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About Us
History
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Transforming organisations and communities has been lifelong work for Josephine Palermo, Director, Geared for Growth. With a PhD in Organisational Psychology and numerous publications in areas of quality enhancement, cultural change, coaching and leadership, she creates lasting change in people, processes, and total systems.
She has vast experience in designing and implementing people and culture strategies across many sectors / industries. Recent programs included driving a new customer advocacy strategy across Telstra Operations 14000 employees and the successful delivery of large digital transformation. The agile transformation of teams she co-led in Telstra IT resulted in an increase in team trust and clarity across 3000 staff. Strategy implementation once took 12 months now takes 3-4 months. A large-scale SAP transformation for Orica Manufacturing was implemented via dynamic workforce management and leader led change for 300 people across 5 global sites.
Josephine is passionate about new ways of working and inspired by technology, particularly how it can transform people’s lives and build better teams. Recently she delivered a webinar for 100’s of Local Government leaders across the state of Victoria on managing in a hybrid workplace environment which led to significant changes in over five local Council organisations. A skilled speaker, educator, and facilitator Josephine has delivered 1000’s of hours of training and workshops, often at a national level.
She loves to help people think about work differently so that we can bring our whole self to work. She advocates for workplace health and psychological wellbeing in work and leadership. In 2017, she co-founded a co-working company Higher Spaces, that focuses on developing mentally healthy workplaces to realise her vision of sharing this idea more widely with a broader community.
Geared for Growth values innovation, social progress, teamwork, flexibility and agility. Geared for Growth is bold and colourful yet diligent and thorough. We apply systems thinking and know how to execute change for small or large teams.
- 2019– Business Owner, Geared for Growth
- 2019– Change Readiness and Workforce Transition, Orica
- 2018– Co-creator, Higher Spaces Pty Ltd
- 2018–2019 Change Enablement Principal, Global Contact Centres, Telstra
- 2012–2019 General Manager, Engagement and Change Management, Strategy and Operations, Telstra
- 2010–2012 Senior Consultant Organisational Psychology, Opic Leadership
- 2008–2012 President, Australasian Association for Institutional Research
- 2004–2012 Organisational Development and Change Management, Deakin University
- 2007–2011 Senior Associate, Organisational Enhancement Consultancy
- 2006–2007 Quality Enhancement Consultant, Ministry of Higher Education, Sultanate of Oman
Part of Josephine’s superpower is finding untapped potential in people and systems, freeing up resources that can be used to help businesses grow and thrive.
Achievements
- Finalist in the Australian Psychological Society Workplace Excellence Award 2015 2015 Workplace Excellence Award for Organisational Design
- Winner of a Quarterly Chief Operating Officer Award in Q3 FY17 and Q1 FY18, Telstra
- Winner of a Quarterly COO Award in Q1 FY14, FY15 and FY16, and Excelerate Award (Individual Performance) FY15
- My published papers on Research Gate
- Gender and Organisational Culture
- Find me on LinkedIn