Ruth Callaghan
Chief Innovation Officer & Director
Purple
Ruth is Chief Innovation Officer at Purple, as well as a sought-after presenter, media strategist, crisis communications practitioner, former journalist and digital advisor.
She leads a team of AI presenters and has delivered workshops to more than 6500 individuals since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, becoming a thought leader and policy advisor in this emerging space.
Ruth specialises in simplifying the complexities around generative AI, helping people undertake the personal journey of understanding, experimentation and critical thinking needed to make AI work. In doing so, she breaks down barriers to adoption and supports the change management needed for digital transformation.
Through flexible and tailored sessions — both in person and online — she can speak to use cases across industries, including internal time and resource savings, external value creation and next-step innovation using generative AI.
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Juliet Borschoff
Founder
Design Merchants
Juliet Borshoff is the Founder and Creative Director of Design Merchants, with over 25 years’ experience in visual merchandising and retail strategy. She began her career with Freedom Furniture, where she spent 13 years in roles including State Visual Merchandising Manager for WA & NT, overseeing major store openings and developing national display standards.
Since founding Design Merchants in 2011, Juliet has worked with leading brands and centres including Westfield, Bankwest, Karrinyup, and Raine Square, as well as SMEs seeking practical retail solutions. She is an experienced facilitator, delivering workshops for the City of Perth, Small Business Development Corporation, Flight Centre, Kerastase and more.
Juliet holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (UWA) and a Graduate Certificate in Project Management (Curtin University), with additional qualifications in Interior Design and Training & Assessment. She is recognised for engaging delivery, combining creativity with practical retail tools that drive commercial outcomes.
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Melanie Freeman
Director of Human Performance
Performance Science
Melanie has over 25 years as an experienced organisational development consultant and psychologist. Her focus is on enhancing leadership and organisational capabilities to ensure high performance and effectiveness. She collaborates with teams to deliver high performance outcomes, to challenge mindsets and uses evidenced based methodologies and approaches.
Melanie started her consulting career in both HR system design and safety culture and psychosocial hazard management in major hazard facilities and has always integrated interventions and change in larger HR and OD systems to ensure sustainability and stickability.
Melanie has worked across a range of industries including oil and gas, mining, IT, finance, government, defence, utilities and not-for-profit. Melanie has also spent some time working in international development where she has focused on capacity building leaders and local HR practitioners. She has also worked previously full-time and part-time as a lecturer on the Masters of Organisational Psychology at Murdoch University where she had a focus on safety systems, work and well-being, managing workplace mental health and psychosocial risks.
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Harriet Mellor
Sales Enablement + Lead Development Specialist
Your Sales Co.
Harriet Mellor is a highly experienced sales and customer engagement trainer with over 15 years’ experience leading revenue growth and developing high-performing teams. Responsible for generating more than $10M in annual sales revenue during her career, Harriet now focuses on empowering others — having trained over 1,500 salespeople across Australia, the UK, and Malaysia. She designs and delivers practical, outcome-focused programs that help participants strengthen their customer service skills, build confidence in sales conversations, and apply proven techniques for upselling and cross-selling.
After relocating to Western Australia over 10 years ago, Harriet has travelled extensively across the state and is strongly connected to the goal of driving more opportunity for people to explore and experience WA’s regions. This perspective allows her to align visitor engagement skills with the broader mission of supporting sustainable regional tourism growth.
Harriet’s facilitation style is energetic, practical, and engaging. She focuses on providing participants with simple, repeatable frameworks they can immediately implement in their conversations. Each session is built around real-world scenarios and storytelling, ensuring learning feels relevant and directly applicable.
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Amanda Kendle
Owner
Amanda Kendle Consulting
Amanda Kendle combines work in social media and blogging with her love of travel: she has run a consultancy teaching and training small business owners how to use social media and other online technologies for promotions since 2010, does regular public speaking on social media and travel topics and teaches undergraduates at Murdoch University how to run their own business. Amanda's travel blog at NotABallerina.com has been online since 2005 and she has run The Thoughtful Travel Podcast since 2016, with episodes now being downloaded thousands of times each week. She's a member of the Australian Society of Travel Writers and is writing a book on thoughtful travel.
