Event Details
Time: 9:00am - 4:30pm
Date: 31 October 2025
Venue: Australian National University, Physics Building: Conference Room | Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
Registration Fee: $50 Member | $70 Non-Member (incl. GST)
About the Event
The RMIA ACT Chapter proudly presents the Risk Odyssey 2025, a dynamic and immersive one-day forum designed to challenge, inspire, and elevate risk professionals across sectors. This year’s event—Elevate and Evolve Your Practice—embraces both the spirit of transformation and the thrill of uncertainty. Through a series of thought-provoking presentations, interactive discussions, and themed activities, the forum explores the evolving landscape of risk management and resilience in a world shaped by climate change, technological disruption, cyber threats, and shifting organisational cultures.
With a festive atmosphere, engaging Halloween themed trivia, and opportunities to network and collaborate, the Risk Odyssey 2025 promises to be a truly transformative experience for risk professionals ready to evolve their practice.
About the Speakers
Session 1: Climate Risk and Culture
Greta Bartels
Assistant Director | DCCEEW
Greta Bartels is an Assistant Director at the Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW). She holds a Master of Climate Change and is passionate about managing Australia's climate risks. Currently, Greta works in the Climate Risk and Innovation section. The section has developed and is now implementing the Climate Risk and Opportunity Management Program to uplift climate risk capability in the public sector.
Luke Grimshaw
Senior Project Manager | ACT Government’s Parks and Conservation Service
Luke Grimshaw is a senior project manager, currently working in disaster resilience for ACT Government’s Parks and Conservation Service. His current project seeks to create a new investment framework that will direct funds to ACT Parks’ assets in a way that is more strategic, equitable and cost-effective; thereby ensuring ACT’s parks are more resilient against current and future natural hazards.
Dr Gavriel (Gav) Schneider
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Dr Gavriel (Gav) Schneider is a global authority on risk, leadership, and building high-performance cultures in uncertain environments. As the creator of the Presilience® framework and author of Presilience: How to Navigate Risk, Embrace Opportunity, and Build Resilience, Dr Gav empowers leaders and practitioners to move beyond compliance and traditional resilience, building proactive, opportunity-centric risk cultures that drive sustainable high performance. With extensive experience running companies across the risk, security, safety and leadership sectors, and nearly a decade as head of ACU’s postgraduate program in the Psychology of Risk, Dr Gav brings practical, real-world insights to every engagement. His contributions to the field have been recognised with numerous awards including; RMIA’s Consultant of the Year (2019) and Risk Leader of the Year (2023), reflecting his commitment to helping organisations lead, adapt, and thrive in a complex world.
Session 2: AI and Resilience
Wasim Malik
CEO and Founder | Risk Professionals
Wasim Malik is a senior executive and board director with over 27 years of international experience in Risk Management, Business Resilience, AI Governance, and GRC. Wasim is the CEO and Founder of Risk Professionals and currently serves as a Director of MBAus. He is the former Global Board Director of the Business Continuity Institute (BCI), where he contributed to global policy and strategy for resilience. A multiple award-winner, he was inducted into the BCI Hall of Fame in 2018 in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field. He continues to champion the integration of risk, resilience, and sustainability across sectors. He has been instrumental in implementing global standards including ISO 22301, ISO/IEC 27001, and ISO/IEC 42001, and has led major resilience and compliance programs across financial institutions globally.
Daryl Sheppard
Director, Cyber Security Services | Anchoram Consulting
Daryl Sheppard is a seasoned cybersecurity professional with nearly two decades of experience spanning both government and private sectors. He has held a variety of technical and managerial roles, and currently serves as an IRAP Assessor. As a PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania, his research focuses on human factors in cybersecurity—particularly how organizations can address challenges at the “Layer 8” level.
In addition to his academic pursuits, Daryl is dedicated to advancing cybersecurity awareness and best practices across the broader community. He holds a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment and has delivered cybersecurity training for multiple organizations. Daryl has also developed a course for the online learning platform Cybrary and has presented at several Australian Information Security Association National and Regional Conferences.
Session 3: Safety and Wellness
Rhonda Pilgrim
RMIA ACT Chapter Committee Member
Rhonda Pilgrim is the Events lead for the ACT Chapter of RMIA. Rhonda is an experienced risk facilitator, with over 30 years’ experience designing, implementing, managing and certifying risk-based quality, safety and environmental management systems across a broad range of industries, from hospital, medical and pharmaceutical, through mining, manufacturing, oil and gas and utilities, to the community sector and government.
Currently Rhonda holds the central risk role within the ACT Government, leading a small team that provides risk policy, tools, training and advice to all ACT Government entities. She is passionate about making risk conversations interesting, meaningful and memorable, and will host participants through a spooky risk trivia activity.
Natasha Lee
Desk Coach | Preventive Wellness Solutions
Natasha Lee is a seasoned executive with a deep commitment to people sustainability, health, and wellbeing. With over two decades of cross-sector experience spanning health tech, banking, financial services, and government, she brings a rare blend of strategic foresight and operational excellence to every role she undertakes.
As Co-Founder & COO of Wini Health and desk.coach®, Natasha leads with the conviction that "small changes and consistency can change everything". Her work empowers individuals and organisations to build healthier communities and workplace cultures—driven by scalable, tech-enabled solutions that support everyday wellbeing.
Natasha thrives at the intersection of people and process. She is a strategic thinker and inclusive leader, known for navigating complex change, embedding governance frameworks, and managing risk with clarity and care. Her leadership at ASIC and NAB included market enforcement, surveillance, and middle-office transformation, alongside championing employee wellbeing and stakeholder engagement.
Whether building digital health platforms or guiding regulatory reform, Natasha is driven by long-term impact, authentic partnerships, and systems that enable better choices—every day.
Sal Sidoti
Director and Principal Consultant | Crafted Solutions Pty Ltd
Sal Sidoti changes how people and organisations think about risk and uncertainty - maximising performance through genuine engagement with risk, rather than cut-and-paste compliance and death by spreadsheet. Optimising how we engage with uncertainty, rather than chasing green squares a matrix.
His perspectives build upon nearly 40 years as both a risk practitioner and advisor. He has worked with hundreds of organisations both within Australia and further afield. Sal had a leading role in the development of the original 2014 Commonwealth Risk Management Policy and much of its suite of supporting guidance.
Sal is currently the Director and Principal Consultant of Crafted Solutions Pty Ltd and a specialist senior executive advisor with RSM Australia. He is home based near Canberra, Australia.
Gavin Halling
Director | RiskTools
Gavin Halling has assisted many organisations to improve business outcomes, including large and small projects in infrastructure, building and ‘soft’ projects. His focus is on the development and application of practical methodologies, procedures and tools.
Since 1996, with the release of the first standalone risk management standard (AS/NZS 4360), it was apparent that this management function was critical to achieving an organisation’s objectives. Initial development of processes occurred on the Sydney Airport Link, which won the 2000 NSW Institute of Project Management Excellence Award for RSA. Subsequently, clients have been diverse, from international companies through to SMEs and both government and semi-government organisations. Examples include a desalination plant, substations, transmission lines through to schools, environmental and IT projects.
As a result of working with clients, processes have been refined to not only deliver but also measure both efficiency and effectiveness. This evolution has also resulted in the development of software - RiskOrganizer to support an integrated approach to managing risks and UncertainCostManager to assist with the management of project cost uncertainty.
Learn more about our speakers, bios coming shortly.