Q: What are the most pressing issues confronting L&D professionals today?
A: Demonstrating relevance and value.  Can we as learning professionals clearly demonstrate that the performance of the organisation has increased as a result of our interventions?  Is the learning applicable to the day to day work of our employees?

Q: What excites you the most about your role as an L&D professional?
A: Enabling behavioural/mindset change.  Creating the learning opportunity that produces the ‘Ah Ha’ moment, that drives a change or enables a skill that was not there before. The 110% goal is that the learning affect positive change in the ‘home’ life of our employees. 

Q: What impact do you believe technology and data will have on the future of learning? 
A: I have two opposing thoughts on this.  One, technology and data has a huge potential if utilised well to inform good learning and significantly enhance targeted learning opportunities.  The second is that in my experience the technology and data platforms/systems are owned by IT teams, not learning and therefore learning is rarely prioritised by the owners. A good example is the promise, but low adoption of XApi.

Q: What, in your opinion, are some emerging trends around reskilling and upskilling post-COVID?
A: I don’t believe 90% of the skilling/upskilling challenges have changed post COVID (if we are post COVID yet).  Yes there a small competencies such as virtual delivery that we had to improve on.  But in truth the design and delivery of learning interventions should have been transferable to ‘virtual’ if they were great learning before COVID.

Q: What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
A: You can’t change anything by worrying about it.

Q: What are you most looking forward to at the L&D Symposium?
A: Hearing the other speakers and panellists and stealing every idea I can.