The Hatchery

Karen Harfield is currently the General Manager of the Enterprise Portfolio Management Office having joined the Australian Public Service in 2008.

Prior to joining Services Australia, Karen was the First Assistant Secretary for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. In 2011 Karen led the programme of work developing the National Intelligence Fusion Capability that provides sophisticated data analytics and visualisation tools used in multiple cross-government operations and task-forces whilst at the Australian Crime Commission.

Prior to moving to Australia with her family Karen spent sixteen years in UK law enforcement working for Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, the National Crime Squad and Warwickshire Police. Karen acquired strategic, project and operational expertise in a variety of roles including intelligence, audit and inspection, investigation, and community policing.

Karen co-authors Covert Investigation published by Oxford University Press (currently writing the 6th Edition). Karen has also co-authored Investigation, Community and Partnerships (OUP 2008).

Jackie is a Project Leader with over 20 years of experience in Portfolio Management, Program Delivery and Business Operations Management. Jackie worked in various countries- US, Malaysia and now Australia for large organisations like Hewlett Packard (HP), Dell, Optus before she decided to call nbn home. Jackie specialises in:

Jackie is currently an Executive Manager in nbn where she leads one of the PMO’s, comprising of a team of program managers, projects managers, Business Analysts, Portfolio manager and PMO governance leads.

A strong believer in the power of people, Jackie is a mentor to women seeking guidance on career development and a coach of people looking to get their foot into project management.

Jackie is passionate about innovation and believes working in hybrid project management & governance frameworks will allow individuals to be equip with various tools and be flexible in their approach. It also ensures that the governance frameworks that we implement is fit for purpose based on business maturity and demand. During her free time, Jackie spends most her time learning new cooking recipes as she can’t travel far to experience good food, and coaching her 2 dogs she adopted.

Leisel’s professional swimming career includes 14 individual world records, 9 Olympic medals – 3 Gold, 5 Silver and 1 Bronze, 7 World Championships titles, 10 Commonwealth Games Gold medals and 23 National titles.

While her medals and world record swims speak for themselves, these days Leisel is driven by a different world changing pursuit. As an author and professional speaker, her mission is to share principles of truth, integrity, and authenticity in life and business.

Leisel shares a very personal journey of what it is to be an Olympian – The joys, as well as the pain. Leisel enjoyed undeniable success in the pool but she was also the victim of public scrutiny and perception. At such a young age pressures to be thin or act a certain way took a toll, and it wasn’t until she was able to unlock authenticity, that she was able to find freedom.

Elizabeth Foley is a seasoned Non-Executive Director and CEO, with experience across a range of sectors, including financial services, digital innovation, health and medical research and professional services industries. Comfortable in the start-up, not-for-profit or traditional large corporate and highly regulated environments, Elizabeth was CEO at the Australian Institute of Project Management from 2019 to 2021 where she wrote two advocacy papers on gender equity in the workplace specifically for the project management profession.

A strong advocate for gender equality, Elizabeth is a non-executive director of the Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS). She has also worked at Chief Executive Women as Director Research and Business Engagement. She brings exemplary stakeholder management credentials, particularly working with senior levels of government, including Federal, State MP’s and senators, as well as senior public servants.

Elizabeth Foley is a seasoned Non-Executive Director and CEO, with experience across a range of sectors, including financial services, digital innovation, health and medical research and professional services industries. Comfortable in the start-up, not-for-profit or traditional large corporate and highly regulated environments, Elizabeth was CEO at the Australian Institute of Project Management from 2019 to 2021 where she wrote two advocacy papers on gender equity in the workplace specifically for the project management profession.

A strong advocate for gender equality, Elizabeth is a non-executive director of the Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS). She has also worked at Chief Executive Women as Director Research and Business Engagement. She brings exemplary stakeholder management credentials, particularly working with senior levels of government, including Federal, State MP’s and senators, as well as senior public servants.

Michele is responsible for the strategic and operational planning of OIR’s IT functions. Michele provides leadership, management and governance of information technology strategy and architecture ensuring alignment with OIR’s strategic direction. Michele works closely with the OIR senior leadership group and has direct reports over Cyber Security, Information Management, Service Support, Operations, Stakeholder Engagement and a large and complex Service Delivery Transformation Program. Michele holds overall responsibility for 50+ staff and a significant IT budget.

Michele is an experienced Portfolio, Project & Program Management Director, leading people, process and technology change in government. Working in the Information, Communications & Technology field leading projects and programs requiring planning, design and strategic alignment. Michele delivers success by recruiting, managing and leading high performing teams through varying degrees of change, ambiguity and uncertainty. Her leadership success is attributed to her care, strength in coaching and genuine concern for her staff. She drives performance through mentoring, sharing and valuing diversity. Her expertise and demonstrated experience in human resource management delivers results.

Michele is a accredited, trained and experienced in the use of contemporary methodologies; PRINCE2, MSP, MoR, Benefits & P3O and ProSci Change Management.

Angela is the Project Director for the Sydney Metro – Western Sydney Airport project. Responsible for the delivery and construction of this multi-billion dollar city-shaping infrastructure project, the new metro service will form the transport spine for Greater Western Sydney, connecting travellers with the new Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport and the growing region.

Prior to joining Sydney Metro in 2020, Angela was the Senior Project Director working on the Westmead Health Precinct Redevelopment project, a large brownfield campus with a vision to deliver design excellence, innovation, place-making and consumer satisfaction. Angela has also delivered projects in the justice, education and local government sectors and has a Bachelor of Interior Architecture and a Master of Construction Project Management.

Elena is a senior manager and leader with a track record of successfully delivering portfolios, programs, and projects in complex environments. With over 13 years of hands-on delivery experience, Elena worked across several industries including Banking, IT, Civil Construction, Electricity Transmission and Mining. Elena is a visionary thinker who works closely with leadership teams and boards to build sustainable systems and processes that enable successful delivery of corporate objectives.

She believes in driving capability improvements through embracing diversity and inclusion on all levels of the business. Her key areas of expertise include program and portfolio management, organisational strategy implementation, international marketing, and development and roll out of fit-for-purpose project management frameworks.

Tamara Pratt is a senior executive with over 25 years’ experience specialising in business transformation. She is experienced in translating an organisation’s corporate vision and strategy into portfolios and programs of work that deliver successfully against performance indicators. She is experienced in establishing high-performing ePMOs, and leads program, project and operational teams through the initiation and and delivery phases, engaging and influencing all levels of stakeholders, and utlimately delivering positive business change. Tamara has engaged in various sectors including private, corporate, financial services, mining, superannuation, state and federal government and education sectors and predominantly in the adoption and alignment of information technology initatives.

I am a project leader who is committed to making HOW we do things along the way, just as important as WHAT we achieve at the end.

I love working in construction, and I feel proud every day to work with amazing people, and to get to contribute to exciting and iconic railway projects around the world.
I have enjoyed a varied career so far, leading digital media transformation, enabling works programmes, organisational change initiatives, bridge upgrades and tunnel ventilation projects – all under the banner of rail.
I love that rail can mean so many things and that means we need so many different types of people. I think every day about what I can do within my sphere of influence to break down barriers to entry and help drive the change I want to see for our industry.

I try to do my job with creativity, analytical thinking, kindness and emotional intelligence, and seek to build teams which share these core values and bring their own special stamp to the project.

You can usually count on me to crack a joke or get the giggles at some point (probably at my own joke), but that’s me, and I like to bring my whole self to work.