Who Are We?

Andrew is an entrepreneur and multi-award winning designer who has spent his career working in innovation. His career has been split between London, Sydney and Brisbane where he has focused on digital transformation for some of the world’s biggest and most interesting organisations including Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Barclaycard, Toyota, ResMed and China Airlines. He is CEO and co-founder of Adieu Legal, a Legal Tech startup focused on creating better ways for humans to resolve conflict.

Sheila manages the professional development team who are responsible for designing professional development events for legal practitioners. With nearly 20 years’ experience working in the legal industry, Sheila has practised as a lawyer, managed teams, has developed leadership programs for lawyers in both Australia and the UK, and ran her own executive coaching business.
In addition to her law degree, Sheila holds a postgraduate qualification in Coaching (Psychology) from Sydney University, is accredited in the Hogan assessment tool and holds a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment. Sheila is also a member of Queensland Law Society’s Wellbeing Working Group.

Rolf is the Chief Executive Officer of Queensland Law Society. He has over 20 years’ human resources and general management experience working in large international legal firms throughout Australia and Asia. Rolf is the former chair and a current member of the Queensland Law Society Wellbeing working group.

Diane Hickey is a general and mental health nurse who has been practising for 35 years with experience in NSW, NZ and the last 18 years in South East Queensland. In addition to all this, for the past nine years Diane has worked clinically with patients in her own Mental Health Nursing business funded to provide services under Medicare and the NDIS.

As a health educator, Diane previously worked with the Queensland Police Service in 2001 to develop mental health training for all officers across Queensland. She was then part of the team that rolled out the education for the implementation of the new Mental Health Act 2000 in 2002. She has experience as an educator tutoring in the nursing faculties Unitec, in Auckland NZ and QUT in Brisbane. Diane was awarded her Master’s in Public Health in 2008. Diane has developed and delivered her own mental health awareness education courses for the past 25 years. Diane is a certified master and principal trainer in Mental Health First Aid education providing over 150 courses to government and non-government organisations along with public courses over the past 10 years.

Paul and Mitesh met and became friends at university where they were both undertaking double Bachelor degrees in Law and International Business. After uni. the friends went their separate ways with Mitesh moving to New York, where he sat and passed the New York bar exam becoming one of the youngest Departmental New York Prosecutors and Paul moving to London, where he completed his Practical Legal Training and worked for a renowned Criminal law firm.
Upon moving back to Australia Paul and Mitesh continued to work as litigation lawyers for various reputable law firms across Melbourne and Brisbane in addition to a number of Government departments such as, the Office of Public Prosecutions and the Government Solicitors Office, where they advocated on behalf of their clients across most Courts and jurisdictions.
After successful and lengthy careers in the law, Paul and Mitesh founded The Open Mind Institute (TOMI) in light of their passion for professional development and bringing out the best in others.
Through TOMI, the pair deliver mental capability training (i.e. critical thinking, resilience, mindfulness, EQ, leadership & management training) to individuals, non- for-profits, educational institutions, government, corporate and professional services.

Mark is a global thought leader in the legal industry. He is the CEO of Legal Mosaic (www.legalmosaic.com) a legal business consultancy; Distinguished Fellow at Northwestern University Law School; regular contributor to Forbes where he has a column on the global legal marketplace; and sought-after international speaker. Mark was recently appointed by the Singapore Academy of Law to serve as its inaugural LIFTED “Catalyst-in-Residence”. 

Mark’s LegalMosaic blog was recently honored by the American Bar Association as one of the 50 outstanding worldwide legal blogs in their inaugural “Web 100.” He has won numerous awards as a legal innovator.

Panelists:

• Gregory Vijayendran | Singapore Law Society, Partner | Rajah & Tann
• Yarman Vachha | Managing Director | YJV Consulting and Principal - ASEAN Edge International
• Hanim Hamzah | Regional Managing Partner | ZICO Law Network

Facilitated by:

•  Anita Parkash | Director, Legal Education Cluster | Singapore Academy of Law

Debra Filippin is the Head of Business Development, Asia Pacific at global law firm Pinsent Masons. She has worked in business development for global law firms in the Asia Pacific for more than 15 years. Prior to this role she spent almost 10 years at K&L Gates as the firm’s Director of Business Development, Asia Pacific. Before this time Debra spent 10 years in Tokyo during which time she headed up the BD and marketing department for Linklaters in Tokyo and before that, Lovells (now Hogan Lovells) in Tokyo. Debra holds a Masters of Laws from Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Melbourne. In 2015 she completed the Asialink Leaders Program run by Asialink Business. She is passionate about strategy and culture, and the need to constantly challenge traditional ways of working and thinking in order to bring about necessary change.