Judges

Vice-President, General Counsel and Ethics & Compliance Officer (Capgemini Australia, New Zealand, China and Hong Kong) | GC Powerlist 2022/3 | In-house Leader 2022 | GC of the Year finalist | Equality advocate | Parent | Laughs a lot

Claire is a senior lawyer and professional coach, based on the east coast of Australia. Claire has over 30 years of experience gained through senior management appointments with some of the world’s largest companies and at top-tier law firms. As well as practising law, Claire is an internationally qualified executive coach (PCC) and in 2018 she founded a global professional coaching practice in which she coaches private and corporate clients, specialising in senior executives, to empower them to move their career and leadership dreams into active, actionable, pursuits. Outside of her executive life, Claire is a non-executive director of multiple ASX-listed companies and is an Industry Professional Fellow with the University of Technology Sydney, School of Law.

Claire has been recognised as one of Australia’s best lawyers and female executives, including having been awarded the “Excellence Award for Women in Law”, “General Counsel of the Year”, “Female Executive of the Year in Asia, Australia & New Zealand”, “Mentor of the Year” and was featured in SmartCompany's International Women's Day Showcase.

Prior to this appointment Dr Boersig worked as an Assistant Secretary in the Federal Attorney-General’s Department, responsible for a number of areas including Indigenous law and justice and human rights. Before joining the Attorney-General’s Department John practiced law in NSW, as a lawyer for the Aboriginal Legal Service and in private practice. He established the University of Newcastle Legal Centre and was Director of the Professional program in 1994. He was a part-time Presiding member of the Guardianship Tribunal for many years.
John has a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Sydney, and is an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Canberra. He was awarded the Public Service Medal in the 2008 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

Ann-Maree David is the National Executive Director of The College of Law, the largest provider of practice-focused legal education in Australasia. She has worked as a lawyer across public and corporate sectors and in private practice as a solicitor. She is also an experienced Board Director and Chair.
Ann-Maree is driven by her passion to support all Australian lawyers through mentoring & coaching and education & training. She has a particular interest in promoting greater diversity in all its forms throughout the profession

Cassandra is the CEO for a private family office in Saudi Arabia, and prior to this worked as a sports and corporate risk lawyer for over 14 years.

Glenn is a passionate and driven corporate and transactional lawyer, specialising in mergers and acquisitions and complex commercial arrangements.

Glenn advises both Australian and international clients on a range of corporate and commercial matters, including corporate transactions, advisory work, joint ventures, capital raisings, shareholder arrangements, corporate structuring and reorganisations, as well as directors’ duties.

He is an experienced negotiator and provides our clients with accurate, succinct and practical solutions to challenging and technical issues.In addition, Glenn has been recognised as a Leading Corporate/M&A Lawyer (Small & Mid-Market Matters – NSW) in Doyles Guide 2018 and has also been listed in Best Lawyers over the past four years for Equity Capital Markets Law and M&A Law. Glenn has also received recognition as one of Australia’s leading lawyers in private equity (IFLR 2012, ALB 2009, ALB 2007).

Geraldine Johns-Putra is a corporate and commercial lawyer with over 25 years of experience. She founded her legal practice in 2020 to support responsible businesses, start-ups, charities and not-for-profit organisations in the areas of modern slavery, ESG compliance, governance, and mission-aligned fundraising and investment. She was a partner at one of Australia's largest law firms and has worked extensively across Australia, Greater China and Southeast Asia. She most recently served as Chief Legal Officer at Coast 4C, an impact enterprise and Earthshot Prize finalist championing regenerative seaweed farming in the Philippines. She is a Deputy Chancellor of Monash University and chairs its Estates & ESG Committee. An advocate for ethical purpose-led business practices, she is Chair of young carers support charity Little Dreamers Australia and sits on the Regional Standards Advisory Group for B Lab.

Steve Lancken has been a full time mediator since 1999. During that time, Steve has conducted over 2,000 mediations. Steve has worked in Queensland mediating Native Title issues and in Liberia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Nepal and Northern America. Steve has conducted mediations for Australia’s largest and most successful organisations such as ASIC, ACCC, QANTAS, GPT, AGSM, Mission Australia, the Salvation Army, Australian Treasury, Australian Government Solicitors and Department of Defence. Steve also works with Australia’s largest banks and insurers.
Steve enjoys the opportunity to do the most interesting and challenging work and contribute to social justice, teach, educate and contribute to his profession.

Mellissa Larkin is a lawyer and entrepreneur with nearly 25 years’ experience across top-tier firms in Ireland and Australia, and in-house with large corporations. For nearly a decade she has been the Founder and Managing Director of award-winning boutique law firm Peripheral Blue and most recently of RegTech company, ESG Edge. A qualified mediator and AICD graduate, Mellissa is known for giving commercial and pragmatic advice when navigating complex legal, risk and compliance obligations. Mellissa’s commitment to exceptional client relationships extends beyond service, to the creation of bespoke tools to support their needs. Recognising the growing complexity of ESG requirements and the limitations of off-the-shelf solutions, Mellissa leveraged her real-world advisor experience to develop an ESG software solution, ‘ESG Edge’ that directly addresses the day-to-day challenges faced by businesses.
Mellissa is the 2020 SA Telstra Business Woman of the Year (small business), 2022 Innovator of the Year, Lawyer’s Weekly Partner of the Year Awards and her firm, Peripheral Blue was a finalist in the 2019 Telstra Business Awards.
As a practitioner-turned-tech-founder, Mellissa brings a rare combination of legal expertise and entrepreneurial vision - demonstrating how deep subject matter expertise can fuel meaningful, client-driven innovation.

