Natalie Slessor, Head of Customer Futures, Lendlease
Natalie Slessor is a social psychologist with a focus on the built environment, and particularly on the future of work and workplace. Natalie is a prominent voice in the field of the psychology of work and the workplace of the future in the context of the city, she has worked at Lendlease since 2012.
The Lendlease property development and investment business in Australia is continually evolving its vision for how our customers will work, live, shop and connect in the assets we create and operate.
Natalie draws upon our wealth of customer data, experiences and insights with a particular emphasis on exploring new concepts, offerings and unique positioning to ready Lendlease for our next era of leadership in place-making in all our markets.
Lendlease are continually advancing efforts to best respond to how major market trends, such as the next generation of workforce and changes in technology, that will shape our products and projects in the future.
Natalie’s portfolio includes Innovation, Customer Futures, New Services and Products for the Property group, and Customer Experience for the Asset Management business.
Natalie has worked in a strategic advisor capacity with customers such as CBA, Westpac, NAB, ANZ, Suncorp, Google, Local Government, Health Infrastructure, Federal Government (RBA), Wework, KPMG and Telstra.
Georgia von Guttner, Lead – Partnership and Tenancy for Melbourne Connect, Director Enterprise, University of Melbourne
Georgia leads the development of industry partnership and tenancy for the University of Melbourne’s landmark innovation precinct development, Melbourne Connect. Her work is at the intersection between the higher education, industry and government sectors, where she leads large, complex projects addressed to achieving impact at scale.
Georgia combines higher education sector experience with senior roles in industry, business transformation, facilities management and commercial development. She’s a veteran of start-ups in in Australia and overseas, has developed office, health services and campus facilities from the USA and Europe to regional Victoria. Georgia is an experienced Board Director and a graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Julie Wagner – President, The Global Institute on Innovation Districts
Julie is an expert on urban innovation geographies, described as innovation districts, which sit at the intersection of economy-shaping, place-making, and network-building. She is president of the Global Institute on Innovation Districts (GIID), a global-reaching not for profit organization.
At The Global Institute, she recently coauthored “The Evolution of Innovation Districts: The New Geography of Global Innovation,” expanding on the findings of the original paper on innovation districts published with The Brookings Institution.
She is also president of Urban Insight, a boutique consulting practice that each year works with only select projects determined to be of particular promise in shaping cities. Julie is a nonresident senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, Metropolitan Policy Program, one of the most highly-ranked public policy research institutions globally.
She often writes articles and blogs about the changing role and power of small-scale, walkable innovation geographies and the value of growing local and regional residents into new jobs.
(Moderator) James Green – Director, Engagement Strategy, University of Melbourne
James is Director, Engagement Strategy at the University of Melbourne. His current focus is on implementing Engagement at Melbourne 2015–2020, the University’s first strategy for engaging with business, government and communities. James works with the Melbourne Innovation Districts, a collaboration between the University, RMIT University and the City of Melbourne to catalyse the innovative potential of the CBD’s northern edge.
James trained as an economist and previously worked as a consultant advising governments and companies on the design and evaluation of public policy.