Your team

Gerard O'Hara, Managing Director and founder of 451 Consulting

Gerard O'Hara is a career management consultant. After completing his MBA he managed the General IT Consulting and Cost & Performance Management teams for Price Waterhouse Brisbane. He was later headhunted to join PA Consulting as Queensland Practice Manager for Strategy, Finance, and Technology Services. Gerard then joined SuncorpMetway to establish an internal Management Consulting department of 48 staff to assist through the merger of Suncorp, Metway, and QIDC. Gerard has conducted over 250 hours of lectures to MBA students at University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology, and has been a speaker at over 20 Conferences on topics ranging from Benchmarking, eCommerce, Change Management, Benefits Realisation, Cultural Change and Investment Management.

Mark Hocknell, Associate Director

Since joining 451 six years ago, Mark has engaged with a broad range of organisations in the public and private sector to improve their performance.  He specialises in the following three key areas, (1) Strategic and Business Planning, (2) Customer-Centric Business and (3) Performance Management and Measurement. Within the strategic and business planning area, Mark has used and adapted a range of techniques to help organisations produce strategy and plans that are meaningful and actionable, including the Cynefin Framework.  Likewise in the customer-centric business practice Mark has developed and applied a complete set of methodology to assist organisations become more customer-centric and reap the benefits from this approach. Within the performance management and measurement practice, Mark leads the PuMP® accredited team of consultants. Prior to starting with 451, he gained almost 20 years experience in management roles, leading large scale Customer Relationship Management (CRM) initiatives and change programs as well as the operational leadership of sales and services teams, including a 600-seat contact centre.

Mark has an MBA. In 2003 he was contracted by the Graduate School of Business (QUT) to develop two units within the award-winning MBA program and is regularly contracted by QUT as a Sessional Academic.  Mark is also an accredited WorkOutTM Facilitator and Cognitive Edge Practitioner. 

Bill Davis, Associate Director

Bill is a management consultant with a specialisation in group facilitation and leadership capability development. Bill has an extraordinary depth of experience spanning the defence force, large corporations and international SME's. Following a 13 year career in the Army, in a succession of line and corporate management roles, Bill pursued academic and commercial interests.

His primary focus since has been in the Human Resources field although in recent years he has been working in start up companies as CEO/COO. He has extensive involvement in organisation change and transformation and continues to work in this field with small and large organisations that are attempting to achieve greater market alignment. Part of this transformation experience is a growing network of senior managers and executives that he coaches.

Shane Knight, Principal Consultant

Shane is a senior business analyst and project manager with 25 years experience in Civil Engineering, Information Technology and Transport Operations gained working in private industry, public service and a Government Owned Corporation (GOC).

His speciality is in business analysis, stakeholder engagement, change management and project management; introducing new work practices and technologies, including Computer Aided Design and Drafting (CADD), spatial / GIS, Internet / Intranet, mobile technologies, Assets Management (AM), Document Management (DM) and Information Management (IM).

Shane has managed business areas in attaining ISO Quality Accreditation and undertaking International Customer Service Standard (ICSS) accreditation while introducing Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Along with accreditation as a Registered Project Manager (RPM) with AIPM Shane also has a strong interest and experience in coaching and mentoring in personal development and business awareness.

Aaron Schneider, Managing Consultant

Aaron built a strong career foundation in the Finance industry, spending several years in Accounting with Ernst & Young.  Aaron expanded to the broader consulting industry in 2002, gaining experience in the Human Resources and Information Technology arenas and assisting clients to transform their business performance through the engagement and enhancement of human resources. 

Commencing with 451 Consulting in 2008, Aaron utilises his broad commercial acumen to deliver sustainable organisational improvement, capability development and ICT project initiatives within complex Corporate and Government environments. 

Aaron holds a Masters of Business Administration from QUT with minors in Strategy, Project Management and Human Resources, and is a certified Prince2 Practitioner. 

Alicia Eltherington, Associate Director

Alicia is a highly accomplished business executive and program manager with more than 20 years experience.  During her time with Suncorp, Alicia managed the delivery of projects to integrate the Promina and Suncorp businesses, with teams based in Brisbane and Sydney.  This included managing complex stakeholder requirements, balancing cost pressures with customer service needs, and delivering both transformational and continuous improvement projects. 

Alicia has an established track record of building and sustaining high performing operational and project teams over many years.  She has implemented performance management and measurement frameworks, including balanced scorecard and management/operational reporting perspectives.  A key role with Suncorp was the facilitation of business planning discussions to tease out projects and other initiatives that would translate strategies into deliverables and outcomes.  She is highly skilled in working with both technical and functional specialists. 

Alicia's formal qualifications (MBA, BA Commerce & Organisational Psychology) support the significant experience she has gained throughout her career - resulting in a pragmatic approach to business recommendations and operational execution whilst maintaining a strong focus on "people" engagement through change.

Richard Ponsonby, Associate Director

Richard joined 451 Consulting in 2006 after working for IBM in the UK for 15 years as Practice Manager for Business Intelligence and DataWarehouse for Northern Europe. Richard's qualifications include Honours in Engineering, Member of Institute of Mechanical Engineers (UK), Chartered Engineer, and Member of Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. 

He is also trained by, and has worked with, behavioural psychologists to build substantial organisational change management capability. Richard has led Strategy Development, Shared Services Reviews, Operational Reviews, Resource Management, Activity Based Costing and Performance Management assignments.

Brett King, Associate Director

Brett's has spent over 20 years leading organisations through change.  His background in operational leadership and his exposure to significant change events has given Brett the insight and skills to ensure that change is delivered effectively and that the people involved in, and impacted by the change are engaged and aligned with the change effort to deliver sustainable results.

As a qualified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and a Chemical Engineer by profession, Brett is also skilled delivering process and productivity improvements across an organisation. 

Brett is also skilled at group facilitation activities and in coaching and mentoring people to enhance their capabilities and performance.