2022 Graduate to Proficient

Jennifer Abrams is an international educational and communications consultant for public and independent schools, universities and non-profits. Jennifer trains and coaches teachers, administrators and others on new teacher/employee support, having hard conversations, collaboration skills and being your best adult self at work.

In her over two decades at Palo Alto Unified School District (Palo Alto, CA, USA), Jennifer was a high school English teacher, new teacher coach, and professional development facilitator. She left PAUSD in 2012 to start her full time communications consultancy in which she works with schools and organizations across the globe.

Jennifer presents at annual North American-based conferences such as Learning Forward, ASCD, NASSP, NAESP, AMLE, ISACS and the New Teacher Center Annual Symposium among others.  Internationally, she facilitated with the Teachers’ and Principals’ Centers for International School Leadership (TTC and PTC) and presents with EARCOS, NESA, ECIS, AISA, AASSA, CEESA and Tri-Association, and consults with schools across Asia, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Canada.

Jennifer’s publications include Having Hard Conversations, The Multigenerational Workplace: Communicating, Collaborating & Creating Community and Hard Conversations Unpacked – the Whos, the Whens and the What Ifs, Swimming in the Deep End: Four Foundational Skills for Leading Successful School Initiatives, and her upcoming book, Stretching Your Learning Edge: Growing (Up) at Work, will be out in April of 2021.

Jennifer has been recognized as one of “21 Women All K-12 Educators Need to Know” by Education Week’s ‘Finding Common Ground’ blog. She considers herself a “voice coach,” helping others learn how to best use their voices – be it collaborating on a team, presenting in front of a group, coaching a colleague, supervising an employee. Jennifer can be reached at jennifer@jenniferabrams.com, www.jenniferabrams.com, and on Twitter @jenniferabrams.

Dr Suzanne Goodman is founder and director of Goodman Solutions. Goodman Solutions specialises in leadership development, career coaching and conflict resolution services.

Suzanne is a nationally accredited mediator, conflict resolution trainer and coach. She is a certified international professional leadership coach specializing in Intelligent Leadership™, Conversational Leadership™ and Conscious Business coaching. She has a particular passion for women in leadership, middle management and future leaders. Suzanne is a trained administrator in many psychometric profiling tools such as Myers Briggs, DiSC, TKI Conflict Management to name a few.

From 2020, Suzanne’s leadership coaching clients came from a range of industries including government, resource sector, manufacturing, finances, IT etc consisting of many Fortune 500 companies. Most clients are in senior management roles or early career. So, she has a demonstrated breadth and depth understanding of career development. This is further supported by her role as national program coordinator for a specific group from the Royal Australian Navy in which she coordinates and coaches these Defence personnel in transitioning to civilian employment.

Suzanne has had over 35 years professional experience. Nearly 30 years was in education and the remainder as a small business owner. In education, she spent the majority of her time in leadership and management roles such as a school principal, curriculum development manager and state gifted and talented coordinator. She has also worked in tertiary environment where she collaborated with a team to write a new innovative Bachelor of Education. She has a Doctorate from UWA, she was honoured to be awarded a Churchill Fellowship and was trained by Steve Jobs ex-coach in Intelligent Leadership which underpins the philosophy of her impactful boutique business in coaching and training.

Suzanne is also interested in women’s equality and inclusivity. She has presented on a panel for the United Nations in WA and was a policy advisor in Fiji for the Department of Education and AusAid. When she was a school principal, she orchestrated a sister school in Cambodia with her school- all these experiences drive the core of her business, which is about paying forward, and acting with integrity, friendliness and excellence.  

Suzanne has a passion for paying it forward and as a Fellow for the Australian Institute of Management (AIM WA) she mentors early and middle managers. She is passionate about helping women in leadership grow to their potential, that is, becoming the person that they are truly capable of being, and ensuring women are the captaincy of their own ship. On that, she currently is a pro bono coach for the West Australian Aboriginal Leadership Institute and is a change maker for the Female Wave of Change offering leadership development training for women.

She considers herself a “work in progress” and is honoured to be supporting AISWA.