Barry Poppleton

Director, P7 Consulting Pty Ltd

Barry Poppleton is the Principal of P7 Consulting, an organisational development consultancy that services both public sector and non-profit organisations. P7 Consulting specialises in leadership development, relationship management and diversity management.

Barry's areas of competence include leadership development, performance management, interpersonal communication including emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, diversity management, learning design and development, team strengthening, stakeholder engagement, business and organisational planning, group facilitation and coaching. Barry is Canberra-based and also consults through the Centre for Public Management (CPM) in Canberra.

Barry has over 15 years of consulting experience and has consulted to numerous public service agencies in Australia, Africa and the Asia-Pacific. Prior to setting up his own company, he was a partner in two public sector management consultancies. His consultancy experience covers a broad range of people, process and strategy interventions.

First hand public sector experience was gained from serving in the South African public service at the Senior Executive Service (SES) level. The last role held there involved the management of human resource development across nine government departments in the country's largest economic province, Gauteng. Another position held in the public sector was Manager of Organisational Development in the Department of Education, where he oversaw a department-wide culture change intervention. He also pioneered one of the country's first affirmative action programmes in this department.

Barry has directed three NGO's, all of which had community development as their mission. The first had education as its primary focus; the second socio-economic partnerships; and the third had a community health care focus.

Barry gets most satisfaction from his work through assisting others in their formal and informal development and growth. The approach he prefers is a mix of providing theory, tools and techniques and then facilitating the application of these in the participants' context. His facilitative approach is one of encouraging breakthroughs and insights which shift both individual and group and hence work performance.

Formal qualifications held by Barry include a Masters in Public Sector Management, Honours in Psychology and a Bachelors degree in Commerce. He holds multiple accreditations in personality and behavioural instruments and is an accredited coach. Barry also holds qualifications in counselling and strategic leadership. Barry volunteers for the Red Cross where he mentors teenage fathers.