Our Team
We’re former executives partnering with current executives and boards around Australia, providing strategic advice and support across people, culture, health, safety and wellbeing.
The Strategic Step Advisory was founded on a simple observation: the most valuable thing an advisor can offer is having been there themselves.
Between them, Rachael, Greg, Rod and Aaron have held executive roles, sat on boards, led organisations through transformation, and navigated the exact pressures their clients face today. This practice exists because that kind of first-hand experience is rare and valuable.
The executives and boards who need advisory services most benefit more from someone who meets them where they are, and sits by their side, rather than traditional consulting models.
Rachael Kelly
Business Transformation, Workforce Strategy & Organisational Capability
Rachael has 25 years’ experience in people & culture and transformational change as an executive, management consultant, coach and board member across a range of industries. Rachael’s combined in-house and consulting experience enables her to identify connections, create opportunities and develop responses to a range of business and people-related challenges. Her pragmatic approach and coaching style ensure a productive relationship with leadership teams and boards for solving challenging problems.
Principal
People & Culture
Rod Maule
Safety Culture & Organisational Performance
Rod Maule brings over two decades of transformational safety leadership experience across Australia's most complex operating environments. Rod has been General Manager of Safety and Wellbeing at several organisations, most recently Australia Post. In his executive safety positions across logistics, public transport, healthcare, and manufacturing, Rod has consistently delivered sustainable safety performance improvements through cultural transformation and capability building.
Principal
Health & Safety
Principal
Health & Safety
Greg Lazzaro
HSE Leadership & Strategic Risk
Greg Lazzaro has spent close to 30 years leading health, safety and environment (HSE) initiatives across the globe. Starting as a chemical engineer in Australia's oil & gas sector, he's built an impressive track record transforming safety performance across manufacturing, consumer goods and services industries worldwide. This diverse background gives him a unique lens - he knows what works in theory and what delivers results in the real world.
Principal Strategic Alliance
Aaron Neilson
CEO, The Next Step & The Safe Step
Aaron is a trusted advisor to many of Australia's leading senior professionals in HR and HSE. Aaron has created and led influential industry networks for 15+ years, providing platforms for collaboration and discussion that shape change across industries. He has a deep knowledge of Australia's employment market and a demonstrated track record of delivering complex executive leadership assignments across ASX-listed businesses, large multi-nationals and government enterprises.
How we work
Areas of Expertise
We work in the way that suits the engagement ,
not the other way around.
Some clients need a thinking partner for a single high-stakes decision. Others want an ongoing advisory relationship across a board cycle. We offer both, along with structured board preparation, executive capability programs, and strategic reviews built around your specific context.
Engagements are confidential, direct, and designed around outcomes rather than hours. Where execution requires specialist talent — interim leaders, contractors, or permanent hires — our connection to The Next Step and The Safe Step means we can resource the strategy we help define.
Board advisory and governance
Senior executive capability
Psychosocial safety and wellbeing strategy
HR and HSE strategy at executive level
Technology transformation
Organisational culture and performance
Strategic reviews and implementation
Ready to have a conversation?
If you're navigating a board challenge, preparing for a significant strategic decision, or simply want to understand whether The Strategic Step Advisory is the right fit, we'd love to meet for coffee and see how we can help.