Lesley Horsburgh

Managing Director, APSCo Australia

Lesley has had a long relationship with the global recruitment sector dating back to her capacity as owner of Recruitment Extra magazine which was founded more than 20 years ago.

She is well respected as having an incredible knowledge of the recruitment sector, maintaining a reputation for being at the forefront of current issues through her management of multiple publications relating to the sector and as founder of the Recruitment Excellence Awards (REA’s) in 2008.

Lesley became Managing Director of APSCo Australia in 2019.

Charles Cameron

CEO, RCSA

Charles is the CEO of RCSA, the peak industry body for recruitment and staffing in Australia and New Zealand. Charles has twenty years of experience consulting within and leading an industry which inspires him every day. Charles is on the Board of the World Employment Confederation and leads more than 50 recruitment and staffing associations from across the globe as Chair of the National Federations Committee.

Nina Pollard

National Recruitment Manager, Coles

Nina is a HR professional with more than 20 years’ cross-industry experience. She currently leads the Talent Acquisition function at Coles and has held senior HR leadership roles at NAB and BP, commencing her HR career at Telstra as a graduate.

Nina also sits on the board of Her Place Women’s museum bringing together her passion for promoting the achievements of Australian women with her commercial and executive experience.

Andrew Retschko

Senior Executive, Talent Acquisition & Engagement, Medibank

Andrew is the Senior Executive of Talent Acquisition and Engagement at Medibank, an integrated healthcare company providing private health insurance and health solutions to 3.7 million Australians. He has spent the last six years in the recruitment industry, starting in a boutique agency before moving into executive search and finally transitioning to an internal role.

Currently, Andrew leads a team that delivers more than 1500 hires across a very diverse range of roles, ranging from bulk intakes of frontline employees through to health professionals in regional and remote locations. Having worked across a broad range of recruitment environments, Andrew has maintained his passion for developing high performing teams, diversity and inclusion and providing exceptional candidate experiences.

Margaret Mitchell

Group Manager – Talent, Linfox

Margaret leads the Talent function at Linfox, Asia Pacific’s largest privately owned logistics company.  With more than 20 years’ recruitment experience, she has held senior positions across in-house, RPO and agency environments, across multiple sectors including technology, mining and telecommunications.

Margaret has developed successful, in-house recruitment teams in Asia Pacific and India. Earlier in her career she worked in finance at BHP and completed post graduate CPA studies, which provides her a commercial lens to recruitment strategy.

She is passionate about talent acquisition creating value for an organisation, developing internal talent and ensuring scalable functionality.

Bevan White

Head of Talent Acquisition, Rio Tinto

Bevan is head of recruitment at leading global mining group Rio Tinto. He has spent the past 20 years working in, leading and developing highly successful in-house talent acquisition teams across the globe in Africa, UK, US and the Asia Pacific region. Bevan is passionate about ensuring that talent acquisition remains relevant and highly valued by the business in an ever-changing world.

Alana Bennett

Founder, Connected Experience

Alana, the founder of Connected Experience, is a self-proclaimed Human Experience Fanatic and Coach.

With over 15 years of experience in human resources spanning talent acquisition, talent management, employee experience, employer branding and generalist roles, Alana has led award-winning transformations and teams. Most recently as the Interim Chief People Officer at Koala, she has a deep passion for the “experience” and the importance of getting this right. Believing the fundamentals of who we are as humans (our need to connect and belong) combined with her passion for experience, she started Connected Experience, seeking to help organisations, leaders and individuals understand how being and living connected lives makes us individually more fulfilled and organisationally drives business performance.

James Elliot

Head of Talent Acquisition, Commonwealth Bank of Australia

James has built and led the Talent Acquisition function for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia Group since 2012. His team of talent professionals manage all hiring and employee mobility across the Group, from trainees and entry level roles to in-house sourcing and executive search.

James’ team support an integrated approach to talent management, including succession and demand planning, redeployment and external strategic sourcing.

Prior to joining Commbank, James was Director of Recruitment and Mobility at Deloitte Australia and held various leadership roles in the recruiting industry since arriving in Sydney from the UK in 2000.

Melanie Forbes

Director, APSCo Outsource

Melanie is the Managing Director of APSCo OutSource, a new trade body for outsourcing providers.  APSCo OutSource has been created to represent the interests of MSP, RPO and recruitment outsource organisations. 

Melanie has been involved in the outsource market for more than two decades, most recently as Group MD of Rullion; MD of Contingent Workforce Solutions at AMS and CEO of Guidant Global. Having been involved in the recruitment industry for 30 years, she has been listed in the SIA Global Power 150 Women in Staffing every year between 2015 and 2019 and was also listed in the SIA European Staffing Top 100 in 2016, 2019 and 2020. Melanie also sits on the board of Directors for the Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative (RIDI).

Ali McLeod

Project Director – HR, EY

Ali has nearly 30 years’ experience in the world of talent acquisition. Her most recent talent acquisition role was as Oceania Recruitment Leader at EY, a role she held for 11 years. She was responsible for both campus and experience hires across Australia and New Zealand and lead a team of 80 who hired 800+ graduates and 1500+ experience candidates per year. Ali has recently transitioned into a project role focusing on retention and EVP but will always be a recruiter at heart.