Jan Owen AM – Chair
It is with great pleasure and excitement that we welcome Jan Owen AM to the Cool Board as Chair. We have admired Jan’s work and commitment to advancing young people for many years. Jan has spent her career working at the intersection of individual, organisational and societal change as an entrepreneur, innovator and social sector leader.
Her work includes leading campaigns and advocacy on the rights of children and young people around the globe; thought leadership on young people and the future of education, work and entrepreneurship; facilitating and building powerful strategic community, business, government and philanthropic investment and partnerships committed to our collective future as an inclusive, imaginative and courageous world.
Jan has been the recipient of many Awards acknowledging her commitment to unleashing the unlimited potential of children and young people and services to the Australian community.
Guy Olian
Guy co-founded Cleaner Climate and led the organisations’ efforts in Australia, Mexico and South Africa. He has broad strategy development, process and organisational improvement experience. He has assisted a variety of large multinational corporations in the finance, defence, transport, travel, retail sectors and not-for-profit organisations, including myrate, one of Australia’s largest online mortgage lenders with over $1BN in loans and Cleaner Climate, the carbon offset provider for ANZ & Flight Centre. Guy is currently is the CEO of Energy Ease a specialist Payment Plan provider for Energy and Smart Building technologies.
Julie Buxton
Julie is a member of the Victorian Bar with a diversity of legal, commercial and policy experience gained across the private, government and not-for-profit sectors. Julie has undertaken a range of legal, commercial, management and consulting roles in Australia and overseas as well as government departments and agencies. Julie’s passion for human rights has led her to work in Indigenous rights. She was the human rights and youth justice adviser to Victoria’s Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People, a senior adviser of the Koori Justice Unit within Victoria’s Department of Justice, and has worked with the United Nations Serious Crimes Unit in Timor-Leste. In 2016, she was invited to participate as an expert panellist in the Regional Consultation on Transitional Justice for Asia-Pacific in Colombo, Sri Lanka, co-hosted by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence.
Julie was Chair of the Law Institute of Victoria’s Reconciliation and Advancement Committee, and a director of Big Red Films Ltd and the Mai Wiru Sugar Challenge Foundation.
Helen Whitehead
Helen has over twenty years of global transformation experience. She designs for humans in exponential technology projects across multiple sectors and geographies. Creating customer centric products and services and innovation at scale. She is responsible for creating differentiated value propositions which meet customer and organisational needs.
Helen, has a natural flair for bringing diverse groups together to achieve accelerated outcomes. Known for her empath, intellect and bias to action, her purpose is to drive increases in empathy and innovation in the world.
Andrew Picken
Andrew is an entrepreneur and business designer working with leaders to innovate, grow and bring to life new ideas. Andrew helps identify opportunities, connect dots, add value and solve meaningful problems. He co-designs and launches innovative new initiatives and helps to drive an sustain innovation and growth. He has worked across an extremely wide range of disciplines, and his clients include some of the best-known and most respected brands, founders and investors in the world spanning diverse sectors from digital technology, retain to manufacturing, events and the for-purpose sector.
Jason Kimberley
His first book, Australia Exposed (2003), was the result of a yearlong camping trip around Australia. Antarctica, A Different Adventure (2007) describes his journey across the frozen wilderness.
Jason has travelled extensively throughout Australia and the globe subjecting himself to a number of challenges including: climbing South America’s highest peak Mt. Aconcagua (23,000ft), man-hauling sledges in Antarctica, trekking Denali and a month long kayaking odyssey on Prince William Sound – both in Alaska.
More recently Jason has trekked to Mt Everest Base camp, traversed the Kokoda Track and been dogsledding in the Yukon Territories. Jason’s passion for education is driven by understanding that every child must be given the opportunity to thrive at school, learning the important skills of critical thinking, problem finding and solving. At Cool Australia, you truly do learn for life.