Dr Leeora Black / Managing Director
Leeora D. Black, Ph.D, is founder and managing director of the Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility and an honorary visitor to the La Trobe University Graduate School of Management.
Leeora works with senior managers and executive teams to analyse and solve complex CSR issues and problems, create effective corporate and stakeholder strategies and build management capabilities.
She applies a capability-development approach to every engagement, ensuring knowledge and skills transfer that facilitate continuous improvement for clients and colleagues both during and after engagements.
A widely published author and speaker, Leeora is an experienced and highly sought-after facilitator of workshops and seminars on CSR.
Leeora is responsible for all aspects of ACCSR’s direction, strategy and services. After beginning her working life as a journalist and then corporate affairs manager, Leeora established Synergy Communications Pty Ltd, a boutique corporate communications and advisory firm, which she ran for 12 years before undertaking her doctorate in corporate social responsibility through the Department of Management at Monash University. She established ACCSR in 2003.
Sara Bice is a Senior Consultant at ACCSR. Since joining our team in May 2008, Sara has worked on research, strategy and reporting projects for clients in the mining, energy, transportation, health and financial services industries. She has prepared State of CSR in Australia reports and is a certified GRI Trainer. Before joining ACCSR, Sara worked in international and community development on issues including corporate responsibility in the mining industry, public participation and work-life balance.
Sara has published book chapters on social responsibility in the mining industry and has been a visiting researcher at the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at the University of Queensland and at the University of Chicago Department of Sociology where she also studied at the Chicago Booth School of Business. She is an Associate of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute and is completing a PhD in Sociology at the University of Melbourne, developing approaches to facilitate more community-targeted CSR-programming in the Australian mining industry. She is also completing a Commonwealth Government-supported program in Research Commercialisation at Melbourne Business School.
Jackie Allender / Senior Consultant
Jackie Allender is a Senior Consultant at ACCSR. Since joining our team in April 2010 she has worked on projects in the telecommunications and professional services industries, following a career in the media and in corporate communications, including in the mining and water industries. Her expertise is in change management, corporate communications and sustainability.
She began her career as a journalist at the ABC and The Australian, then working for a Victorian Minister, at Ansett Airlines and at BHP where she produced speeches, corporate reports and environmental reports. Her more recent experience includes change management communications for Yarra Valley Water and other clients. She has an MBA from Mt Eliza Business School (now part of Melbourne Business School).
Natasha Malinda / Reporting Consultant
Natasha Malinda is a Reporting Consultant at ACCSR. With a keen interest in international affairs, Natasha has a Masters in International Law/International Relations from the University of New South Wales and a Diploma of Freelance Journalism from the Australian College of Journalism.
Her previous experience includes working as a communications consultant and a researcher for an international trade organisation. Natasha works with ACCSR clients on sustainability reporting services.
Bob Kochen is ACCSR’s Office Manager and provides administrative support to consulting and research projects, and workshops. Bob’s general management experience includes roles in administration, logistics, and customer support in a range of industries, such as industrial and consumer goods, construction and education.
Paul Hohnen / Senior International Associate
Paul Hohnen is a member of ACCSR’s sustainability reporting advisory and services team and provides high-level strategic advice on sustainability reports. He is also a partner in delivery of our Learning Programs. A special adviser to the Global Reporting Initiative and the UN Global Compact, Paul is an international sustainability consultant, speaker and author based in Amsterdam. Paul works with ACCSR on client assignments and visits Australia to co-facilitate workshops.
A former Australian diplomat, he has worked intensively with the UN, with NGOs and with business on sustainable development issues since 1989 and has an extensive track record on identifying emerging global business issues. Paul encourages the development of policy coalitions between business, labour and NGOs that explore pragmatic policy options to fast-track progress towards sustainable development.
Paul has developed a reputation as a gifted facilitator, reflecting his three-decade diplomatic and international conference experience. He specialises in multi-stakeholder discussions on issues such as sustainable development and CSR.
Paul has served on the OECD Expert Panel on CSR, and since 2004 has been participating in the International Organization for Standardisation’s Working Group on Social Responsibility to develop a global standard for social responsibility.
Dr Robert Boutilier / Senior International Associate
Robert G. Boutilier, Ph.D., is a researcher, author, and consultant. He is president of Robert Boutilier & Associates, a social research consultancy based in Vancouver (www.stakeholder360.com). He is an associate of the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University and Executive Director of the Atzingo Institute for Stakeholder Network Studies.
Dr Boutilier’s work involves the application of concepts like social capital, social network analysis and sustainability to stakeholder relations and community development. He has studied stakeholder issues on four continents, in six languages, in over 40 communities.
Dr. Boutilier has conducted workshops on stakeholder relations for managers in Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United States. He is a regular conference speaker and has published papers on firm-stakeholder relations in professional magazines, AccountAbility Quarterly, the Journal of Corporate Citizenship, and several edited books. He currently lives in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he wrote his latest book, Stakeholder Politics (Stanford University Press, USA and Greenleaf Publishing, UK, 2009).
He works together with ACCSR to use the Stakeholder 360® to help clients benchmark and develop quality stakeholder relationships and engagement strategies.