Penny is uniquely placed as a specialist management consultant, combining over twenty five years of practical experience in social welfare and statutory Appropriate Dispute Resolution (ADR), with her research and teaching roles. She is a social scientist with particular expertise in dispute resolution and complaints about bullying and workplace injuries, delivering dispute resolution training and supporting managers with difficult employee issues.

Previous roles include the CEO of the NSW Schizophrenia Fellowship, a Conciliation Officer at the Accident Compensation Conciliation Service and member of Victorian Institute of Teaching’s Conduct Panel. She has served on numerous Not for Profit Boards in executive roles and is a sessional community member of the Mental Health Tribunal.

Penny has made innovative contributions to policy and program development in Mental Health, Disability Services, Social Housing and Universities. She regularly designs and delivers Executive and Masters level University courses and for government in negotiation, conflict management and mediation skills. She has trained over two hundred professional mediators to National Accreditation level in Melbourne and Adelaide. Penny has conciliated over one thousand five hundred statutory WorkCover and Residential Tenancy disputes and mediated several hundred matters for workplaces, community groups and franchises.

Penny’s doctoral thesis (2010) is a contemporary study of Australian workplace grievance resolution systems. This empirical research examines outcomes within the context of competing classical social theories and contributes to knowledge of the unintended outcomes of complaints management systems.

Penny speaks at international and national conferences on topics related to ADR practise, theory and training.