Meet our team

Alan Woodside – Lead Coach    

Alan works as a consultant and facilitator, providing leadership development advice to organisations through programme development and delivery, coaching and mentoring for individuals and teams. His career in Ireland, Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand has spanned management and leadership roles in the public and not-for-profit sectors in science (forensic and environmental), health and safety, injury prevention, transport, primary industry and disability. His chief executive and senior leadership positions have also yielded experience in:

• policy, research and service delivery
• relationship management with ministers, select committees, boards, stakeholder groups and the media
• start-up and change leadership
• international and culturally diverse settings.

Alan has a master’s degree in International Relations (Victoria University Wellington) and is a Graduate of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK). He is Irish, lives in Wellington and enjoys reading and writing; talking and listening; football and walking and whanau (family). Alan has been associated with SPC’s Leadership Development Programme since its inception and has been a facilitator with a similarly intentioned programme for Maori managers in the New Zealand public sector.

Cameron Bowles – Team Leader and Coach

Cameron’s thirty years’ experience in international development, leadership, education and strategy has included consultancies and senior leadership roles with international development agencies, NGOs, universities. His experience in the Pacific spans DFAT and the Pacific Community (SPC). He has also worked in the UK as CEO of the World University Service, and in Africa, the Middle East, Central America and South Asia.

Cameron develops programmes to strengthen leaders and support people to address difficult, complex and intractable issues. With DFAT, from 2009–2013, he was the Regional Director of the Fiji-based Pacific Leadership Programme. He is an experienced speaker, facilitator and qualified coach.  Cameron has a degree in Economics, an MBA and experience of study and presenting on numerous short courses, including post-graduate studies in leadership and international development at Harvard Kennedy School, the Open University, Sussex University, the World Bank, the University of Southern California, Kansas Leadership Centre and the University of Queensland.

Cecile Depuille – Programme Manager

Cecile Depuille is a French citizen who has served The Pacific Community (SPC) since April 2011.

Cecile has extensive experience in international development. She is currently the programme manager for the Pacific Fisheries Leadership Programme funded by New Zealand MFAT. This project aims to strengthen the leadership capabilities of Pacific Island national fisheries officials to improve the performance of national fisheries agencies, and to contribute to increase economic and food security benefits in the Pacific region. She was formerly the project coordinator of the KfW project, a € 6 million multi-country grant, funded by the German Government to assist recovery activities after cyclone Pam. She has also worked as procurement officer for the Grant Management Unit of SPC’s Public Health Division based in Noumea, New Caledonia.Cecile is based in SPC’s Headquarter, in Noumea (New Caledonia) and holds a degree in international business from the University of Lille III (France).

Diego Rodriguez – Instructor, CLA

Diego has twenty years’ experience in leadership, adult learning, and international development. He specializes in teaching adaptive leadership and adult development and is an associate consultant with CLA Consulting where he consults to public, private, and non-profit organizations in the Pacific and Latin America. Diego has directed and facilitated programmes for senior teams at Australian Aid, the World Health Organization, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Chilean Ministries of Education and Housing and Urban Development.

He has also worked as a senior facilitator for the Pacific Leadership Programme. Prior to working in the Pacific and Latin America, Diego worked extensively with Outward Bound Canada and Outward Bound Mexico directing leadership programmes for marginalised groups and executive teams. He also worked on numerous community development projects in Argentina and Canada. Diego is currently a professor in the Department of Leadership at Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, Chile, where he teaches courses in adaptive leadership and organisational change.He holds a master’s in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University and was a Teaching Fellow with professors Ronald Heifetz and Robert Kegan. Diego is a certified Executive Coach with Royal Roads University and the International Coach Federation.

Megan Streeter – Coach (contracted by FFA for PFLP)

Megan is a Fiji national who works as an independent consultant. She has expertise as a training specialist; monitoring, evaluation and learning champion; information and knowledge manager; mentor/coach; quality systems auditor; project manager; facilitator; and rapporteur/editor. She is contracted by the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) to assist design and implement leadership and management training and be a coach as part of the PFLP consortium.

