Thriving Workplace Culture

Positive Organisational Culture Delivers Increased Innovation, Wellbeing, and Financial Sustainability

Leading Lighter Consulting Pty Ltd works with leaders and organisations to create positive workplace cultures where everyone can thrive. Established by Director and CEO Jo Porter, we take a strengths-based, solution focused approach to our work, applying evidence-based tools and frameworks to enhance leadership capability and enable organisations to deliver their strategic goals.

Understanding

Many, but not all, of our clients are leaders and organisations in the STEMM research sector, playing key roles in the innovation ecosystem. Our deep understanding of research leadership and the unique challenges and opportunities faced to deliver impact in your environment mean we are well positioned to walk alongside you and enable you and your team’s performance in that context.

Growth

Leadership of large, collaborative research programs requires self-awareness, courage, energy, trust, and an open, curious mindset. It requires a leadership toolkit of frameworks and strategies to create opportunities and face whatever challenges arise.

Support

Having the right support is essential as you navigate an increasingly challenging context and take on the inner growth required to meet these challenges with confidence.

Transformation

Leading Lighter works with clients to transform or evolve their workplace culture. We develop leaders and teams at all levels of organisations through our leadership programs, bespoke workshops, and 1:1 coaching.

Meet our Team

Jo Porter (she/her)

Director and CEO

Jo has over 20 years’ experience as an Organisational & Leadership Development professional. She has extensive experience working in the Scientific Research and STEMM Sector, including over 13 years developing and coaching leaders at all levels in Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO.

She is passionate about enabling leaders, teams, and organisations to thrive. Jo works with leaders and organisations at the intersection of their performance and wellbeing. Leveraging evidence-based tools and frameworks, Jo creates positive cultures through uplifting leadership capability, ensuring leaders can deliver their vision and strategic goals without burnout.

Jo is also available for speaking engagements by request.

Qualifications

Master of Applied Positive Psychology, 1st Class, University of Melbourne

Graduate Certificate Executive Management & Development, UNSW Business School

Bachelor of Human Resources & Psychology

Certifications

Strengths Profile Master Practitioner

Human Synergistics LSI & GSI (Lifetime Accreditation)

Advanced Facilitation, Trevor Bentley & ThinkHCI

Global Leadership Wellbeing Survey (GLWS)

Turning Learning into Action (TLA)

Hogan HPI, HDS & MVPI

Team Management Profile (TMP)

Accredited Results Coach, Neuroleadership Group

Design Thinking – Stanford University

MBTI, 16PF, & OPQ 32

Prosci Change Management Certification

DDI Manager Ready and Leadership Mirror

Kristine Manjares (she/her)

Project Management and Customer Service

Drawing from a decade-long career in the BPO industry, Kristine dedicated nine years of her expertise to mastering Quality Assurance. In 2018, she embarked on a freelance journey, bringing her wealth of knowledge to a wider audience.

Today, Kristine extends her invaluable support to C-Suite Executives, Business Coaches, and Business Owners, offering a versatile suite of services that encompasses project management and administrative support. Her primary objective is to empower her clients, enabling them to harness her seasoned experience and skills for more streamlined and effective operations in both their professional and personal lives.

Our Associates

Priya Gwynne (she/her)

Senior Consultant

Priya is a Learning and Organisational Development specialist with 20 years’ experience working in corporate and consulting roles. She has worked across both the private and public sector, including Professional Services, Scientific Research and STEMM, and Financial Services. Priya is skilled in the design, facilitation, and evaluation of customised leadership, talent, culture, and wellbeing solutions. She has designed comprehensive capability development frameworks and led teams to deliver enterprise-wide programs.

Priya’s approach is deeply influenced by her knowledge and experience of positive psychology, and she leverages evidence-based tools and frameworks in her work. Her passion is helping individuals and teams thrive and perform at their best.

Qualifications

Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Psychology and a Graduate Diploma in Employee Relations and Human Resource Management from the University of Melbourne

Coaching accreditation through the NeuroLeadership Group

Certifications

Brain-based Coaching – NeuroLeadership Group

Global Leadership Wellbeing Survey (GLWS) – EEK& SENSE

Life Styles Inventory (LSI) – Human Synergistics

Birkman Certified Professional

Team Management Profile - TMS

Train-the-trainer – DDI

Design Thinking – Stanford University

Prosci Change Management

Targeted Selection & Behavioural Interviewing – DDI

Manager Ready Assessment – DDI

Leadership Mirror 360 - DDI

Our Values

+ Quality

We do our very best to ensure the highest quality in our programs and solutions. We listen intently to the needs and feedback of our clients and allow these insights to shape and guide our solutions. We leverage evidence-based tools and frameworks in our work and our decades of expertise to tailor all our offerings to your specific people, strategy, and context. Every one of our team has decades of experience and brings a unique and complementary skillset to enhance the quality of our products and services.

We know that your organisation is constantly shifting and changing in response to the broader social, economic, and political system.

When we create a solution for you, we are able to respond to changing needs as the project evolves. This ensures a constant connection and alignment between our work and your objectives. We give leaders and organisations the tools, strategies, capability, and confidence for optimal performance and to be able to respond to our increasingly complex world.

+ Integrity

We always conduct ourselves with integrity. We want to deeply understand your context and desired solutions to recommend the best path forward and we are honest in our recommended solutions, if we think there is a more effective approach we will tell you, even if that means you go somewhere else. We will never sell you a solution and then send in a graduate to deliver the work. We are trustworthy and honour confidentiality at all times, and we will only break confidentiality if someone says they may hurt themselves, hurt someone else, or do something illegal.

Our solutions are designed to enhance culture and provide opportunities for development. This can sometimes mean we need to share messages that are difficult to hear or challenge particular behaviours or practices. Despite this you can be confident we are walking your path alongside you and will help you respond constructively and in a way that will lead to more positive outcomes.

+ Co-Creation

This is how we work with our clients and it is the way we encourage leaders and organisations to work. We won’t come and do things to you; we will enable the realisation of potential that already exists in you and your organisation. We are not indispensable, and it is not our intention to become indispensable. We want the people we work with to grow and be better for our support but not feel like they can’t do it without us.

Co-creation is also a characteristic we encourage in our clients. The world, organisations, and people are complex. There is no one right way of doing something. Leaders, even those with deep technical expertise, must ask questions, be humble, and understand that in today’s complex world there is often no single answer and no single person who has the answer to any question or problem. The only way we can move forward in the modern world is together.

Acknowledgement of Country

Leading Lighter acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land on which we live and work. We recognise their continuing connection to these lands, waters, and communities and pay our respects to Elders past and present.

Terms and conditions