About Catherine
Why I Care About How We Think.
More than seven years leading digital transformation across Queensland Government — and one pattern that kept showing up.
"Projects rarely fail because people don't care. They fail because we solve the wrong problem."
The story
I've spent more than seven years leading digital transformation, customer experience and service design across Queensland Government and public sector organisations. And in that time, I kept seeing the same thing.
Capable, caring teams. Real effort. Genuine commitment to doing good work. And yet — solutions that didn't land. Projects that ran over time and budget. Services that worked perfectly in the design room and fell apart in the real world.
It wasn't a lack of talent or effort. It was something more fundamental: the real problem was never quite pinned down. Teams were solving the wrong problem, relying on assumptions instead of evidence, or optimising one part of a system without understanding how everything connected.
The insight
Slow down just enough to think differently.
The organisations that consistently deliver better outcomes aren't the ones that move fastest — they're the ones that ask better questions before they start. They test assumptions before they invest. They understand the whole system before they optimise a part of it. That's the shift I help teams make.
How I facilitate
Real collaboration often feels messy.
Great workshops don't happen because everyone agrees immediately — they happen because people feel safe enough to disagree first. The most valuable conversations are often the uncomfortable ones: the ones where someone finally says what everyone else has been thinking.
My role as a facilitator isn't to have all the answers. It's to create the conditions for better thinking — to hold space for the kind of honest, curious, rigorous conversation that leads to decisions people actually stand behind.
Sometimes the first workshop isn't about solving the problem at all. It's about building enough trust for better conversations to happen later. That's not a failure of process — it's the process working.
Experience
Seven years. Dozens of projects. One consistent focus.
Digital transformation leadership
More than six years leading digital transformation, customer experience and service design across Queensland Government and public sector organisations.
Award-winning practitioner
Recognised for excellence in transformation leadership and human-centred design practice across the public sector.
Keynote speaker & facilitator
Speaking and facilitating at conferences, leadership programs and workshops across government, technology, and professional associations.
Human-centred design
Deep expertise in service design, customer experience, journey mapping, co-design and systems thinking — applied to real, complex problems.
Outside the work
When I'm not on stage, you'll usually find me at the ballet barre — I'm currently learning pointe, and there's something about the discipline and the music that switches my brain off from everything else in the best way. I'm Brisbane born and bred, and my husband, our rough collie Maximus and I spend most weekends exploring South East Queensland, whether that's out on the water (yes, Max rides shotgun on the jetski) or up in the mountains. And if you want to talk restaurant recommendations — particularly Italian — I'm always up for that conversation too.
If this way of thinking sounds like what your team or event needs —
Let's talk.