ProActive Team

Our talented experts are passionate about delivering the benefits of ProActive’s solutions to our clients. Our team members, who include global thought leaders, draw on their extensive collective experience in multiple disciplines, such as employee relations, human resources management, law, leadership development, adult education, communications, psychology, restorative justice, social policy, academia, and policing.

To date, the ProActive team has worked with clients in over 30 countries, most extensively in Australia, Canada, UK, and the USA. Our clients span both the public and private sectors; we have worked with leading government authorities (local, regional, and national levels), law enforcement and correctional agencies, professional regulatory bodies, and multi-national corporations, including Global 500 and Fortune 500 companies.

Our team is supported by our chief financial officer, admin officers and internationally recognised experts.

Ashley Moore

Ashley Moore

Ashley supports individuals and workgroups to act within imperfect systems, with a focus on the intersections of conflict, equity, and social justice.

Since 2014, Ashley has been working with ProActive’s clients to engage productively with workplace conflict through program development, learning and dialogue, and restorative justice-based processes.

Outside of work, Ashley  spends her time communing in the rivers and mountains of British Columbia, Canada.

Christian Codrington

Christian Codrington

Senior Conflict Management Specialist

Christian has held senior human resources and operational roles, most recently as the Director of Human Resources for the Industry Training Authority. Prior to ITA and while at the Chartered Professionals in Human Resources, the provincial professional association for HR, he led teams responsible for membership, professional development, metrics, and the office of the registrar for the CPHR designation.

Christian’s curiosity into the human spirit drives him to explore people, their motivations, and desires. Coupled with his business knowledge and years of leadership in the human resources function, Christian plays a key role in training and delivery of Workplace Reintegration, Respectful Workplace supports as well a variety of other ProActive services.

When not supporting clients, Christian loves music and continues to develop his craft playing guitar with his sons.

Clifford Shearing

Clifford Shearing

Vice President Strategy and Design

Clifford entered adulthood as a cowboy where he realised the pivotal role that power has in altering the future when he was kicked off the farm he was working on. He is a sociologist by training and criminologist by profession. He continues to work widely in academic environments in Australia, Canada and South Africa where he applies his knowledge in risks and regulation from the traditional criminological context and bringing it forward into the 21st century to risks such as climate change and cyber security. His current research focus centres on the impacts of evolving global risks posed to critical infrastructure. He is an avid indoor rower and has a keen interest in understanding and supporting sustainable ecosystems. His present topics of interest are mycelium and regenerative farming.

Darren Robertson

Darren Robertson

Senior Conflict Management Specialist

Darren has an extensive background in supporting individuals and workgroups to work better together and build better relationships. He has worked in Industrial Relations, Organisational Development, and Work Health and Safety with some of the largest multinationals in the world such as BHP/Bluescope and PepsiCo.

Since 2010, Darren has been a consultant with ProActive Resolutions. He has built a strong reputation within the fields of Health, Justice and Education by using Restorative Justice approaches to develop programmatic learnings to prevent conflict, resolving workplace conflict as its occurring, and transforming that conflict into plans for cooperation.

Darren is a dog lover, who enjoys keeping fit and the outdoors.

Hin Wah Li

Hin Wah Li

Client Engagement and Research Specialist

Hin Wah runs ProActive’s operations in Australia. She is fascinated by what motivates and drives changes in people’s behaviours. From her time as an organic chemist, she has a PhD in Chemistry from the Australian National University, to her time as a science communicator at the Australian Academy of Science and as an environmental education consultant for schools in Cape Town, South Africa; she is always on the lookout for opportunities to apply her skills in new contexts. Prior to joining ProActive in 2018, she co-ran a not-for-profit environmental organisation in South Africa. Hin Wah is a career learner who enjoys reading the New Scientist. Her current interests are drumming and vegan & gluten free cooking.

