Ben spent 16 years with the Australian Federal Police (AFP), including many years as the Coordinator of the AFP’s Crisis, Hostage and Negotiation Operations Unit. As a hostage negotiator, Ben was responsible for managing kidnap-for-ransom operations involving Australian citizens in the Middle East, Central Africa, Southeast Asia and within Australia. He conducted hundreds of incidents domestically involving hostage taking, barricaded offenders, mental health incidents, counter-terrorism investigations, extortion, suicide interventions, and public order responses. With a background in business management and information technology, he has built a successful career in complex, high-pressure problem solving and stakeholder engagement. He is passionate about the power of language and dialogue in promoting change and influencing behaviour.
Luke brings over 20 years of operational leadership in crisis negotiation and crisis response to his role. Luke spent considerable time deploying into volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environments, and through lived experience recognised the requirement for agile and adaptive practitioner skill and leadership. Over the course of his career, he became deeply interested in Coaching practice, Vertical Stage Leadership concepts and the practical application for effective practices of inquiry in time poor and complex environments.
Luke’s experience significantly informed his work around the design implementation of practitioner pathways in an evolving specialist policing capability. It included working in collaboration with private industry and diverse thought-leaders to develop curriculum and training pathways for practitioners from foundation to Leadership in crisis de-escalation, behavioural influence, leadership, and career coaching. These experiences shaped an interest in focusing on developing and sharing practical and effective skills and mechanisms, allowing people to manage the complex and uncomfortable communication situations that they experience every day in their workplace or home.
