When working, I’m an actor with an MBA and a second Masters degree, in Applied Positive Psychology. I’ve been helping people to improve their commercial behaviours for more than thirty years because it fascinates me and I love to do it. I believe in the scientific method… and also the artistic method, and I love combining them to do useful things. I’ve been a dedicated at-home dad (juggling family with work in a two-career household), and fully understand the challenges of balancing work and family for twenty-first century career-oriented people.

My career can be kind-of-split into four overlapping decades:

• Over a decade in comedy as both entrepreneur and performer — Highlights: I was on the management committee that dreamed up and put together the very first Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and I also founded “Troupe du Jour” which entertained and trained corporate Australia for fifteen years
• Maintained a professional acting career alongside other work — highlights: roles in three feature films including an AFI Best Film, and an ongoing role in the supporting cast of the hit TV comedy, Thank God You’re Here
• As I studied and then completed a part-time MBA (with distinctions in strategy and leadership), I shifted into an overlapping two-to-three decades as both designer and facilitator of conferences and leadership development workshops — drawing on the skills that actors and improvisors use to adapt their behaviour, communicate effectively and influence relationships; and marrying that with interrogation of competitive strategy from an economist’s and financier’s point of view
• Then gradually shifted into broader, solo business consulting in change and communication, with an emphasis in positive psychology, in which I completed my second Masters degree, at Melbourne University, with first-class honours. Positive psychology applies scientific method to questions about making things better for individuals and organisations.

My favourite two research questions: How do we make life more worth living, for more of the people, more of the time? And how do large commercial organisations maximise their contributions using sound economics and sound psychology?

My favourite quote: “For the simplicity that lies this side of complexity, I would not give a fig, but for the simplicity that lies on the other side of complexity, I would give my life.” Oliver Wendell-Holmes

My favourite hobbies: Walking with my wife; Catching up with my two adult kids; Cooking; Forgetting myself at the footy