Areas Of Expertise:

• Change Management Delivery
• Project Management
• Change Governance
• Instructional Design
• Process Mapping
• People Leadership

Education:

• Change Management Practitioner, APMG International
• Diploma of Financial Services (Financial Planning), AMP Services Ltd
• Certificate IV Assessment & Workplace Training, University of Technology Sydney
• Bachelor of Nursing, University of Western Sydney

About

Maria is a seasoned Senior Change Management Leader specialising in Regulatory Reform, Financial Crime, Risk & Compliance, Mergers & Acquisitions, Integration & Governance, and Digital Transformation within the Banking and Financial Services industry. She fosters thoughtful and strategic transformation that benefits both employees and the wider stakeholder audience.

With expertise in change design and delivery, learning and development, and human-centered design, Maria excels at breaking down complex systems into accessible insights that drive meaningful action. Her strong leadership and coaching abilities empower teams to collaboratively tackle challenges, creating innovative, people-focused solutions that deliver lasting impact.

What brings

• Effectively meet deadlines by prioritising workload, leveraging strong time management skills, and seamlessly switching between tasks and multitasking efficiently in my role as Change Management Practice Lead.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with a proven ability to communicate and collaborate effectively across diverse stakeholder groups.
• Demonstrates the ability to oversee the planning, design, development, and implementation of training solutions.
• A loyal, organised, disciplined, and motivated team player who excels in diverse environments.

Key Clients:

• People First Bank
• People’s Choice Creative Union
• CFS
• Westpac
• Optus

Key Achievements:

As Change Management Practice Lead at People First Bank, Maria was pivotal in advancing organisational change management (OCM) capabilities during a merger of equals, developing the OCM infrastructure, and achieving 100% adoption of integrated change delivery and governance tools. She established the OCM model and chaired the Change Community across domestic locations, enhancing nationwide collaboration. She also managed the Payments, Cards, and Fraud program, overseeing 10 projects. She provided strategic leadership to senior change managers and their teams. She also developed a strategic communications plan for a mutual bank’s regional cards, payments, and fraud initiatives, accelerating portfolio OCM objectives by 33% within a year.

As Senior Change Manager at People’s Choice Credit Union, Maria supported the Merger Integration Portfolio for People’s Choice Credit Union and Heritage Bank. She led the changing community of practice in delivering an OCM approach, framework, and methodology while introducing standardised tools for change practitioners through collaborative efforts. Maria successfully supported Day 1 change delivery for the Legal, Compliance, and Finance divisions, achieving 75% adoption by integrating change management activities into core routines.

As Senior Change Manager at CFS, Maria was contracted as Change Delivery Lead for Risk & Compliance projects within the non-discretionary portfolio. She successfully completed 95% of initial change assessments for Business and Product owners across the Growth & Retention and Non-discretionary portfolios.

As Senior Change Manager at Westpac, Maria stepped in as Interim Program Change Lead for the Risk and Controls stream early in her tenure. She achieved a 90% business adoption rate of value chains through targeted training sessions and feedback loops. With leadership responsibility, she oversaw Single View of Change reporting and led quarterly change management planning, serving as chairperson and a key contributor in leadership forums. Maria also implemented a Change Working Group and a weekly change and communications clearing house to ensure alignment with business requirements.

As Senior Change Manager at CFS, Maria was engaged as the Change Delivery Lead for the CFS Insurance Market Tender project, where she delivered a 40% improvement in business satisfaction scores by redesigning communication strategies and feedback mechanisms. This regulatory transformation aimed to create a sustainable and competitive pricing model, along with terms and conditions to enhance outcomes for Members with Life, Total and Permanent Disablement, and Salary Continuance insurance coverage within Superannuation.

As Senior Change Manager & Senior L&D Design Specialist at Westpac, Maria led a team of five Change Managers and one Learning Designer for a large-scale digital transformation program, where she improved business adoption by 25% after the first technical release. The changes impacted First Party Lending teams and customers across multiple brands, including Westpac, St George, Bank of Melbourne, and Bank SA. She also led the instructional design capability and key adoption activities for contextual guided learning as part of the Retail Distribution One Bank Platform (Oracle) for Westpac, St George, Bank of Melbourne, and Bank SA. This project, on behalf of the Customer Service Hub (CSH), involved coordinating specialist efforts, including Business Analysts, Product Owners, Change Managers, as well as the development, testing, publishing, maintenance, data analysis, and showcases of In-App guides. Key tools used for managing activities included SharePoint, Confluence, JIRA, Microsoft Teams, and Trello.