEOs navigating the complex relationship between board oversight and executive leadership. Her media commentary on board culture, CEO performance management, and director accountability makes her one of the most publicly visible governance consulting voices in Australia.

47. Donna McGeorge

47. Jennifer Whelan

Dr Jennifer Whelan is the founder of People Measures, a Melbourne-based consulting practice specialising in inclusion, psychological safety, and the evidence-based dimensions of people strategy. With a PhD in psychology and extensive consulting experience across Australian financial services, healthcare, and professional services organisations, she brings academic rigour to the practical challenge of building organisations where different people genuinely feel they belong.

Her LinkedIn writing in 2025 and 2026 on psychological safety, inclusive leadership, and what the research on belonging actually says for practitioners is among the most evidence-grounded consulting content available from a Melbourne-based practitioner. She is a recognised voice in the Australian HR and consulting community on why inclusion initiatives fail and what it takes to design them in ways that actually change organisational experience.

48. Rob Fyfe

Rob Fyfe is one of New Zealand's most respected former CEOs, having led Air New Zealand between 2005 and 2012 through one of the most successful cultural and commercial turnarounds in New Zealand corporate history. Since leaving Air New Zealand, he has operated as a governance advisor, board member, and strategic consultant to organisations across New Zealand and Australia, and has held board roles including chairman at Icebreaker and a director at Infrastructure New Zealand.

His contribution to the consulting conversation is his direct experience demonstrating that cultural transformation is the precondition for commercial turnaround, not its consequence. His public speaking and media commentary in New Zealand on leadership, governance, and what organisations get wrong when they try to change culture have given him a sustained voice in the ANZ consulting community that extends well beyond his formal board roles. His 2025 and 2026 commentary on New Zealand's economic and governance challenges has been widely shared among senior executives and directors.

49. Dr Libby Sander

49. Stephen Scheeler

Stephen Scheeler is the former CEO of Facebook Australia and New Zealand, and is now a digital leadership consultant, speaker, and author focused on helping executives and boards understand how to lead in an era of radical digital disruption. Through his consulting and advisory work, he helps organisations at board and C-suite level understand the implications of AI, social media, and digital platform dynamics for their business models, governance, and leadership approaches.

His book The Digital CEO, and his keynote speaking for executive audiences across Australia and New Zealand, give him a platform that is particularly valuable for senior leaders who are responsible for digital strategy but whose professional formation predates the digital era. His specific contribution is making the realities of operating at the frontier of digital platform businesses accessible to leaders whose organisations are being disrupted by those dynamics without having experienced them from the inside.

50. Dr Liz Mellor

Dr Liz Mellor is an Australian organisational psychologist and consultant who works with leadership teams on the research-grounded dimensions of team effectiveness, psychological safety, and culture change. With a PhD in organisational psychology and more than two decades of consulting experience across the Australian health, education, and corporate sectors, she brings a level of evidence-based precision to culture consulting that distinguishes her work from the majority of what is available in the Australian market.

Her consulting work focuses on the specific conditions that allow leadership teams to have genuine conversations about what is and is not working in their organisations, rather than the polished presentations that substitute for authentic dialogue in most boardrooms and executive offsite settings. Her contribution to the ANZ consulting conversation is the consistent demonstration that the most important consulting work is not the strategy document that results from an engagement but the quality of the conversation that produced it.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

Several globally recognised names were considered for this list but were deliberately set aside to make room for voices doing consequential work in the ANZ context. Adam Grant, Brene Brown, and Simon Sinek appear on almost every list of this kind, and for good reason given their extraordinary contributions to leadership and consulting thought. We chose to give that space to voices rooted in the ANZ context, rather than repeat names you have likely already encountered many times. The people on this list deserve to be just as widely known.

From the broader ANZ pool, practitioners including Ingrid Lagerwey, who brings a Western Australian perspective on organisational development, Jolie Wills, a New Zealand leadership and culture consultant with particular depth in the not-for-profit and education sectors, and Craig Sherborne, who produces some of the most thoughtful writing on leadership culture from a Queensland base, were also seriously considered. Each represents voices worth following for anyone wanting to go deeper into specific disciplines or geographic contexts within the ANZ consulting community.

