Travels From Western Australia
Speaker Topics
Courage at the Core: Leading with Humanity in Complex Systems
In industries defined by volatility, disruption, and complexity, it’s not technical expertise that sets great leaders apart — it’s courage and humanity.
This keynote explores how leaders can choose courage over comfort, vulnerability over perfection, and humanity over hierarchy. Mel Thorpe draws on lived experience working with executives, boards, and frontline teams through mergers, integrations, and cultural transformations. The stories illustrate how courageous leadership ripples outward: accelerating trust, enabling innovation, and anchoring organisations through uncertainty.
Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of how to connect courage to practical action — from holding difficult conversations and addressing trust gaps, to showing up authentically in rooms of influence. Courage is not about being fearless; it’s about leading fearlessly in service of something greater.
From Good to Great: What High-Performing Teams Do Differently
Every leader wants a high-performing team — but few know how to deliberately build one. What separates “good” teams from “great” ones isn’t talent or luck; it’s the conditions leaders create.
In this keynote, Mel Thorpe unpacks five proven factors that make teams thrive: trust, psychological safety, clarity of purpose, disciplined execution, and renewal. Drawing on insights from large-scale transformations in mining and beyond, Mel brings these principles to life with real-world stories. Leaders will walk away with practical levers they can apply immediately to shift team dynamics and lift performance. This is about moving beyond incremental gains — to creating teams that are resilient, innovative, and capable of extraordinary results.
Read lessThe Art and Science of Facilitation: Unlocking Voices, Unlocking Strategy
Facilitation is more than running a meeting — it’s the art and science of accelerating people and strategy. In today’s workplaces, leaders are expected to move quickly, make sense of complexity, and unlock the best thinking from diverse teams. Yet too often, conversations stall, voices go unheard, and decisions are delayed.
Drawing on decades of leadership work across mining, education, and executive teams, this keynote shows how facilitation is the hidden superpower of high-performing leaders. Participants will learn how to balance the art of reading the room, managing energy, and navigating group dynamics with the science of structure, evidence-based tools, and strategic models. The result? Leaders who can create clarity, shift culture, and turn conversations into accelerated action.
Read lessYour Leadership Shadow: The Ripple Effect That Accelerates or Derails Teams
Every leader casts a shadow — the unspoken influence that shapes team culture, performance, and trust. Whether you intend it or not, your behaviours, presence, and decisions create a ripple effect. The question is: does your shadow accelerate or derail your team?
In this keynote, Mel Thorpe helps leaders explore the impact of their “leadership shadow” and how to make it intentional. Using practical frameworks such as BRAVING (Brené Brown), the Trust Equation, and enterprise-level maturity models, she demonstrates how leaders can align their shadow with strategy, values, and culture.
Audiences will leave with insights on how to identify their current shadow, how others experience them, and how small shifts can create exponential impact. By owning and reshaping their shadow, leaders can accelerate performance, lift engagement, and build cultures of trust that sustain results long after the keynote ends.
Mel Thorpe
Strategic Facilitator and Executive Coach: Driving Clarity, Connection & Performance for Leaders and Teams
Mel Thorpe is a dynamic strategic facilitator and executive coach who brings over two decades of experience in leadership development, operational transformation, and team acceleration. With more than 200 strategy workshops and 300 executive engagements under her belt, Mel is known for designing and delivering high-impact sessions that drive results, clarity, and connection.
As a trusted executive coach to senior leadership teams, Mel works at the intersection of strategy, culture, and performance—supporting C-suite leaders to navigate complexity, sharpen alignment, and lead with purpose. She is regularly engaged by peak bodies and government agencies to facilitate strategic dialogue, develop leadership capability, and embed behavioural change across sectors.
Clients describe Mel as energetic, insightful, and deeply engaging—able to build exceptional rapport with stakeholders at all levels. Whether guiding a board through complex strategy and risk discussions or coaching a first-time manager, she brings a unique blend of sharp commercial acumen and human insight. Her sessions are practical, tailored, and grounded in real-time feedback and behavioural science.
Mel’s impact spans sectors including mining, oil & gas, law, government, medical research, education, and banking—working with leaders from the frontline to the C-suite across Australia and the Asia-Pacific.
Additionally, Mel has held senior roles across education, law, and consulting. She is the founder of Mel Thorpe Consulting and a trusted partner with leading firms including Korn Ferry and LHH, where she works with clients such as BHP, Rio Tinto, Synergy, Curtin University, Woolworths, and Commonwealth Bank.
She is regularly called on to coach executive leadership teams and facilitate whole-of-organisation strategy sessions for government departments, peak industry groups, and research institutions.
Mel is a Squadify Pro Coach and a certified Scrum Master as part of the Scrum Master Alliance facilitation style blends data-driven insights with curiosity and connection, making her a sought-after speaker, coach, and advisor.