Andrew is a strategy and media expert working with business, legal and professional services leaders to solve communications challenges. A former business journalist with The Australian he is an award winning media & communications consultant and advisor, with over 25 years experience.
Both in-house and through his consultancy Crackle Communications, Andrew has advised CEOs and leadership teams across law, professional services, finance, mining, development, litigation, retail and technology. His experience ranges from crisis management and industrial relations, to media coaching and corporate transformations.
Andrew also teaches public communications at UTS and UNSW, holds an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management, a Master of Politics and Public Policy from Macquarie University, a Graduate Diploma of Journalism & Communications from UTS and a BA from the University of Sydney.
www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-mckenzie-47582413/

Paul is a Partner in our Employment & Safety team in Melbourne.
Paul is an Accredited Specialist in Workplace Relations. He has a strong focus on resolving high risk disputes in the workplace for employers. This frequently involves employee misconduct, union disputation, governance and workplace culture, industrial action, vulnerable stakeholders, media interest and reputational risk.
Paul’s solutions extend across a range of industries such as education, technology, logistics, health, aged care, faith-based, bio-medical and labour hire and cover legal issues arising at all phases of the employment relationship (pre-employment, during employment and post-employment).
Paul played a critical role in State and Federal judicial and court administration for a 10-year period while working at the Supreme Court of Victoria and Federal Magistrates Court of Australia, where he worked with two Chief Justices. Paul also held an executive position at the Family Court of Australia where he was responsible for overall delivery of registry services to the judiciary and self-represented litigants as well as the management and supervision of 60 registry staff.
He is the co-author with Dentons' partner Toby Blyth on a textbook on privacy and surveillance in the workplace (published by Wolters Kluwer).

Sue-Ella specialises in helping lawyers and law firms create more rewarding practices through purposeful business strategy and positive client engagement.

Sue-Ella established her award-winning consultancy Prodonovich Advisory in 2005.

Her In-House roles have included Director of Marketing, Arthur Anderson; Director of Marketing & Business Development, Baker McKenzie; and Partner, Crowe Horwath.
Sue-Ella is a member of the teaching faulty of The College of Law, The Law Society of NSW, The Law Institute of Victoria, and FMRC. In 2011 she was inducted into the APSMA Hall Of Fame for services to the Australasian Professional Services Industry and in 2019 she was made a Fellow of the College of Law Firm Management. Her qualifications include an MBA, Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) (Law & Marketing) – VC List, the AICD Course for Company Directors, and the Net Promoter® Client Loyalty Program™.

www.prodonovich.com

Andrew serves as the Group General Counsel and Company Secretary at HMC Capital (ASX: HMC), a leading ASX-listed diversified alternative asset manager with $19 billion assets under management across real estate, private equity, private credit, energy transition and digital infrastructure. In this C-suite role he oversees all legal, compliance, governance and company secretarial functions for the business and its managed wholesale and retail funds.

Andrew was awarded General Counsel of the Year at the 2025 Australian Law Awards. He was also awarded General Counsel of the Year at the 2022 Australian Law Awards and has been named twice in the globally prestigious GC Powerlist Australia. He has also been widely recognised by Doyles Best Lawyers Guide as a leading in-house lawyer. Andrew was the three-time consecutive winner of Construction and Real Estate Lawyer of the Year at the Corporate Counsel Awards.

He was named in the Australasian Lawyer In-House Leaders list and was a finalist for Dealmaker of the Year at the Australian Corporate Lawyer Awards. He has also been named as a global leading governance professional in the Modern Governance Top 100. The legal team he leads was also shortlisted to win In House Team of the Year at the Australian Law Awards 2025.

He is dual-qualified as a solicitor in Australia as well as England and Wales and has worked at top law firms in Australia and the United Kingdom and more recently worked as Senior Legal Counsel and Company Secretary at GPT Group, one of Australia's leading real estate investment trusts. Andrew has served on the Law Society of New South Wales In-House Corporate Lawyers Committee. He was also previously a casual academic at UTS Law School, Sydney

He is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Andrew is a member of the Governance Institute of Australia and a member of the Association of Corporate Counsel Australia. He has also served on the Property Council of Australia Future Directions Committee (NSW Division). During that time he was Chair of the Property Council of Australia's Future Leaders Mentoring Program Subcommittee.

Andrew is also the Non-Executive Director of Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC), a global Christian charity whose programs are heard on stations worldwide, as well as by satellite and the internet. He is also actively involved in the ministry of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Sydney and its Affiliated Regions.

Seasoned legal executive with over 17 years of regulatory experience, particularly within financial services businesses, who has significantly contributed to strategy development, team financial management, and the delivery of excellent customer outcomes. My proven track record includes driving business strategy, leading numerous transformations, and overseeing crucial M&A activities.

I excel in resolving significant operational and commercial matters while navigating complex legal landscapes. Throughout my career, I have adeptly managed legal and regulatory compliance for ASX-listed organizations both domestically and offshore, across various corporate and major business roles.

My strategic mindset, supported by extensive operational expertise and experience, has consistently delivered tangible outcomes that propel business growth while ensuring compliance. I thrive in complex environments and leverage my strong communication skills to gain buy-in from and influence all relevant stakeholders, from the boardroom to daily legal operations.

Moreover, my passion for developing future leaders is evident in my track record of building high-performing legal teams.