About Stephanie

Stephanie Bown helps leadership teams be better, together.

Stephanie Bown

Stephanie is obsessed with the collective capacity for all humans to come together in small groups and make a difference. By exploring the bonds that tie and the moments that break, Stephanie inspires leaders to fully turn up, lean in, and leverage collective capacity achieve outstanding results.

Stephanie is the acclaimed author of two leadership books on high performance. Her first book Purpose, Passion & Performance is a guide for leaders on building high-performance organisations and was awarded one of Australia’s top three leadership books in 2021. Her second book, Curious, Connected & Calm: how leaders are better together is a guide for leaders on how to build high performing teams that leverage collective capacity to innovate, and problem solve.

As an accredited facilitator for Young Presidents Organisation (YPO) and Company Director (GAICD), Stephanie deeply understands the challenges today’s leaders face. She works with start-ups, scale-ups and leading market disruptors to deliver talks and programs that embed high performance habits and drive transformational change.

Having completed a Masters in Organisation Dynamics, tertiary qualifications in psychology, neuropsychology, and positive psychology; as well as professional accreditations in validated psychometric tools; Stephanie has devoted her life to discovering the dynamics of individuals, teams and organisations.

Following a strong grounding as a management consultant with celebrated consultancy Nous Group; as well as several years as the in-house coach to the executive team at Swisse Wellness who delivered a record private sale of AUD $1.6 billion, Stephanie founded her own practice in 2015. From there, Stephanie has evolved to deliver thought-provoking content, programs and talks to leadership teams spanning all industries and continents that fundamentally change the way leaders and leadership teams operate.

Qualifications

  • Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD)
  • Masters of Organisation Dynamics
  • First Class Honours in Neuropsychology
  • Bachelor of Applied Science – Psychology and Psychophysiology
  • Diploma of Positive Psychology
  • Certificate IV in Training and Assessment

Professional Accreditations

  • Young Presidents Organisation (YPO) Certified Forum Facilitator (CFF)
  • Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Personality profile tool
  • Human Synergistics Life Styles Inventory (LSI); Organisational Culture Inventory (OCI), and Customer Service Styles (CSS)
  • Genos Emotional Intelligence (EI) Accredited Practitioner

Stephanie has done great things with us. Thanks to her planning, coaching and support, we had an award-winning team and a business that was hugely successful.

Radek Sali

Former Chief Executive Officer, Swisse Wellness (now founder Light Warrior Investments)

As our high performance partner since 2016, Stephanie has worked closely with the Pentana Solutions Executive Team and myself facilitate both the creation of our 5-year strategic vision and execution of this vision through quarterly strategy and leadership sessions. Through 360-degree feedback and ongoing coaching, Stephanie has helped us adopt more constructive styles of leadership, engage our Top 50 leaders in strategy execution, and truly take ownership of our roles as executives. With Steph’s guidance and support, we’ve become a stronger, more aligned executive team, demonstrating measurable improvements in both our leadership and our business performance. I am very comfortable recommending Steph to both my YPO peers and my business partners.

Steve Kloss

CEO, Pentana Solutions

I am profoundly grateful for the amazing job done by Stephanie and her team in relation to planning, managing and facilitating our group retreat in Byron Bay.  Her extensive career experience, professionalism, academic knowledge and in-depth understanding of YPO protocols, combined with a natural and easy-going style quickly established her credibility and trust with the group, enabling people to open up and truly go deep with themselves and others in an honest, authentic and genuinely bonding manner. The powerful processes that Stephanie utilised gave all of us a far greater understanding of ourselves and each other, our forum group has become a much stronger and closer unit as a result. We feel like we have now discovered our group identity, values and purpose as a result. The retreat was a peak experience for me and I have come away with a renewed passion for my business, my family and my life.

Ron Selkirk

Director Selkirk Group and YPO Forum Member

Steph was simply awesome. She provided very refreshing forum facilitation on our retreat, spending time on theory as well, which helped not only in the forum but had very practical business application.

James Cotton

Education Chair Melbourne Chapter 2018, Young Presidents Organisation (YPO)

Steph is an incredibly relatable coach that builds and drives high-performance cultures. She has and continues to have a significant impact in my business. We initially engaged Steph to deliver a 2-Day workshop where she introduced Mastering Feedback and Coaching framework to our senior team. The outcomes were extraordinary, we all walked away with a strong understanding of how to create a culture where people feel safe to speak up, offer ideas, challenge the status quo and address performance gaps with candour. Steph continues to coach myself and the senior team on a monthly basis so that we can cascade the learnings to our teams and reach our full potential

Todd Foster

Managing Director, Novas and YPO Melbourne member

Stephanie has an exceptional gift of breaking down complex business concepts into simple, digestible tasks. Tasks and items that are well understood by the entire team and business. She helps create a safe environment for all to contribute to which ensures full buy in from the business. We have successfully worked with Stephanie for over five years and plan on continuing to do so long into the future.

Michael Da Gama Pinto

Chief Executive Officer, The Foundry

Linking culture and leadership with clear measurable objectives is key to delivering on purpose, performance, and a thriving and sustainable organisation. No one better than Steph to help organisations bring this to the top of the agenda, and to identify opportunities to create a better workplace, better organisation, stronger culture, and ultimately deliver outstanding performance. Steph has been integral in the OneHealth journey from startup to scale. Not there yet by any means, the journey continues, but with the incredible talent, commitment, and passion from within our organisation and with Steph’s illumination and guidance, there is every reason to be confident in outstanding results!

Ulrich Irgens

General Manager, Human Health at Novozymes

Steph is a natural at simplifying the complex with clear concepts and models, but it’s the combination of that along with her warm and engaged presence that have made all our sessions with her so effective and energising.  It’s a delight to see that her book also brings her best to life as well.

Ben Summons

Former CEO, Stone & Wood