Tom Schwarz - Australasian Regional Representative

Dr. Tom Schwarz is a CPF (Certified Professional Facilitator, IAF) – the first in ANZ - and CPF Assessor (probationary) – with a broad formal and informal Facilitation, Business and conference presentation and training background – both from International Corporate roles and running his own Facilitation/Organizational Effectiveness and Change practice over Asia Pacific. more >>>

Tom been working in Asia Pacific since the middle 80’s –including more recently almost a decade of living in Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai). Over the period 1994 through current he has been using participatory and comprehensive/inclusive values based modes - for the design and the execution of effective and efficient collaborative approaches to future-based Organisational Agility – through facilitated Strategic and Action Planning, Change and Change Management, leadership development, Facilitation approaches to learning, and reflective thinking modalities. His company mission statement says it all..

"Partners in Dialogues – the path to Enduring Change..... working collaboratively with staff, customers and stakeholders to effectively and efficiently achieve sustainable outcomes..."

Keith Ryall - Australasian Regional Representative

Keith Ryall (B.Sc B.Ed. CPF) has been working in the field of professional and personal development as a facilitator, trainer, consultant and coach with a wide range of government departments, healthcare organisations and private sector companies for over 35 years. He specializes in developing high performing individuals and groups with healthier and more balanced and productive work-life styles.

He has a particular interest in helping people speak candidly and honestly to others, at work and at home. Keith has had active roles with the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) , the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) and IAF where he completed his CPF (Certified Professional Facilitator) program in 2004 and hopes to become a fully Certified Assessor in 2007. He is currently a Probationary Assessor.

Stephen Thorpe - IAF Secretary, Editor-in-Chief of Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal, Australasian Leadership Team, IAF-ANZ Webmaster and Regional Newsletter Editor

Stephen Thorpe is a facilitator specialising in the online domain and trains others in online facilitation. Working with Zenergy, he has been researching ways to enhance the effectiveness of online groups. His PhD explores facilitation as a vital domain in assisting online groups with a focus on the benefits of story in online relationship development.

Stephen is the Secretary of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) and the Editor-in-Chief of the IAF’s Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal. He is a member of the Global Facilitators Service Corps (GFSC), Heart Politics, The New Zealand Computer Society, Toastmasters (District 72: Club 7686) and the Participation Community of Practice - part of New Zealand's E-government Strategy.

Stephen holds a Zenergy Diploma of Facilitation and a Bachelor of Business with first class honours from Auckland University of Technology (AUT) where he has a background researching computer-assisted group work. He was part of a team who researched, developed and commercialised a multi-site large interactive digital whiteboard. Stephen has also managed projects developing online and cd-rom based tutorials for systems modeling. He is a part-time lecturer at AUT teaching on the Human Computer Interaction paper in theBachelor of Business degree.

Stephen has recently written a chapters on The Use of Storytelling in Building Online Group Relationships in the Handbook of Research on Computer Mediated Comminication, and a chapter entitled Facilitation Online in The Art of Facilitation and has previously co-written a chapter on Facilitator Values and Ethics in the IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation with Dr. Dale Hunter.