Common Mistakes When Engaging Consulting Thought Leaders

The most common mistake organisations make when engaging consulting thought leaders is confusing inspiration with transformation. A keynote speaker who moves an audience on the day but leaves no lasting framework, language, or practice behind has delivered an entertainment experience, not a consulting outcome. The most valuable consulting thought leaders in this region are the ones whose engagements produce something that continues working after they leave the room.

A second common mistake is engaging a thought leader whose expertise is adjacent to the actual problem. An innovation consultant is not automatically the right voice for a culture problem, and a wellbeing researcher is not automatically equipped to help a leadership team navigate a governance crisis. The specificity of expertise matters. The 50 people on this list are categorised by discipline precisely to help organisations match the right expertise to the right challenge.

A third mistake is undervaluing geographic proximity. ANZ organisations consistently find that practitioners who understand the specific context of Australian and New Zealand organisations, including the regulatory environment, the cultural dynamics of leadership in both countries, and the specific economic pressures shaping ANZ businesses in 2026, produce more applicable outcomes than global names whose frameworks were built for different contexts. The majority of people on this list bring that ANZ-specific understanding to their work.

A fourth mistake is treating thought leadership content consumption as a substitute for genuine consulting engagement. Following a consultant on LinkedIn or reading their book is valuable preparation, not implementation. The organisations that get the most value from the thought leaders on this list are the ones that move from consumption to engagement, using the public content to identify the right voice and then investing in the deeper work that produces lasting change.

A fifth common mistake is not building on what came before. Many organisations engage a thought leader for a single event and then return to previous patterns within weeks. The most effective engagements in ANZ consulting are structured as ongoing relationships, not one-off events. The thought leaders on this list whose work is most commercially valuable are those who offer both the initial engagement and the follow-through that makes the initial investment worthwhile.

Implementation Guide: How to Engage ANZ Consulting Thought Leaders

The starting point for any effective engagement with a consulting thought leader is clarity on the outcome you are seeking. Not the format of the engagement, not the topic of the keynote, and not the workshop agenda, but the specific change you want to see in how your leadership team thinks, decides, or behaves as a result of the engagement. Clarity on the outcome shapes every other decision in the process.

Once the outcome is clear, the second step is matching the type of expertise to the nature of the problem. Use the categories in this blog as a starting framework: leadership consulting and facilitation for the team dynamics and leadership effectiveness problems that are preventing your organisation from performing at its potential; strategy and business advisory for the commercial, competitive, and market positioning questions that require external perspective; culture, change, and performance consulting for the people and culture dimensions of transformation; innovation and future-of-work consulting for the questions about how AI, hybrid work, and changing workforce expectations are reshaping what work means for your people.

The third step is scoping the engagement correctly. A keynote alone rarely produces lasting change. The most effective engagements combine a public event with either a facilitated leadership team session, an executive offsite, or an ongoing coaching relationship that applies the keynote themes to the specific context of your organisation. Ask every thought leader you are considering what they offer beyond the stage and whether they have experience translating their public content into organisational application.

The fourth step is checking the reference trail. The most credible consulting thought leaders in ANZ will provide references from organisations similar to yours without hesitation. A practitioner who has worked with schools can provide school references. A practitioner who has facilitated executive team offsites can connect you with other CEOs or chairs who can speak to the quality of the facilitation.

References from comparable contexts are far more useful than general testimonials.

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator and bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out with over 10,000 copies sold globally. He works with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world, delivering Working Genius facilitation, leadership keynotes, executive team offsites, and DISC workshops. To discuss your next engagement, email jonno@consultclarity.org. International travel is often far more affordable than organisations expect.

For more on team culture and leadership consulting, check out the blog post 35 Essential Thought Leaders on Team Culture (2026) at consultclarity.org/post/35-essential-thought-leaders-on-team-culture.

Frequently Asked Questions

How was this list compiled?

Every person on this list was selected on three criteria: a documented and verifiable contribution to the consulting conversation in Australia or New Zealand; active public engagement in 2025 or 2026 through writing, speaking, research, or media commentary; and a deliberate effort to reflect the geographic and disciplinary diversity of the ANZ consulting community. The list represents voices from multiple Australian states and multiple New Zealand cities, spanning leadership consulting, strategy, culture, wellbeing, innovation, and academic research.

What is the difference between a consulting thought leader and a management consultant?

