Austen Advisory partners with industry specialists across the globe to ensure highest quality, forward thinking work. Here is more information about some of our consulting partners and their areas of expertise.
MELANIE MARTINELLI
EUROPE
Learning Experience Designer, Facilitator
Melanie combines her entrepreneurial spirit with her 15+ years of experience in L&D to help build memorable & results-based learning experiences. Being a Certified KP Facilitator and Transfer Enabler, she applies strong business acumen & a deep understanding of what makes learning stick to support clients in being more strategic in their L&D initiatives. Melanie is the co-owner of the Learning Gym, where the focus is on upskilling learning professionals in the field of training design, delivery, and evaluation.
Melanie is highly intuitive and draws on a wide experience to help working professionals from across industries and cultures to grasp the various factors that drive training and transfer effectiveness. Melanie applies strong business acumen and deep understanding of how professionals learn best to design and deliver high impact workshops.
Being a Kirkpatrick Certified facilitator, Melanie effectively assists individuals and organizations in building memorable learning experiences linked to performance. Melanie firmly believes in creating learning solutions that are guaranteed to deliver results. She also works closely with Dr. Ina Weinbauer-Heidel from the Institute of Transfer Effectiveness and uses the “12 levers of transfer effectiveness methodology” to develop scientifically sound and practical transfer concepts.
After living in India for 17 years & working extensively across the APAC region, Melanie in 2021 moved back to her hometown Basel together with her Indian husband and son.
SARAH KALMETA
USA
Facilitator, Transition Coach, Aviation Industry Specialist
Sarah has a rich and diverse background in aviation including working with flight schools, dispatching in the private jet world, providing flight briefings, conducting training programmes and co-teaching a course at HKUSPACE in Hong Kong since 2005. Starting her career in the United States, Sarah then moved to Singapore in 2010, mainland China in 2011 and finally Hong Kong in 2012 where she is a permanent resident and set up her consulting business. Sarah recently pivoted to live in Austin, TX in 2022.
Sarah’s 17+ years of experience in dynamic, multi-cultural environments puts her in a unique position well suited for mindset, resilience and aviation specific training initiatives. She has specifically designed programmes and workshops for aviation companies to support flight crew, schedulers & dispatchers, ground staff and line personnel as she understands their world. Sarah can bridge the gap between the previously ignored aspects of Human Factors that not only affects safety in the cockpit and on the tarmac, but longevity of aviation.
Sarah has been on, and is still an active member of numerous Advisory Boards for aviation programmes to enhance their training and course development. She sat on the Board of Governors for the Asian Business Aviation Association (AsBAA) and was the Head of the Discovery Programme, an educational outreach initiative to attract and retain talent for the industry from Apr 2017-Mar 2021.
CHUEN CHUEN YEO
SINGAPORE
Facilitator and Executive Coach
Chuen Chuen Yeo is a multi-award-winning executive coach and facilitator based in Singapore. She specialises in leadership agility, recognising its critical importance in navigating the complexities of today’s workplace and challenging environment.
She has partnered with many senior leaders from global, Fortune 500 organisations, helping them become disruption-resilient and future-fit.
Author of The 8 Paradoxes of Leadership Agility, Chuen Chuen’s coaching effectiveness is proven by her long-term relationship with returning clients, referrals, and highly satisfied clients. As an adult educator solutionist, she blends well-grounded approaches seamlessly to help leaders generate deep insights, and facilitate the translation of these into powerful motivation.
Working as a business partner to organisations like Cochlear, SWIFT and ICAP-Singapore, she knows what is necessary for leaders to shed outdated mindsets and quickly adopt new ways of leadership to achieve outstanding results.
BRIAN HENDERSON
HONG KONG
Founder, Whole Business Wellness Limited, C-suite leader
Brian founded Whole Business Wellness in 2020 to provide multi-disciplinary wellness services to organisations using resilience building, yoga, mindfulness, design thinking and 30 years of business leadership experience to build wellness management capabilities at individual, team and organisational level. Brian is a board member of The Women’s Foundation and was co-founding Chair of the Male Allies initiative. He was recognised for this as the 2017 American Chamber of Commerce Champion for the Advancement of Women. Previously, Brian was Chief Operating Officer at Baker McKenzie for 8 years and before that spent 13 years at Linklaters in a variety of global leadership roles.
Additionally, Brian is developing a portfolio career including mentoring, consulting to law firms, additional NGO board roles and NED roles.
Brian was born in Belfast and has previously lived and worked in London and Paris. He is a qualified lawyer, has an MBA from Cranfield University and is an accredited MBTI practitioner. Brian and Mary have two adult children living and working in the UK, and a West Highland terrier living with them in HK. When not walking the dog, Brian enjoys watersports, including sailing, outrigger canoeing and open water swimming.
https://www.wholebusinesswellness.com
DHRUTI SHAH
SINGAPORE/ INDIA
Resilience & Leadership Coach
Dhruti has 15 years of business experience in Human Resources, Organizational Development, and Marketing.
