During her 15 year military career, best-selling author Matina Jewell tracked down warlords, worked with the US Navy SEALs, fast roped out of helicopters onto ships, and represented Australia as a peacekeeper with the United Nations in Syria and Lebanon where she found herself thrown into the middle of a devastating war.

Matina’s lessons of resilience and leadership have transformed some of the biggest companies and her message of courage continues to empower leaders from all walks of life. Her story has audiences on their feet time and time again.

With enthralling footage, stories of hardship and valuable learning from her many life-threatening missions, Matina will take you on a journey that will affect long lasting positive change in your leaders, teams and organizations for years to come.

Matina has been featured on the ABC’s Australian Story, is a best-selling author and her life story is currently being made into a feature film.

BA (Deakin), Grad.Dip.M’ment (Melbourne), MBA (Melbourne)

Rachael Robertson returned to Australia after 12 months in the Antarctic, where she successfully led the 58th Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition to Davis Station. She was only the second female to ever lead a team at the Station and one of the youngest ever leaders.

She managed a team of 18 people through the long, dark, Antarctic winter and through trial and error built a resilient and highly successful team based on the foundation that ‘respect trumps harmony’. The most important rule was No Triangles – I don’t speak to you, about them.

This leadership role is a truly unique experience. Antarctica in winter is totally inaccessible which means once the last ship leaves at the end of February, no one can leave the base under any circumstance (not even if you are dying) until the ship returns in November. It’s a 24 hour a day, every day of the year, leadership role. In any circumstance, this would be a tough role, but for a female in a male dominated environment, it was also a very challenging one!

Prior to this Rachael held senior operational management roles for 16 years in a range of complex and challenging environments and now works in the field of leadership development sharing her experiences.
Since returning to Australia, Rachael has completed her MBA and written a best-selling book, Leading on the Edge, based on her year in Antarctica. The book is currently under option for film/TV.
She is an international keynote speaker and has presented at over 1,200 conferences around the world. Her latest book, Respect trumps Harmony, was released in April 2020.