John McDonald

John McDonald

Founding Director and Chief Executive Officer

As a father and grandfather, CEO and founding member of ProActive Resolutions, and as someone with an insatiable curiosity about the human experience, John has a clear commitment to working with individuals and organisations wanting to build a better world. His background includes ten years in education, time as a manager in a large Community Centre, a decade with the NSW Police Service, a coordinating role with the Australian Federal Police and the Australian National University in Australia’s first Randomised Controlled Trial in the social sciences, and now twenty years in a leadership role at ProActive ReSolutions.

The character of Jack in the Jack Manning Trilogy of plays written by Australia’s foremost playwright David Williamson, and the multiple-award winning feature film Face to Face directed by Michael Rymer, is based on John and his work in conflict transformation and restorative justice. In working with clients in the government, corporate, academic, community and faith-based sectors in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, John has a unique capacity to listen-in to people’s concerns and aspirations and help transform those aspirations into reality. When not working, John is an aging triathlete, surfer and avid reader.

Max Kimber

Senior Manager, Conflict Transformation

Max commenced as a practising barrister in 1979 after completing postgraduate studies in the USA on a Fulbright Scholarship. He was appointed Senior Counsel in 1999.

The focus of his work as a barrister has been on the resolution of workplace issues and employment contract disputes via litigation in Federal and State courts.

Following the training as a Mediator in 1992, Max has also developed a broad based practice in dispute resolution involving the mediation of contractual and other commercial disputes, wills and estates, employment and personal injury matters.

Max sees himself as a “resolutionary” – committed to prevention and early intervention strategies to minimise and deescalate conflict with a focus on fostering better communication and listening skills and on the utilisation of restorative processes.

Richard Hart

Richard Hart

Founding Director and Chief Conflict Management Specialist

Richard Hart is a founding Director and executive team member at  ProActive ReSolutions. He plays keys roles in ProActive’s corporate strategy, product development, corporate legal issues, business development and continuing to build and sustain our corporate culture. Richard is a lawyer, a mediator and an arbitrator with over 25 years in conflict management and dispute resolution. He has extensive operational experience working with clients internationally to effect positive behaviour changes across organisations. He is actively involved in the delivery of ProActive’s products and services to prevent difficulties between people, increase collaboration, and build/maintain respectful workgroups and communities and has a sensational track record of successfully working with groups in high-conflict, especially those challenged by bullying, harassment, threats and violence. Richard continues to present internationally on topics such as bullying, harassment, threats and violence, as well as ProActive’s expertise, evidence-based approaches to restoring cooperation among people experiencing difficult workplace dynamics.

Outside of work Richard has an abiding interest in the martial arts, an ongoing fascination with Japan, and is a gifted artist and a voracious reader.

Shirley Nakata

Shirley Nakata

Shirley is a key Strategic Project Advisor at ProActive. She brings deep and broad experience across a variety of fields as an Ombudsperson in the university sector, a lawyer at a large firm, a human rights investigator at the Canadian Human Rights Commission and as a Director of Professional Conduct for the self-regulatory body for teachers in BC.  Shirley’s professional and volunteer work has been centred in advancing justice, equity, diversity and inclusion through an anti-racism and decolonization lens.  When not at work, she’s an avid reader, foodie and cookbook collector.

Suzanne Stewart

Suzanne Stewart

Vice President Client Services

As VP of Client Services, Suzanne has been supporting ProActive’s clients through high-emotion, high-profile engagements for over five years.  Balancing client desires against a range of potential risks – legal, brand, safety, etc. – has been key to her success.  Suzanne handles implementation in all ProActive’s practice areas, directly managing large-scale projects and coaching leaders to show up well during interventions.

Prior to joining ProActive, Suzanne spent over ten years managing a meeting facilitation company in Toronto. Before that, Suzanne studied political philosophy at Simon Fraser University, University of Victoria, and University of Toronto.

When off the clock, Suzanne trades recipes and cooking tips with members of her foodie network.