Zac Ashkanasy

Zac has worked on projects with private and public sector clients in Australia, Canada and the UK. He has broad industry experience across education, health, creative, environment, industry development, government and not-for-profit.

Project experience

Strategy development and facilitation

• Facilitated numerous strategic planning days for business, government and not-for-profits
• Developed the strategic plan for Barwon Health 2010 to 2015. This involved substantial staff and stakeholder consultations combined with extensive data analysis
• Worked with the executive of Australia’s largest pharmaceutical retailer to develop their strategic plan for 2010 to 2013
• Worked with culturally-specific aged care provider to develop their 5 year operational plan and their 15-year capital plan
• Wrote the business strategy for La Trobe University, facilitated the development of the current strategic plan for RMIT and assessed the Victoria University outer-suburban strategy.

Public policy development

• Co-facilitated the Agora Think Tank, a Victorian-based cross-sector social policy collaboration looking at new and innovative ways to solve social disadvantage through cross-sectoral partnerships
• Currently advising the Commonwealth Government on reforming the Job Service Australia employment system with a focus on transforming the job seeker experience
• Currently leading the redesign of Victorian Physio-social rehabilitation and recovery programs. This involves substantial stakeholder, carer, client and Government consultants and workshops.

Organisational design

• Led the organisational redesign of Victoria’s $1.1b Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development
• Identified $20m in identifiable year-on-year financial savings for an Australian-based health and well-being conglomerate and run many staff workshops to identify opportunities.

Education / accreditation / board membership

• MBA, Melbourne Business School (awarded a Dean’s Commendation for overall academic excellence)
• Participant in the International Business Exchange Program at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, North Carolina.
• B.Com, University of Queensland
• Board member of Strange Fruit and Maccabi Victoria
• Secretary and coach for Maccabi Athletic.

Past employment

Zac has worked with and consulted to corporations including Sky TV (UK) and KPMG.

Interests

Zac has been into athletics all his life. His first win was the 1500m walk in u12 Little Athletics, but his running highlight was as a guide runner for the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. In his spare time, he does bit of gardening and cooking.