Sal Lauder Consulting

Ensure successful leadership

Transform for growth

Align strategy and culture

Partnering with CEOs and their executive leadership teams to review, design and transform their businesses.

Sal Lauder Consulting

Ensure successful leadership

Transform for growth

Align strategy and culture

Partnering with CEOs and their executive leadership teams to review, design and transform their businesses.

Optimising People and Performance

Enhance organisational performance by leveraging deep insights to inform strategic decision making and challenge established thinking.

Drawing on 25 years consulting experience in Australia and the UK, I specialise in providing people-focused solutions that optimise organisational performance. Psychology and neuroscience underpin all my projects, because understanding human behaviour and culture is critical for business success.

My approach begins with gaining deep insights into your organisation and then collaboratively designing and delivering a customised program of work to achieve your business goals. From boosting productivity, pursuing growth, navigating change, or fostering a more engaged workforce, I rely on proven methodologies and a robust toolkit to deliver the best possible outcomes.

With extensive experience across a range of industries including government, mining, engineering, and construction, I have earned a reputation as a trusted consultant who provides candid, straightforward advice. I am comfortable navigating complexity and uncertainty, and always deliver on my promises.

Successful leaders acknowledge they can’t do it all themselves.

Do you need to:

Gain unbiased insights and intelligence into your business performance
Use this knowledge to drive growth through transformation
Transition a business to sell, merge or buy
Accelerate leadership alignment
Ensure your transformational change sticks
Build integrated, effective teams, no matter where they work
Create a productive, healthy culture.

Ensure your organisation’s future success with demonstrable results.

Let’s be honest, consultants should be delivering more than just advice. Consultants come and go, and trends are outdated quickly.

With experience working across a diverse range of clients, including private and publicly listed companies, government agencies and not-for-profit organisations, I believe that a leader’s investment should not only result in sustainable outcomes, but also create significant positive impact on the bottom line. My services can be customised to provide a complete solution tailored to the unique needs of your business.

Consulting and Advisory

Successful leaders know
they don’t have all the answers.

By seeking new perspectives, objective viewpoints, and diverse expertise, better results can be achieved in a shorter timeframe. Embracing a fresh approach can lead to more innovative and successful outcomes.

My bespoke consulting services provides solutions through the lens of neuroscience.

I partner with leaders to create, design and implement solutions that centre on people.

Organisational reviews delivering quality insights and intelligence
Design operating models and organisational structures
Strategy development, improvement, and execution
Enterprise change management
- Re-structures
- M&As
- Cost saving strategies
Process mapping and improvement
Strategic communication and engagement – management plans and supporting collateral.

Leadership, Culture and Team Development

Inspiring leaders invest in creating a positive and productive culture that fosters teamwork, growth and success.

Effective leadership, culture and team development are critical to business success, but they are often undervalued or seen as ‘soft’ skills. However, the opposite is true, creating a healthy and productive culture can be challenging, even for the most progressive leaders.

I provide expert advice, strategies, and support to improve leadership, culture and organisational development that helps senior leaders achieve their organisational goals.

Culture assessments and pulse checks
Aligning strategy and culture
Executive coaching and mentoring
Accelerated leadership alignment
Development of high performing teams
M&A integration
Strengthening capability
Sourcing and retaining talent.

Psychometrics and 360 Leadership Assessment

Insightful leaders seek to understand themselves and their people better.

Assessments are valuable in gaining a deeper understanding of your own leadership style, strengths, motivations, and behaviours, as well as those of your peers, and teams. This level of insight can significantly enhance leadership performance and empower teams to work together more effectively.

I am accredited in several assessment and profiling tools that provide a robust and evidence-driven way to build upon strengths, improve teamwork and establish more productive relationships.

Leadership 360-degree assessments are an excellent tool for senior leaders and their direct reports to enable better strategic employee decisions and identify development gaps.

Customised tools can be designed, administered and followed up with detailed debriefs for each participant, informing development plans.

Facilitation and Training

Impactful leaders provide opportunities for alignment, development, and information-sharing.

Enhance the quality of your meetings, workshops, or events with an experienced facilitator who can provide a fresh perspective on agenda planning and guide your group towards achieving their objectives. Effective facilitation skills can keep participants moving forward, even when encountering contentious issues or getting bogged down in detail. With my facilitation skills, your meetings and events will be more productive, efficient and engaging.

I create meaningful engagement by designing and facilitating events from high impact workshops and planning sessions to programs that improve skills and performance.

Sal Lauder

Organisational Psychologist | Management Consultant | Change Lead

As an experienced leader, organisational psychologist and management consultant, I thrive on the challenges and variety that come with working across diverse organisations. My primary focus is to listen carefully to my clients’ requirements and deliver tangible value to individuals, teams and the overall business.

I use the principles of psychology and neuroscience to drive organisational efficiency, develop people capability and maximise revenue. I bring a unique blend of expertise to my work including leadership roles in government, working as a consultant for ASX listed companies tackling complex problems, administering large-scale psychometric assessments, experience in education and organisational development and board memberships. This diversity has given me a deep understanding of the challenges organisations face and allows me to provide effective solutions for my clients.