Born in Mumbai, India, she has had the opportunity to work in three different countries – India, USA, and Singapore, which has solidified her understanding of various cultures. Working in different geographies has also given her a unique perspective on human behaviour. She believes that despite the cultural diversities and varied outward appearances, at our core, we all want to succeed and experience the joy of following our passion.
Dhruti partners with organisations and individuals to build their resilience, and supports them in achieving their goals. She is the author of the book titled ‘The Resilient Entrepreneur – Beat the odds and pave the path to a successful start-up’.
ELLEN BARD
ASIA
Assessment Expert, Cross-cultural Working Specialist and Productivity and Work-Life Balance Coach
Ellen is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and with more than fourteen years of business experience. After her Masters degree in 2001 at the University of Manchester’s Business School, she worked for a small consultancy before joining SHL, a UK-based talent measurement and management consultancy. She has been based in both the UK and Ireland, and was part of the UK management team when she left SHL in 2012 to become an independent consultant.
Since then she has worked extensively across SE Asia and the Middle East, giving her the opportunity to develop her interest in working across cultures with clients in many sectors, from oil and gas to retail, from financial services to manufacturing. Her work has included the design and delivery of: executive assessments; large-scale assessment programs; complex exercise design; psychometric products; job analysis and competency design; management development programs; 360 degree feedback facilitation and coaching; and training courses. She is a Prince2 trained Project Manager.
Based in Thailand for the last three years, she is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychology Society, and writes a popular blog and resources hub at ellenbard.com to provide evidence-based advice and support to people on dealing with the challenges and demands of today’s working environment. She has been featured in several high profile publications – including the Huffington Post and the Financial Times – as a thought leader in productivity, and the challenges of work-life balance in the modern fast-paced, technology-enabled world.
ALEXANDRA LAMB
USA/ ASIA
Emerging Leader and Organisational Development Specialist
Alexandra has extensive experience in Human Capital Consulting across Asia Pacific. She is now based in California, USA. With 12+ years in professional practice, Alex has worked in both client-facing and internal practitioner roles, delivering programs across the full talent spectrum.
Alex partners with clients to design and deliver impactful development initiatives, talent strategy and change management projects, to coach high-potentials, and to review and optimize in-house talent functions to deliver an employee-centric model of performance.
Alex has a focus on Emerging Leaders, and an interest in leveraging innovation and technology to co-create meaningful, high-performance cultures.
Alex has a BA in Psychology from the University of Newcastle, Australia, an EMCCC from INSEAD and is an IECL certified coach.
https://www.lanternerouge.online
ALEX FRADERA
EUROPE
Developing understanding through discussion and capabilities through play
Alex is an independent work psychologist with over nine years of professional experience. Prior to this, he was a PhD-trained neuropsychologist. His interests focus on two strands of developing people. The first is helping people resolve particular obstacles that they face, either in their immediate working priorities or more broadly for their professional life. Together, a fuller picture of the situation gets built, allowing understanding of why things have gone astray and who has the agency to change this.
Another strand is unlocking capabilities through experiential learning. This includes increasing confidence, creativity, team collaboration and even charisma. He uses insights from psychology and neuroscience together with engaging techniques drawn from games and theatre resulting in evidence-based and lively ways to develop. He is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychology Society and regularly writes for them at the award-winning science website The Research Digest.
MAC LING
ASIA
Executive Coach and Experiential Learning Specialist
Mac Ling is an Executive Coach with Hong Kong-based Coaching Collective. He has been working with leaders in the not-for-profit and for-profit worlds since 2006 and has coached leaders from a wide variety of spheres of influence: entrepreneurs, business leaders, designers, pastors, restauranteurs, NGO leaders, management consultants, and others. He has a deep passion for developing immersive experiences which drive his clients to see the world with new lenses, enabling powerful self-reflection and transformational growth. In 2013, he launched urbanTOX, an entrepreneurial venture in Bangkok offering customised travel experiences which combined storytelling, curated “local” experiences, and culinary adventures.
Mac has a B.Sc. from UC San Diego in Cognitive Science, and an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia. Mac is a certified Advanced Master Coach and was trained at the Center for Advanced Coaching.
JANINE MANNING
ASIA PACIFIC
Executive Coach & Personal Branding Specialist
Janine is an experienced executive coach with a speciality in personal branding for individuals and corporate teams. She has over fifteen years of global business experience and six years of coaching corporate clients in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
As Director of Roar Coaching Janine delivers bespoke coaching programs that enable strong and sustainable results in the area of self-actualisation, leadership and personal brand mastery.
Janine is able to bring a wealth of cross-industry experience to the coaching partnership having worked with clients in mining, banking, telecommunications, finance, transport, retail, business consultation, government, equipment, diary, property, media, engineering, NGO, health, and energy.
Janine is an Accredited Business Partner of Walking TALL International, a global personal brand
program that aims to maximise the investment in the corporate personality through the enablement and engagement of an organisation’s people.
Janine holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Curtin University of Technology in Australia, an ACC Certification with the International Coaching Federation (ICF), a Lambent International Coaching Certification (ICC, EQA EMCC) and is a certified Neuro Linguistics Programming Practitioner (NLP).