Keynote Speakers

Rika Asaoka is an intercultural diversity consultant and facilitator. She specialises in intercultural diversity and inclusion management and leadership, delivering workshops, trainings, consultancy, facilitation and coaching.

Rika brings three decades of cross-cultural professional experience and has assisted individuals and organisations to empower their existing diversity to achieve positive outcomes.

Over 1,000 participants from a wide range of industries and sectors, including oil and gas, engineering, not-for-profit, environmental, education and government attend her sessions annually. The past five years has seen Rika extending her expertise to community service providers through the program she designed “See Me See You” with Multicultural Futures. Her facilitation style is highly interactive, providing insights and skills that harmonise and unify diverse people in the workplace and communities. Her sessions set about activating the power of diversity by promoting understanding, collaboration, communication, and effective leadership for diverse teams.

Rika is a certified licensee of Intercultural Readiness Check (IRC), a powerful internationally recognised assessment tool, that captures the levels of competencies on four core intercultural competences. It is used for improving intercultural readiness and effectiveness. She is the founder of Language and Culture Pty Ltd, a representative of IRC-Australia/Asia Centre, Japan Intercultural Consulting, and a certified Brain-based Coach from the NeuroLeadership Institute.

Aaron Garth is a dedicated youth worker, educator, and supervisor with a mission to develop the next generation of passionate, principled, and professional youth workers. With over 20 years of experience across local government, mental health, child and family services, private practice and higher education, Aaron brings a deep, hands-on understanding of the complexities youth workers face in their roles.

As a practitioner, manager, and educator, Aaron has seen firsthand the challenges and triumphs of youth work. His experience has fuelled his commitment to equipping youth workers with the skills, knowledge, and ethical foundation they need to create meaningful change in the lives of young people. Aaron is passionate about minimizing burnout in youth work by fostering strong professional supervision, reflective practice, and self-care strategies that sustain workers for the long haul. Through dynamic training, professional supervision, and practical support, he helps youth workers build resilience, confidence, and a strong professional identity.

Whether working with new practitioners or seasoned professionals, Aaron is committed to fostering a culture of excellence, self-reflection, and professionalism in youth work leading to principled, passionate and professional youth workers—because well-supported youth workers change lives.

Amber (she/her) is the director of Neurospicy Collective,
a neurodivergent founded consultancy making impactful change by placing people back at the centre of inclusion and belonging.

A proudly Autistic ADHDer, Amber is a Senior Change Practitioner with a specialisation in neuroinclusion, who empowers organisations to drive meaningful change through authentic conversations. Combining her lived experience of neurological disability,professional background within clinical settings and a neuro-affirming approach (#NothingAboutUsWithoutUs), Amber’s passion is on creating spaces where we can all thrive.

Let her show you how to fix the environment, not the flower!

Cátia Malaquias OAM is a lawyer, Board director, and human rights and inclusion expert in disability. She co-founded All Means All – The Australian Alliance for Inclusive Education and helped establish the Australian Coalition for Inclusive Education (ACIE).

A PhD candidate at Curtin University, Catia is also an External Affiliate at QUT’s Centre for Inclusive Education. She has received multiple awards in recognition of her work for the human rights of people with disability, including an Australian Human Rights Award.

Catia was also recognised as one of the Most Influential Lawyers of 2021 by Australasian Lawyer. Catia has three children and lives in Western Australia.