As a co-founder of a technology start-up that provided a platform to assess enterprise and employability skills, I had first-hand experience in entrepreneurship and innovation. I believe that challenging conventional thinking and approaches is vital for both personal and organisational growth which has been central to my success in empowering individuals and teams to achieve their full potential.

My expertise spans the public and private sectors, with project leadership across numerous industries. I am known for developing creative, practical solutions, leveraging a diverse skillset, and delivering measurable outcomes. I have a track record in leading large, complex projects and transformation programs and accelerating the alignment and integration of global teams.

As a registered psychologist, executive coach, qualified change management practitioner, and Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, I bring broad professional accreditations and memberships to my work. Nonetheless, it is my unwavering commitment to putting people at the centre of organisational success that sets me apart.

RECENT PROJECTS

Developed program for alignment and integration of global EPC/EPCM project teams piloted with a $500m+ EPCM project in South America.
Managed change program and transition to a new operating model of $5b ASX100 company.
Led merger of two divisions within construction, engineering and mining to form a $3b business.
Led review and change program for underperforming division with revenue of $1.6m.
Conducted organisational reviews across the private and public sectors to inform change programs, process improvement and cultural change.
Developed a health and well-being strategy and action plan to address the systemic challenges of mental health and wellness for physician college members.
Managed stakeholder engagement and change program for the National Health Reform Transition Office (Queensland).
Implemented suite of new psychometric assessments for applicants to the Queensland Police Service.
Co-founded an integrated platform for customized 360 feedback profiles that included assessments for leadership, resilience, employability skills and culture fit.

EXPERTISE

Enterprise change management
Strategic and change communication
Organisational review and design
Leadership alignment and development
Development of high performing teams
Executive coaching and mentoring
High impact workshop design and facilitation
Psychometric assessment design and administration.

QUALIFICATIONS

Arts Hons (Psychology)
Graduate Diploma Psychology
Bachelor of Education
Diploma of Teaching

ACCREDITATIONS

Company Directors Course (GAICD)
Accredited Executive Coach
NeuroPower Leadership Intensive
DISC Advanced® Accredited Consultant/ Facilitator
Change Management Practitioner (APMG-International)
Mediation Course (Bond University)
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Accreditation

Leeanne Bond
Chair, CMTE Development Ltd (Mining3)

Mining3 is a membership-based research and innovation company for the mining industry. A number of external factors required us to make significant changes to our membership agreement approach and operating model. We also needed to reflect a more nimble, commercial organisation.

I had seen Sal’s work at other companies and invited her to assist me in my role as Chair. Together with management we looked at the options available to us and designed the most effective organisational structure to suit the new operating model. Sal also assisted in the initial phase with stakeholder engagement and communications.

Sal continues to be one of my valued advisors on organisational transformation.

Brendan Petersen
Global Head of Projects, Ausenco

When I became the new CEO of a $1.5b, 5,500 employee sized national business in Downer EDI I brought Sal on, reporting directly to me, to lead comprehensive process of learning the business, building new leadership teams and implementation of a new operating model. She helped me create and deliver on a very effective 90 day plan.

Sal worked directly with my new Executive Leadership team to plan, prepare and implement a new business strategy, new operating model and new organizational structures.

The business transformation we undertook required significant changes to leadership, personnel and work processes. All of this work was undertaken highly professionally and effectively.

I would highly recommend anyone facing a similar task to connect with Sal and learn from the work she has undertaken with me.

Mark Cornwell
Head of Project Delivery, Global Projects, Ausenco

Sal was engaged to assist and support our Global Projects Group through a period of significant internal and external disruptive change. Our business had just embarked upon ~$1BN of fixed price project delivery across several continents, representing a significant increase in our project delivery pipeline, all against the backdrop of a global pandemic and its far reaching impacts. During this period of rapid growth and increased risk, Sal was engaged to develop an alignment and team integration program for global projects, with the pilot rolled out on our largest project in Chile.

She then developed and facilitated a range of engagement and alignment workshops for some of our high-risk projects in Canada, Chile and Australia. This work involved extensive consultations across our business, project teams and clients.

As a result, areas requiring improvement and attention were effectively identified, and strategies/programs implemented; Sal’s input and guidance throughout this process was instrumental in its success. I would not hesitate in endorsing Sal’s skill set and dedication to anyone contemplating a similar challenge or undertaking.

Andrew Foster
Managing Director, Mineral Technologies
A Downer Company

Over the past 6 years I have had the benefit of Sal's change management expertise on several large-scale, change programs conducted in Downer.
To name a few:

Refocussing and reorganising the Next Generation Technology business including a strategic review, organisation redesign and change management

Combining two of Downer’s construction businesses – Industrial, Mineral Resources, Gas, Power Systems and Renewables engineering and construction business into one refocussed organisation – 3500 employees with $1.5bn turnover

Standing up a digital technology business (a corporate start up) within Downer including searching for a suitable leader.

Sal’s experience in this space was invaluable, she was highly professional and was able to work to deadlines, often under extreme time pressure. I would highly recommend her for any similar type of work with any organisation

How can I help?

Sometimes it is just knowing where to start.

I am available to discuss your unique opportunities and challenges, general enquiries or if you would like to learn more about my services through the following:

Connect on LinkedIn

+61 40 408 3425

info@optimisingpeople.com