My current role is the Head of Emergency Management for the Selwyn District Council and Project Lead for an Emergency Services campus. My role includes being a Response Manager, Controller and Recovery Manager as well as an Alternate Controller for the West Coast of the South Island. My background is in Policing (20yrs), volunteer fire fighting (15yrs) and I was a Licensing Commissioner for 5 years. I’ve been involved in a number of emergency responses including earthquakes, floods, a biosecurity incursion (Mbovis), Covid 19, Wildfires and adverse weather events. I live on a farm and farm sheep, cattle and truffles.

Mark is a former police officer and firefighter, who has been serving as an ambulance chaplain providing staff support since 2012. He is the Director of the NSW/ACT Disaster Recovery Chaplaincy Network. His interdisciplinary PhD explored moral injury in Australian first responders. He developed a holistic bio-psycho-social-spiritual framework for changing organisational culture and leadership practices in a way that prevent poor staff outcomes. The research applied findings at the intersection of workplace psychosocial risk mitigation, staff wellbeing, and spirituality. His lived experience of frontline trauma work, emergency management, and research in moral frameworks inform his ongoing research and program development. Mark is a Certified as an Emergency Service Manager with the Australasian Institute of Emergency Services and speaks regularly at conferences across Australia and internationally. In his spare time Mark enjoys triathlon, exploring the moral ambiguities of parenting young adults and middle-aged water polo violence.

Dr Adam Lo OAM is a mental health occupational therapist with extensive experience in Child and Youth Mental Health for more than two decades before joining the Disaster Recovery team in 2024. He is an experienced clinician who also works in the mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention space. Adam is a keen supporter of using the arts for healthcare and service delivery. He founded the Positive Mindset Creative Arts Festival in 2025.

Adam is also an experienced project and events manager, as well as being an active reservist with the Royal Australian Air Force.

With over 22 years in local government, I have developed a strong understanding of its operations. For the past five years, I’ve specialised in Emergency Management and am currently the Team Lead for Emergency Management at Western Bay of Plenty District Council, a smaller council with 320 staff. My focus is on coordinating emergency preparedness and overseeing crisis response efforts. In response to staff feedback, I have led the development and implementation of strategies to enhance our council's emergency operations teams' ability to respond effectively to disasters, working towards ensuring effective and coordinated responses.

Dana is an experienced leader in emergency management and international disaster risk reduction. Currently serving as a Team Leader, Social and Community Resilience at New Zealand's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Dana has significant experience providing high-level strategic advice to senior leaders including the Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery.

With a diverse background Dana has worked on projects ranging from disaster preparedness in the Pacific and capacity building in Timor-Leste to chairing the New Zealand Volunteer Service Abroad Council. Dana has a strong history of leadership in emergency welfare, governance, and community resilience.

Liz Mackinlay is a global expert in international preparedness and 21st-century community resilience-building. She brings 30 years’ experience in more than 80 countries in international, indigenous and community development. As CEO at Australian Business Volunteers, Liz is leading an innovative new approach to community-led recovery following the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires in NSW and Victoria. She’s passionate about collaboration and facilitating partnerships between communities and government, non-profit, corporate, academia and emergency services. Above all, she’s driven to elevate and include the voices of our communities and ensure their needs are met as we step into an uncertain future.

Grant Maxwell is the New Zealand Infrastructure Resilience Leader for Stantec, with over 25 years of experience in disaster management, geotechnical engineering, and resilience. He has led numerous disaster event responses and recovery programs across the Asia Pacific, leveraging his strong background in geotechnical risk management. He is a technical advisor to regional Emergency Management Operations in New Zealand, and has spent the past three years leading transportation recovery programs resulting from the Cyclone Gabrielle damage across the North Island. Grant also serves as the Stantec ANZ lead for Disaster Management, where he drives cross-business strategy consisting of various preparedness, emergency response, and recovery initiatives and client programs.

Katie McIntyre is a Research Fellow at Deakin University's Centre for Humanitarian Leadership, focusing on humanitarian leadership and crisis management. She engages in research that bridges theory and practice to enhance leadership effectiveness in international humanitarian contexts. Katie's PhD research explored the impact of leadership on employee outcomes. She has co-authored several peer-reviewed publications, including "A Conceptualization of a Joyful Leadership Style" in Emotion in Organizations (2024) and "A Scoping and Theoretical Review of Joy in Leadership in the Nonprofit Sector" in the Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs (2024). Her work has been cited in various academic publications internationally.

Todd Miller is a doctoral candidate at AUT University in Auckland New Zealand, researching inter-organisational coordination in complex systems.

With extensive expertise in emergency management and disaster response, Todd’s focus is on maintaining and uplifting national preparedness and response arrangements, including the alternative National Crisis Management Centre (NCMC) in Auckland. Todd is also a PhD candidate, researching interorganisational collaboration within emergency management systems, with a specific interest in emergency management as a complex adaptive system.

John has worked in various volunteer and full-time public safety roles for over 35 years. John is a lecturer at Central Queensland University, a committee member of the Australian Resuscitation Council, and the current President of the QLD/NT Australian Institute of Emergency Services (AIES). John is completing his Professional Doctorate thesis through Charles Sturt University and is keenly interested in disaster management, education and training, leadership, and emergency services volunteerism. John was a State Emergency Service (SES) volunteer for over 25 years. He holds numerous qualifications including a Bachelor of Social Science in Emergency Management and a Master of Business.