PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
AND CAREER SERVICES
Director – Professional development and careers
Mardi O'Keefe
Senior coach – Leadership, career and high performance programs
Mardi O’Keefe is a senior career and organisational development specialist with more than 20 years’ experience supporting individuals, teams and organisations to perform at their best. Drawing on deep expertise in leadership development, professional coaching and group dynamics, Mardi works with professionals and teams to strengthen capability, navigate complexity and build high-functioning, sustainable workplaces.
As a Level 2 IECL-certified organisational coach, she has coached hundreds of senior professionals and doctors – from interns to senior executives – across all specialties and stages of career. Over the past ten years, Mardi has built AMA Victoria’s Professional Development and Careers Service, designing targeted leadership, career and high-performance coaching programs for the medical profession. Her work spans individual coaching, team development, program design and organisational consulting.
Mardi holds a BSc (Psychology) and a Master of Applied Science (Organisation Dynamics).
Manager – Career service and mentoring program
Carolyn Speed
Senior coach – Career and professional coaching programs
Carolyn Speed is a seasoned career management professional and executive coach with extensive experience supporting doctors at every stage of their careers, from student to retiree. A Level 2 IECL-certified organisational coach, Carolyn has completed hundreds of hours of professional coaching, specialising in the medical field. She brings deep knowledge of training pathways, medical career progression—including key transition stages and private practice—and understands the unique challenges doctors face in taking up roles in the public health system.
Carolyn has been instrumental in developing AMA Victoria’s Professional Development and Career Service, leading initiatives such as interview preparation, choosing a specialty, stepping up to consultant, retirement planning and the mentoring program – all tailored specifically for medical professionals. Before transitioning into coaching, Carolyn worked as a senior lawyer and consultant, bringing broad expertise from both the public and private sectors. She holds a BA (Psych) and an LLB (Hons), complementing her coaching qualifications with strong analytical and communication skills.
senior coach - career programs
Julia Earle
Senior coach – Career programs
Mentoring Program - Lead
Julia Earle is an expert in career development and talent management with over 20 years’ experience across a range of industry sectors, including health. She holds a BA (Psych) and postgraduate qualifications in career coaching.
Julia has extensive experience supporting doctors from medical school through to mid-career, with a particular focus on early transition points. Her coaching spans from students to those approaching retirement, and she brings a client-centred, strengths-based approach to each conversation. She has a strong interest in helping professionals navigate career transitions, whether developing expertise, exploring new pathways or pursuing opportunities for growth.
Julia also brings deep experience in recruitment and selection processes and is highly skilled in supporting individuals to achieve their employment goals.
Senior coach - Leadership programs
Anna Clark
Senior coach – Leadership programs
Program director - Leadership education
Anna has been supporting doctors in their leadership development since 2020, designing leadership education and coaching programs that support people taking up their roles effectively in complex and collaborative teams and organisations.
Anna is a social psychologist and leadership development specialist with a career spanning academia, consulting, executive education, and coaching. She holds a PhD in Psychology and held academic positions in teaching and research in Australia, the Netherlands and France. At INSEAD Business School in France, Anna held a post-doctoral fellowship in Organisational Behaviour before transitioning into Leadership Consulting and Coaching on Executive education and Leadership Development Programs for 10 years. Anna has also trained with the Institute for Executive Coaching and Leadership, where she is currently completing her PCCC accreditation.
Anna balances her academic training and love of research and teaching, with a very caring and grounded approach to working with others. She creates deeply professional and supportive learning spaces where people can share difficult issues and find ways to move forward, empowered with new insights as well as realistic and practical skills to navigate complex and challenging work, professional relationships and workplace cultures. Anna holds a supportive and safe learning space for all, whether they are new to leadership, new to Australia or new to a reflective and conversational style of learning and development.
At AMA Victoria, Anna designs and delivers the Leadership Education and Leadership Coaching Programs. Her programs draw on her deep academic and professional training in psychology, adult learning and education, to provide best practice professional development in leadership, with a focus on leading people and teams in complex and collaborative work. Anna’s Leadership coaching approach blends coaching and leadership education, enabling coachees to access insights from leadership theory and research to build their knowledge and skills in areas of relevance and interest to the challenges they bring to the coaching sessions.
Anna has published book chapters and articles in peer reviewed journals in communication and social psychology, in leadership development for the school education sector, and most recently in her popular Leadership Insight series with AMA Victoria where she writes on leadership issues and challenges that come up regularly for doctors, bringing a theoretical and research lens as well as practical skills and actions people can use in their current work roles every day.
coach - PROFESSIONAL COACHING programs
Anthony Dilley
Anthony trained as a General and Paediatric Surgeon in Australia and the USA and works as a paediatric surgeon in NSW.
He received formal training in adult education under the auspices of RACS and has engaged in teaching with RACS for over two decades. His College interests included delivering the Process Communication Model courses, which provides a practical scaffold to assist individuals optimise communication in their professional and personal environments.
In 2020 Anthony completed a Masters in Conflict Management and Resolution and followed this with training in Transformative Mediation and Dialogue. Conflict is part of life; the health work environment is no exception. Competence with conflict management theory and interventions is desirable for any health practitioner.
In 2025 he completed a Masters in the Psychology of Coaching at the University of Sydney. This course utilises the evidence base of psychology (traditional fields such as cognitive behavioural theory, together with newer positive-psychology theories and interventions, and leadership and communication theories and their application) and the course teaches how these can be best applied in the coaching context according to coachee context.
Coaching is not therapy, and it differs from mentoring in that coaches don’t direct specific paths or outcomes. Coaching is future focussed. For Anthony, colleagues exist within their own specific world context and seek coaching for a myriad reasons, thus a nuanced approach to selecting and utilising relevant evidence-based constructs is desirable to help coachees move to their preferred tomorrow. Coaching augments one’s own analytical and planning processes by opening viewpoints not yet considered (via curious questioning by the coach) and by providing a non-threatening environment for coachees to plan safe-to-fail next steps. Outcomes explored by colleagues may involve career transitions, work-life balance, challenges of leadership, and so on.
coach - PROFESSIONAL COACHING programs
Lizzie Allen
Lizzie Allen is an experienced executive coach specialising in supporting executives and senior managers to lead with clarity, confidence and impact in complex environments. With a pragmatic, results focused approach, she partners with doctors navigating leadership responsibility, organisational change, career progression and the increasing demands of modern, matrixed environments.
Drawing on extensive experience across healthcare, government, professional services, and large scale organisations, Lizzie understands the unique pressures leaders face — balancing clinical excellence with leadership, accountability, and sustainable performance. Her coaching supports medical professionals to make sound decisions under pressure, lead high performing teams and maintain resilience while delivering exceptional patient and organisational outcomes.
Lizzie's coaching creates a confidential, collaborative space where doctors can step back from day to day intensity, clarify priorities and enhance their communication skills, self-awareness and decision making. With lived experience of working with, living with and coaching neurodiverse individuals, she assists in developing practical strategies that work in real world clinical settings.
With over two decades in senior leadership roles spanning operations, strategy, delivery, sales, and organisational transformation, Lizzie brings a systems level understanding of how individuals, teams, and institutions perform under pressure. This background allows her to work credibly with doctors operating within highly regulated, complex and emotionally demanding environments.