DR. TERRI SIMPKIN

Specialist Areas: Leadership development, workforce change and contemporary strategic human resources. Experienced Non-Executive Director/Board Member.​

Dr Theresa (Terri) Simpkin was previously the Higher and Further Education Principal at CNet Training and co-author of the world’s first and only Master’s Degree in Data Centre Leadership and Management. She is a forward thinking academic and consultant with expertise across a range of industries including the digital infrastructure sector.​

Terri is a forward thinking, industry focused academic, consultant, public speaker and educator. Driven by an almost insatiable urge to see people and organisations harness their potential, Terri finds professional and personal satisfaction in working with people who know they and their organisations can be better.

Driven by her frustration at the glacial pace of real change from inclusion practices, her professional development programmes, Braver Stronger Smarter & Faking It, are based on her own research into the impostor phenomenon; advancing over forty years of previous work in the area. The initiative aims to diminish the workplace, leadership and personal implications associated with the experience. This work has a focus on inclusion and minimisation of implicit bias in organisational and social structures.

As an experienced consultant, she has worked with industry associations, large organisations and SMEs. She has advised government agencies on skills, labour and training strategies and informed the Australian Government on skills shortages and labour market issues. In short, she has a fascination with structures that support and inspire the best in people. As a thought leader for Portman Partners she provides insight on topics such as leadership, workforce change and inclusion & belonging.

As an educator, Terri has worked extensively in vocational education, the university sector and executive education. Generating responses to pressing organisational challenges, she draws on creative and evidence-based sources to deliver context aligned suites of interventions and/or initiatives. She was named one of the 50 most influential women in the data economy for her work developing world leading Master’s programmes and advising industry on workforce challenges. In 2020 she was awarded the Global Women in Telco and Tech, Brynn Fowler Agent of Change award for her work advancing inclusion across education, the workplace and general community.

She is a regular contributor to industry journals, publications, radio and television media and has made contributions as a board member across multiple sectors. Most recently she served on the board of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust.

Terri is a Churchill Fellow, CPHR, MCIPD, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Fellow Royal Society for the Arts (RSA).