TEDxTAFE Queensland

Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check the event website for the latest lineup.

• Camille Punzalan

  Multicultural Broadcaster

  Camille Bianca Punzalan is a public speaker, registered nurse, and community advocate who believes that voice is not a performance skill but a clinical one. Trained in nursing and competitive Oregon-Oxford debate, she has spent her career exploring how communication shapes safety, dignity, and care. At the Department of Veterans Affairs, Camille worked directly with veterans experiencing complex mental health needs, including PTSD, where tone and clarity were her only clinical tools. This experience shaped her central belief: silence in healthcare is not professionalism, rather a risk. Camille is also a multicultural broadcaster, sports journalist, international MC, and community leader who has spent years amplifying voices across cultures in Australia and the Philippines. She founded initiatives building confidence and communication skills in young people.

• Dr. Amy Gershkoff Bolles

  Managing Partner Aurelia Lifestyle Brands Inc.

  Dr. Amy Gershkoff Bolles is a seasoned executive, board director, investor, and entrepreneur. With a Ph.D. in Quantitative Methods from Princeton University, she has been a three-time Chief Data Officer, held senior leadership roles at companies including eBay, Zynga, and Levi Strauss & Co., and served as COO & CFO of Midi Health. As a Board Director, she steered multi-billion-dollar capital markets transactions. After decades in high performance environments, Dr. Bolles was diagnosed with a nearly fatal illness. Instead of accepting her devastating diagnosis, she drew on her analytical expertise to research her condition. By approaching treatment with discovery instead of despair, she became an informed partner to her care team, leading to a personalized treatment that saved her life. Her TEDx talk explores the intersection between professional rigor and personal transformation, and how patients who become active partners to their care teams regain agency over their future.

• Janet Lam

  Business Strategist

  Janet Lam is an entrepreneur, business strategist, and Forbes Business Council member with nearly 20 years of experience advising companies across North America and Asia. As Founder of Building Blocks Business Planning, she has guided hundreds of business owners through growth, setbacks, and reinvention. With a background in mathematics and finance, Janet knows firsthand how high-performance careers can come at a cost to your health and wellbeing. She chose to stay in the industry and build a life where ambition and wellness coexist. Recognized as one of the Top 100 People in Finance, she now helps others do the same. In her TEDx talk, "Girl Math and the Path to Health and Wellness," Janet reframes the way we think about irrational choices and what they reveal about the life we actually want to live.

• Julie Cross

  Award Winning Inspirational Speaker

  Julie Cross is a seasoned, high-impact speaker with three decades of experience energising, educating, and inspiring audiences across major corporate brands and diverse sectors. Renowned for authentic storytelling and a results-driven approach, Julie has built a thriving speaking career largely through word-of-mouth referrals, a testament to her ability to connect deeply with audiences and drive measurable growth. Julie stands apart from conventional “quote-and-retell” presentations. She champions authenticity, sharing her own journey with courage and vulnerability and believes that genuine candour leaves a lasting impression. By engaging both the intellect and the heart, she motivates delegates to take meaningful action, turning information into momentum and audiences into loyal advocates.

• Laura Coyne

  Leadership Coach

  Laura is a coach, speaker, trainer and entrepreneur dedicated to helping people gain clarity on what they truly want and create lives aligned with their values. With more than 19 years of experience in training, leadership, business growth and personal development, she has helped thousands of individuals move beyond uncertainty, build confidence and take meaningful action toward their goals. Drawing on her background in strategy, education and human behaviour, Laura has developed transformational programs, retreats and coaching experiences that empower people to make intentional choices and create sustainable success. She is passionate about helping individuals cut through the noise of societal expectations, comparison culture and external pressures to define success for themselves. Her work is centred on one powerful belief: when people are clear on what they want, they make better decisions, experience greater wellbeing and create more fulfilling lives.

• Michael Ekert

  Communication Specialist

  Michael Ekert has spent more than 30 years working with people in leadership, training, communication and sales. Throughout his career, one question has continued to surface: why do people with good intentions so often get misunderstood? Working with everyone from apprentices and graduates to business leaders and frontline teams, Michael has seen how easily the gap between intention and experience can shape conversations, relationships and outcomes. Rather than focusing on techniques or scripts, Michael explores the human behaviours that shape the way people connect with one another. His TEDx talk, Why Good Intentions Are Never Enough, invites the audience to rethink a simple assumption: that if we mean well, people will naturally understand us.

• Sheryll Quimosing

  Multicultural Community Leader & Marathon Runner

  Sheryll Quimosing is a speaker, community leader, ultramarathoner, recruitment professional, and founder of Sparkle by Sheryll who believes that human potential is often discovered in life’s most challenging seasons. Originally from the Philippines and having rebuilt her life across New Zealand and Australia, Sheryll’s journey has been shaped by courage, resilience, and a willingness to begin again. Over the years, she has navigated career setbacks, personal reinvention, migration, entrepreneurship, and the pursuit of purpose while continuing to create meaningful impact in the communities she serves. An ultramarathoner with 79 marathon and ultramarathon finishes, Sheryll has learned that growth rarely happens in comfort. The lessons she has gained through endurance running - resilience, perseverance, and the courage to keep moving forward—have become guiding principles in both her personal and professional life.

• Summer Brown

  Founder of Impact Initiative Australia

  Summer Brown is a survivor-turned-warrior who escaped a violent marriage and rebuilt her life with her six young children. Refusing to be defined by her trauma, she transformed her pain into purpose through the powerful lens of post-traumatic growth. As the founder of Impact Initiative Australia, Summer creates programs that help young Australians find their voice, develop their talents, and navigate life’s biggest challenges. Her award-winning short film “LESSONS” on domestic violence written and produced through the eyes of her children — has won eight international film awards. She also founded the annual Impact Film Challenge, a high school film competition where students create films about real issues facing Australian youth. Through her platforms she shares messages of resilience, courage, and transformation. Summer’s story is one of strength, hope, and determination — proving that surviving is just the beginning of something extraordinary.