Opportunity is waiting, are you brave enough to embrace it?
Helen Babb-Delia is an internationally sought-after speaker, facilitator and consultant on diversity and inclusion, leadership and the future of work.
Helen’s skill is in taking complex issues and making them approachable, inspiring people to turn good intentions into actions that produce results. She has built her mastery in facilitation, speaking and coaching working with a broad range of audiences; from raucous high school students to senior leaders at corporates, not-for-profits and government bodies including NAB, Coles Group, ME Bank, Parliament of Victoria, SOS Children’s Villages (UK) and Prince’s Trust Australia.
Helen is an Adjunct Senior Industry Fellow at RMIT with RMIT FORWARD, The Centre for Future Skills and Workforce Transformation and consults for Yes Get It (a social enterprise she founded in 2018) and Grace Papers (workplace gender equality experts).
She graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts, winning the Piper Alderman prize for Legal Ethics.
She cut her teeth in law in Melbourne before moving to Washington D.C., where she worked in U.S. Congress and consulted for the gender equity, racial justice and LGBTO+ equality movements. After returning to Australia Helen has guided leaders to make change from the C-Suite to the frontline.
As an Adjunct Senior Industry Fellow with RMIT FORWARD, Helen provides thought leadership on diversity, equity and inclusion and human/durable skills as essential to progress the future of work. Helen co-designed and ran a workshop for Conversation Design Institute (CDI) Foundation’s ‘Conversation Design Festival: Making AI Speak Human’, and designed and co-facilitated with visiting Professor from Harvard Law School, Deanna Pantin Parrish, “Engaging Diverse Teams: Essential Skills for Today’s Leaders” in partnership with State Library of Victoria.
Helen was selected by the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA)’s 2018 Young Social Pioneer program for Australia’s top young innovators and is a mentor and speaker for Prince’s Trust Australia’s ‘Achieve Fest’. Helen has appeared in outlets such as Women’s Agenda, SmartCompany and RMIT FORWARD’s ‘Skillscast’.
Talking Points
Unconscious Bias & How to Avoid the Traps
If you have a brain, you have unconscious bias. Yet research and practical experience shows that unconscious bias in the workplace can have a negative impacts on finding and keeping the best talent, employee engagement, customer satisfaction and financial results. How do we make better, more inclusive and more innovative decisions and create better end results? Helen Babb-Delia, diversity, equity and inclusion expert, takes you through the facts and real-life case studies. In this insightful and inspiring keynote (that can also be delivered as a workshop), leave with three clear and tangible ways individuals, teams and organisations can avoid common traps and embrace better and more inclusive decision making.Unconscious Bias & How to Avoid the Traps
Who this is for: All levels of employees, especially managers who make hiring and promotion decisions, teams who consider innovation or customer experience in their work.
Key Takeaways:
- Understand unconscious bias and the brain, how common unconscious bias is and what it can look like
- Explore the value of hacking your biases how to reduce stigma, increase trust and nurture authenticity when it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging
- Develop a toolkit for managing unconscious bias that can be actioned immediately as individuals, teams and organisation (taking action from scary to easy easy)
Inclusive Leadership IS the Future of Work
High-performing organisations need leaders for the future, not the past. How can we future-proof our skills, careers and industries? In this session, Helen Babb-Delia (Senior Industry Fellow at RMIT FORWARD, Centre for the Future Skills and Workforce Transformation and consultant) delves into key future of work skills backed by research, and the practical ways to grow these skills. She delves into the future of work, the art and science of inclusion and inclusive leadership, and why key adaptive skills are essential for everything from AI to employee engagement. Each participant will reflect on their own skillset and leave with actionable ways to future-proof their careers and how it can positively impact how they live, work and interact. Rather than being scared of the future of work, each person leaves inspired.Inclusive Leadership IS the Future of Work
Who this is for: Business leaders, executives, team leaders, relationship managers, anyone who would benefit from future proofing their career.
Key takeaways:
- Learn about the future of work and the value of being proactive about your career and organisational change
- Explore key skills necessary to excel in the future, including inclusive leadership, social/emotional intelligence, psychological safety and digital literacy
- Develop a blueprint for your adaptive learning journey to ensure you’re ahead of the curve and focusing forward rather than looking back
IWD 2024: What Investing in Women & Accelerating Progress Actually Looks Like
2024 is a unique moment for gender equality in Australia. New federal legislation has enshrined into law a ‘positive duty’ on employers to proactively prevent sexual harassment, sex-based discrimination and victimisation. There’s a new requirement for employers to manage psycho-social hazards. The spotlight continues to shine on gender equality, especially when gender pay gap numbers will be released by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency in February. Finally, the 2024 International Women’s Day themes ‘Invest in women: Accelerate progress’ (UN) and ‘Inspire Inclusion (IWD) sound good but are broad. Why this, why now and why does it matter to us? Helen Babb-Delia goes behind the headlines and legislation to share what it all means. In this moving and uplifting keynote, she shares what individuals and organisations can do to actually improve gender equality in practical and actionable ways. Using storytelling, humour and data, Helen brings people of all genders and backgrounds on the journey and helps them create a plan for moving forward rather than looking backward.IWD 2024: What Investing in Women & Accelerating Progress Actually Looks Like
Who this is for: Business leaders (especially of companies of over 100 employees as this legislation directly impacts them), executives, entrepreneurs, small business owners, women’s events, IWD audiences.
Key Takeaways:
- Why this and why now? Learn the story behind the facts to understand what gender equality means and what a gender equal future looks like
- What can I do? Become aware of your individual power and your potential to make momentous change and better strategies to invest in progress
- What next? Feel energised, inspired and create an ‘Action Plan’ to create a more gender equal, inclusive and welcoming workplace, home and society
Know more about Trump, Obama and Biden than Australian politics? Here’s the reason why.
Helen Babb-Delia is one of few Australians who’s worked at the centre of American politics and social movements. Helen draws on her experience working for one of the most powerful African-Americans in U.S. Congress, assisting the Hillary Clinton campaign, responding to the Trump government and supporting social movements to influence major U.S. legislation and Supreme Court decisions to shares how there are more similarities between American politics and Australian workplaces than meets the eye. Using current and recent American politics as an analogy (and very effective storytelling), the audience will understand and leave with three actionable techniques to successful influencing. These are especially relevant for anyone working in teams or organisations looking to boost effective collaboration, having challenges meeting diversity and inclusion targets and support the professional development of their teams.Know more about Trump, Obama and Biden than Australian politics? Here’s the reason why.
Who this is for: Business leaders, executives, anyone looking to develop better influencing skills and meet inclusion targets
Key Takeaways:
- Leave with three key techniques to successful influencing, including how to determine people’s wants/needs and their emotions. Practice and leave with one key question to take away.
- Understand why personal brand and reputation is important and needs to be intentional and consistently maintained
- Understand key user experience principles and with with three actions to implement straight away
Helen made everyone felt comfortable and safe to participate and it was quite the bonding experience for us all! Everyone walked away having learnt something and with some great practical to ... keep reading ME Bank
Helen presented in a genuine and fun way, was well prepared and gave us all an opportunity to get involved. I’d definitely attend another session run by Helen, there’s so much to learn from and with her!
Helen led an amazing workshop that genuinely made people feel comfortable and excited to take part. The activities were practical and interactive, and the takeaways actionable. Helen's energy and personal stories were really valuable to everyone who took part.
Helen was amazing and her tools and talks really helped me unlearn a lot of the wrong and reiterate the right.
