Practicing Organisational Development in the context of Local Government provides fertile ground for creativity, innovation and pragmatism. The Diversity of people, programs and services demands an approach that enables diverse people to develop shared meaning and understandings and create space for teams to frame this in practice on their own terms and within their own contexts. The OD team at the City of Hobart was established almost three years ago, with minimal direction and high expectations. After a somewhat tumultuous start, the team has built a reputation as trusted partners in individual, team and management and leadership development.

Join Dr Carolina Bouten-Pinto, Principal Organisational Development and Syed Shah, Organisational Development Specialist, who will provide an overview of the strategic approach taken, the challenges encountered, and achievements to date. Using an OD lens focused on dynamics and relationships, we will reflect on outcomes and learnings to date, whilst encouraging dialogue and feedback from participants.

Our guests:

Dr Carolina Bouten-Pinto, Principal Organisational Development, City of Hobart

Carolina is an experienced management and organisational development professional with fine-tuned skills as a learning facilitator, designer, manager, coach, and consultant across a broad range of sectors. She has worked internationally and locally with governments, not-for-profit organisations, State and National sport organisations, health, aged care, transport, retail and educational organisations.

Carolina has one foot in academia as adjunct faculty, whilst the other remains firmly planted in practice. As the Principal Organisational Development, she currently leads a small team to support individual and organisational growth and development and embed a whole of organisation culture and capability development program for the City of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.

A/Prof. Syed Shah, Organisational Development Specialist, City of Hobart

Syed is an Organisation Development Specialist at the Hobart City Council. His role includes looking after the training and development needs of approximately 750 people.

He is an esteemed academic and management consultant with 25 years of experience in the education and corporate sectors. Through his consulting company, Syed and his team have trained more than 40,000 people in public and private organisations over the past two decades and have delivered hundreds of guest lectures in over 25 universities internationally.