Meet Our Trainers

Fiona Cullen

Fiona has had an interesting career path, split between pursuing elite amateur sporting dreams and developing her skills as a leadership development facilitator and communications professional.

With over 20 years’ experience working with a wide variety of organisations in the commercial, not-for-profit and public sectors, Fiona has worn many hats including strategic marketer, events manager, business development lead, communications officer and now leadership coach and professional development facilitator.

In her role at LGMA, Fiona facilitates leadership development programmes for local government officers to develop the skills they need to lead and shape themselves, their teams, their organisations and their communities. 

Karen Daniels

Karen’s career experience uniquely positions her to provide valuable insights into learning methodologies and techniques across various sectors. Her expertise ensures that learning and development initiatives align seamlessly with organisational needs and, more importantly, cater to individual growth.

Karen remains at the forefront of the ever-evolving learning and development landscape. Her focus extends beyond mere adaptation; she actively embraces changes, ensuring that her approach remains relevant and effective; emphasizing inclusivity and diversity to foster engagement and growth.

In her role at LGMA, Karen draws from over 15 years of learning and development experience. Her multifaceted training skill set including: needs analysis, design, facilitation, constructing meaningful feedback and assessment across multi modal formats.

Karen holds multiple qualifications in Training and Evaluation, as an ICF-accredited professional coach and an NLP practitioner. As a lifelong learner she is also currently (attempting) to learn Spanish. Her passion for self-development is matched only by her love for exploration. Whether she is embarking on new adventures as a keen traveller, enjoying live music, or cherishing moments with friends and family, Karen’ current inspiration comes from Buckminster Fuller: “No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.”

David Stanley

Your learning zone is outside your comfort zone and for more than 40 years Dave has enjoyed helping people learn. His focus with the LGMA is coaching and also delivering programmes on leadership, high performing teams and culture. He has found working with local government to be an amazing insight to how communities are built and sustained.

Dave brings to the LGMA services leadership and coaching experience gained across diverse industries which helps him listen to and connect with just about anyone. Most of the last two decades has involved executive coaching in the private sector.  He has given talks to educators in 6 Australasian countries on educational neuroscience. Dave has consulted on CRM systems and data protection and setup call centres - both the infrastructure and the teams. 

Last century, he taught mathematics at high school, coached water polo at the Uni of NSW, had been general manager of a franchisor across Australia and New Zealand and held various sales management positions. He aims to maintain his fitness and continue qualifying as a casual surf lifeguard well into his sixties.

Dave and his family believe in community contribution. He has over 30 years participation in surf lifesaving, is part of the SLSQ drone-pilot program and is in his club’s training team. Additionally, he holds a commercial boat Master NC<24 licence and has 14 years with Coast Guard, training and building teams of volunteers to perform offshore rescues in sometimes dangerous conditions. 

Effective team work, operational success and satisfaction in doing a meaningful task correlate well with the requirements of local government teams.