Megan was formerly the Training Adviser at FFA and prior to that spent 10 years at the Pacific Community (SPC) in various roles in the maritime sector. Megan’s professional career included being a secondary school teacher in Fiji and the Cook Islands, an automotive mechanic for the Fiji Government, an automotive trade Pacific Islands Regional Ocean Forum Coordinator for the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific (CROP). 

Mereani Rokotuibau – Coach, SPCMereani Rokotuibau is a development professional with over 10 years of experience working across a number of Pacific Island Countries. During her recent tenure with Pacific Leadership Program (2009 – 2017), Mereani provided strategic and operational support to leadership and governance initiatives, coalitions and organisations across four Pacific Island countries - Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. A significant part of her support to reform coalitions involved utilising tools and approaches - Adaptive Leadership Training, Political Economy Analysis (PEA), Thinking and Working Politically (TWP), Partnership Brokering, - to guide and shape their ways of working. Mereani has extensive experience in the development and facilitation of adaptive leadership training at the national and local level in Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. She is the current team leader for a DFAT funded and multi-national initiative, Balance of Power working to strengthen and support a better balance and access in leadership, with a particular focus on women in leadership. 

Dr Neil Paulsen – Associate Professor, The University of Queensland

Dr Neil Paulsen is an Associate Professor in the University of Queensland Business School, Australia with research and teaching interests in leadership and change, teams, organisational development, and human-centred design. He has a long-standing interest and involvement in all levels of organisational life as a practitioner, consultant and researcher. Neil has more than 20 years’ experience as a successful senior manager and consultant in public, private, and community sector organisations in Australia, India and the Netherlands.Neil’s interactive style challenges participants to make a difference in the context in which they live and work. He has a unique ability to draw from his own senior management experience and current research knowledge to provide useable and practical insights. He has received six teaching awards. Neil has served as course director for approximately 15 Australia Awards programmes and has facilitated sessions in many others. These programmes and sessions focus on leadership, organisational development, negotiation and infrastructure development. Neil has worked with participants from 15 African countries, and participants from South West Asia, Papua New Guinea and South Pacific nations. 

Peni Tawake – Coach

Peni Tawake is a development and communications professional with over 10 years of experience working across a number of Pacific Island Countries.

During his recent tenure with Pacific Leadership Program (2012 – 2017), Peni has provided strategic and operational support to leadership and governance initiatives, coalitions and organisations across four Pacific Island countries - Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. A significant part of his support to reform coalitions involved utilising tools and approaches - Adaptive Leadership Training, Political Economy Analysis (PEA), Thinking and Working Politically (TWP), Partnership Brokering, - to guide and shape their ways of working.

Peni has extensive experience in the development and facilitation of adaptive leadership training at the national and local level in Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

He is Partnership and Coalition Manager at Australia Pacific Training Coalition where he is primarily responsible for ensuring APTC is informed by ongoing PEA and the applications of the principles of TWP as well as brokering partnerships between APTC and partner TVET institutions across the Pacific region.

Dr Tim Grice – The University of Queensland and Square Circle

Dr Tim Grice works at the intersection of governance, leadership and policy in Asia Pacific, Africa and Latin America.  Tim has led governance, leadership and policy programs for The World Bank, The International Finance Corporation, The United Nations Development Programme, the Natural Resource Governance Institute, Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Transparency International and Australian The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Tim’s work in the extractives sector focuses on multi-stakeholder governance structures and mechanisms to enhance local agency. For instance, for the Ministry of Mining, Energy and Rural Electrification in Solomon Islands, Tim is helping to establish the Natural Resources Independent Advisory Centre as a statutory body for landowners and communities impacted by extraction. For Papua New Guinea Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Tim is leading a review of subnational payment flows and piloting multi-stakeholder subnational governance structures at the provincial and local levels. Tim’s work with leaders in the public sector focuses on inclusive and adaptive approaches to strategic leadership. Working across the private sector, public sector and civil society, Tim has also led programs in community health, education, law and justice, financial inclusion, small and medium enterprise development, institutional strengthening and infrastructure development.

Dr Grice holds a PhD in Organisational Psychology from The University of Queensland, is the Founding Director of Square Circle Global Development, a member of Transparency International PNG, and is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the School of Political Science and International Studies. Tim lived and worked in PNG for six years and plays the charango from time-to-time.