A management consultant typically works within a firm to deliver project-based advisory services to clients. A consulting thought leader is someone who shapes the broader conversation about what consulting is, what it should be, and how organisations should approach the challenges consulting is meant to solve. Many people on this list do both: they have active consulting practices AND they produce public content that influences how practitioners and organisations think about leadership, strategy, culture, and change. The distinction matters less than the question of whether their work is genuinely useful to practitioners.

Can I hire someone to facilitate a leadership offsite or Working Genius workshop in Australia or New Zealand?

Absolutely. Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out, works with leadership teams across Australia, New Zealand, and globally, delivering Working Genius facilitation, leadership team offsites, DISC workshops, and keynote speaking. Many organisations find that flying Jonno in from Brisbane costs less than engaging high-profile local options, particularly when the engagement includes both facilitation and a keynote. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to discuss what would work best for your team.

How do I evaluate whether an ANZ consulting thought leader is right for my organisation?

Four questions matter most. First, do they have experience with organisations similar to yours in size, sector, and challenge? Second, can they provide references from comparable engagements that you can actually contact? Third, do they have a clear methodology or framework, not just a compelling story?

Fourth, do they offer something beyond the initial keynote or event that will help your organisation embed what they deliver? The most valuable consulting thought leaders in ANZ will answer all four questions clearly and specifically.

Are the people on this list available internationally?

Many of the practitioners on this list work globally as well as across ANZ. Several are already operating across multiple countries, and most are willing to travel for the right engagement. International travel costs are often lower than organisations expect, particularly for practitioners based in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, or Auckland who are within a short flight of most ANZ corporate centres. The best starting point is a direct conversation.

What are the most important consulting trends in Australia and New Zealand in 2026?

Three trends are reshaping ANZ consulting most significantly in 2026. The AI integration challenge is forcing every consulting practice to answer what it offers that AI cannot replicate, and the practitioners who have answered that question clearly are growing fastest. The psychosocial safety regulatory environment has created genuine demand for culture consulting that goes beyond wellbeing programmes to address the structural and leadership conditions that determine psychological risk. And the hybrid and remote work normalisation is creating a sustained demand for facilitation and culture consulting to rebuild the connection, trust, and shared purpose that physical co-presence used to provide automatically.

Final Thoughts

The consulting industry in Australia and New Zealand is producing some of the most practically grounded, evidence-based, and contextually relevant thought leadership available anywhere in the world. The 50 voices on this list are not pale imitations of global consulting celebrities. They are practitioners who have built frameworks from real experience in the ANZ context, who are testing their thinking against the specific conditions of Australian and New Zealand organisations, and who are producing content and consulting work that makes a genuine difference to the organisations that engage with them.

The question worth sitting with after reading this blog is not which of these people you should follow on LinkedIn. It is which of the challenges they are working on is most relevant to what your organisation is facing right now. The consulting thought leader who matters most to your organisation is not the most globally famous. It is the one whose expertise most directly addresses the specific problem your leadership team is struggling to solve.

If that problem involves difficult conversations, performance accountability, team dynamics, Working Genius facilitation, or building the culture that allows a leadership team to operate at its best, consider reaching out to Jonno White at jonno@consultclarity.org. His book Step Up or Step Out has helped over 10,000 leaders globally navigate the conversations that matter most. Whether your next engagement is a half-day workshop, a keynote, or a multi-day executive offsite, the conversation starts with an email.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000+ participating leaders and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements.

Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected.

To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Next Read

For more on thought leaders shaping the consulting industry globally, check out the blog post 50 Best Thought Leaders in Consulting (2026) at consultclarity.org/post/50-best-thought-leaders-in-consulting-2026. That list covers the global consulting voices, while this ANZ-specific directory focuses on the practitioners doing the most relevant work in the Australian and New Zealand context. Together, the two lists give you a comprehensive picture of who is shaping the consulting conversation across both the global and regional dimensions that matter to ANZ organisations.

The 50 global consulting thought leaders blog includes voices from Thinkers50, major consulting firm leaders, and independent advisors from across North America, Europe, and Asia, complementing the ANZ-specific practitioners featured here. Reading both will give you the comparative perspective needed to make the best decisions about whose thinking to follow and whose expertise to engage for your organisation's specific challenges.