Presenter Profiles

Shauna Quinlivan

Shauna Quinlivan is the director of Options Education Solutions. However, Shauna comes from an education background. She has taught Home Economics, English and Vocational Education and has worked for Queensland Education, Catholic Education and the private sector.

Shauna was heavily involved in the School Based Apprenticeships and Traineeships and in 2002 took up a position as Career and Transition Advisor in one of the twenty four Department of Education, Science and Training’s Career and Transition Pilot Projects. During this time she studied for her Masters in Education Leadership producing a thesis on lifelong learning and career development.

Shauna has been a Guidance Officer in the Logan and Brisbane regions and she understands the demands that teachers face in schools today. Her passion is sharing her wealth of knowledge and experience with other teachers.

Graham Quinlivan

Graham Quinlivan is a Senior Solicitor with a proven track record for driving best practice performance of complex legal operations gained through over a decade of experience as part of Legal Aid Queensland’s senior management team and a further two decades as a legal practitioner.

Graham has extensive experience in business management, strategic planning, staff leadership, budgetary control, systems management and compliance. He is renowned for his innovation, vision and change leadership skills that foster efficient operations and strong staff engagement.

Graham is currently a Sessional Member of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, an Adjunct Lecturer at the College of Law and is a board member of an inner city Brisbane school.

Michael Polities

Michael Polities has been a teacher for forty-two years including thirty as a school leader. Michael’s passion is learning and relationships.

His passion has led him on a learning journey to find out more about the conversations and relationships that produce successful schools, careers and lives. The journey has led him around Australia and the world. In the past five years he has been a regular visitor to Seattle Washington, home of Fierce Conversations and Pike Place Fish. 

Michael is a certified presenter for Fierce Conversations, and is also accredited to teach Leadership and Accountability. In addition he has worked with the world famous Pike Place fishmongers and their business coach and developed his knowledge and approach to understanding and building an organisation’s vision and culture.

Dr Ros Lim

Dr Ros Lim is a career counsellor working in a school in Queensland. She has had broad experience in the career development field, including lecturer in career theory and career counselling at the Queensland University of Technology; career counsellor for the Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre; senior guidance officer with Education Queensland specialising in career development inservice and resource development. 

Ros has contributed to several publications and authored and co-authored a number of articles (e.g. Career Development in Practice; Ideas for Career Practitioners; What do career counsellors think their clients expect from their services? Are they right?, Transition in career counselling practice: What can solution-oriented counselling offer?). Her PhD thesis examined the career counselling expectations of people in career transition.

Anette Renneflott

Anette Renneflott is a psychologist in private practice who is passionate about psychology, health and well-being. She became a registered psychologist through her studies in the PhD of Clinical Psychology program at Griffith University, Queensland. 

Anette works with both children and adults with a range of difficulties. Her diverse range of special interests include childhood behaviour management and developmental disorders, working with anxiety, depression and burnout, couples and family issues, sexual health and functioning, stress management and mind-body medicine.

Dr Robyn Gillies

Dr Robyn Gillies is a professor in the University of Queensland's School of Education and specialises in school guidance and counselling, co-operative group learning and children's behaviour in school. 

Dr Gillies' major research interests are in the learning sciences, classroom discourses, small group processes, classroom instruction, and student behaviour. She coordinates the Master of Educational Studies (Guidance and Counselling) program and teaches courses in counselling, guidance, and classroom management.