Karen Maher
Workplace culture transformation expert and founder of SmartCulture®
Drawing from over 200 cases as a lawyer, investigator, advisor and consultant across Australia and the UK, Karen Maher's journey to founding SmartCulture® and keynote speaking is rooted in experience and shaped by her genuine commitment to make workplaces better places to be. Her early career exposed her to incidents where psychosocial safety was compromised - experiences that would later fuel her commitment to transformative change.
This insight motivated Karen’s transition from reactive legal practice to proactive cultural transformation in 2010. Recognising that proactive intervention holds more power than crisis management, Karen developed the SmartCulture® flagship approach: engaging storytelling combined with practical, actionable frameworks for real world change.
Today, Karen leads SmartCulture® in partnering with organisations across sectors - from local government and not-for-profit through to global and ASX listed companies - fostering environments where speaking up is encouraged and psychological safety is prioritised. Her methodology integrates compliance requirements with authentic cultural transformation, ensuring programs resonate with real workplace dynamics while fulfilling legal duties.
"Cultural transformation begins with understanding safety holistically - both physical and psychological. When leaders grasp this connection, they become genuinely invested in creating positive change," Karen explains.
Through her evidence-based approach and unwavering commitment to workplace wellbeing, Karen continues to pioneer new standards in organisational culture, empowering sustainable transformation across Australian workplaces.
As a leading psychosocial safety keynote speaker Karen leads the SmartCulture® development team for all programs, facilitates sessions for senior leaders and boards and presents keynotes to audiences at conferences across the globe.
Outside of SmartCulture® Karen is the proud Mama of two children (well three if you include Fonzie her beautiful dog). She loves having a good time (hence one of the SmartCulture values being Good fun) and spending time with her favourite people. She is also passionate about music and learning to play the piano, although after 10 years…she is still pretty much a beginner.
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