Nicola Vague

Nicola is a leadership coach and transition guide, and the founder of Evolving Leaders. She walks alongside leaders navigating unexpected life events, and helps organisations support their people through the line-in-the-sand moments that turn life upside down.

I know workplace grief from both sides.

For more than 25 years I have led organisational change with senior leaders across the private and public sectors. I’ve seen how workplaces respond when life turns upside down for one of their people, the genuine care, and the awkward silence; the well-intentioned policies, and the gap between policy and what a grieving human actually needs.

Then it happened to me. My husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness and, after 15 precious and difficult months, he died. I stepped away from work to care for him, to be with our family, and to begin finding my own way through the loss. I returned a changed perso, and changed, too, in how I understand grief: my own, and other people’s. The grief is still shaping me. I no longer expect that to end, grief doesn’t leave us; it shapes who we become.

In moving toward my own grief, I trained as a grief educator and end-of-life doula, and I learned what no one had ever taught me: that grief is not a problem to be fixed but an experience to be witnessed. That time doesn’t make grief go away but it doesn’t take love away either. That we can grow around our grief, and with the right support, it’s possible to grieve fully and live fully, often in the same moment.

I also learned how profoundly it matters when people feel seen. When grief is witnessed, barriers come down and healing becomes possible. When it’s ignored, people grieve alone in plain sight.

My mission now is to help create a more grief-literate world and there is no better place to begin than the workplace, where so many of us spend so much of our lives.

www.evolvingleaders.com.au

Candice Smith

Candice is a leadership consultant and coach, Thinking Environment® specialist, Indigenous allyship facilitator, and Grief First Aid Facilitator living on Wurundjeri country in Melbourne, Australia.

She partners with individuals, groups, and teams to usher in new ways of working and being that challenge assumptions and cultivate courage, connection, ease, and the well-being of people and the planet. Through deep listening and thoughtful facilitation, she creates the conditions for people to think well together, navigate complexity, and lead with greater humanity.

Candice is deeply committed to improving grief literacy in workplaces and communities. As a Grief First Aid Facilitator, she is inspired to help people develop the confidence to compassionately receive those experiencing grief—free from the fear of "getting it wrong." She believes that supporting someone through loss does not require having the perfect words, but rather the willingness to be present, listen deeply, and acknowledge their experience in simple, accessible, and human ways.

Loss is one of the few experiences every one of us is guaranteed to encounter, yet most of us are never taught how to respond when grief shows up in the lives of those around us. Candice is passionate about changing that. She believes that when we build the confidence and capacity to be with grief compassionately, we unlock more connected, psychologically safe workplaces and communities where people experiencing loss know they do not have to carry it alone.

Trained by the founder of the Thinking Environment® methodology, Nancy Kline, Candice has worked as a Time To Think Coach, Facilitator, and Faculty member for over two decades. She is the founder of The Thinking Field, a human development consultancy specialising in creating generative environments grounded in deep listening and fostering systemic leadership.

www.thethinkingfield.com

Contact the host of Grief First Aid Training