Winner of  the PIA NSW Dr Helen Proudfoot Outstanding Woman in Planning Award 2024

Sarah is the Founder and CEO of Cred Consulting and one of Australia’s leading thinkers (and doers!) on all things community led and participatory planning, social infrastructure, and public open space, and designing equitable and beautiful places and services for and with people. With over 25 years industry experience, she is a big ideas generator who is changing the way things work in social policy and practice. Sarah was the winner of the Planning Institute of Australia NSW Helen Proudfoot Award for Women in Planning 2024.

She is known within the industry for her passion, strategic thinking, ethics, and ability to work across diverse sectors and communities to reach mutually beneficial outcomes. With more than 20 years in the industry, she excels at collaborating, facilitating, and advising at all levels from community groups to senior executives, to councillors and ministers. She has worked on major and significant social planning and policy projects to hands-on activations with communities. She brings her emotional intelligence, energy, and extensive subject matter expertise and strong networks to every project.

Sarah leads and mentors her growing national team of experts, and all female executive group with passion, care, and commitment to values. She has built a business and team of values-driven experts, clients, and communities, all striving towards Social Cities and Complete Communities from the site to the city-scale. Sarah is an active member of Parks and Leisure Australia and a Fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia.

Jen loves nothing more than bringing people together. Whether it’s community members who start as strangers but become colleagues and friends, colleagues or stakeholders who need to align, or an auditorium full of delegates looking to be lead through an event. Jen is trusted by her clients and sought after for her creative, warm, strategic, successful, and fun facilitation and approaches to community and stakeholder engagement.

As an IAP2 accredited engagement professional, leading state and national award-winning engagement and research projects each year since she started at Cred in 2020, Jen brings her leadership, insight, creativity, and energy to ensure Cred’s community and stakeholder engagement projects are exemplary.

A passionate advocate for environmental and social justice and participatory research, Jen has forged a reputation in the industry as a leader in designing and delivering research and engagement projects that are building community resilience and social cohesion. Jen is an authentic, empathetic, and caring leader who connects with people across generations, cultures and places. Jen is highly skilled at designing research and engagement processes that elevate the voices of diverse and under-represented communities, especially women and girls, young people and (with our First Nations consultant partners) First Nations communities.

With a background in the sciences, Jen is highly skilled at interpreting and communicating complex information simply and clearly. Jen has over 25 years industry experience in engagement, strategic communications, strategy development and project management working for government, not-for-profits, and the private sector in Australia.

Winner of the PIA Qld Outstanding Woman in Planning Award 2024

Julia is passionate about putting people at the heart of city shaping processes and outcomes through a deep understanding of their values and needs and listening to their lived experiences. She is an industry leading and inspirational strategic and social planner and engagement specialist with almost 20 years’ experience in consultancy. Julia was the winner of the Planning Institute of Australia Queensland Outstanding Woman in Planning Award 2024.

Julia leads Cred’s Queensland team and has successfully delivered projects spanning strategic land-use planning, social strategy and policy, place planning, community resilience, social value capture and stakeholder and community engagement in dense inner-city areas to remote regional areas, across Australia.

Julia’s collaborative approach builds authentic relationships with her clients and project partners. She is committed to rigorous evidence-based research and socially sustainable outcomes. Her extensive technical expertise as an urban planner combined with her communication skills, means she can clearly and confidently communicate complex planning and corporate processes and concepts to meaningfully engage communities and stakeholders to make informed decisions.

Julia brings energy, joy, empathy and pragmatism to every project, and all aspects of her role. She is an active member of the Planning Institute of Australia and an IAP2 accredited, skilled and experienced facilitator.

In addition to being a skilled project manager, urban planner and urban designer, Elise leads Cred’s visual communications and design team. Her creativity has revolutionised how Cred and the social planning industry communicates complex planning concepts into award winning, visually compelling, accessible, and beautiful formats.

Elise is driven by her ethics and values and dedication to creating complete communities that deliver social benefits for future generations. She is passionate about, and highly experienced in, creating public spaces, neighbourhoods and cities that reflect their unique local character, and exploring how they can be shaped by those that use them. She is an advocate for inclusive and authentic community participation in planning processes.

Based in Brisbane, Elise is a highly respected city maker with 15 years’ experience as a consultant delivering community development, social infrastructure planning, urban design, spatial mapping, and analysis, placemaking, cultural planning and community engagement services across Australia. Elise is an active member of the Planning Institute of Australia and IAP2.

Abi is Cred’s creative and technical powerhouse social planner, spatial analyst, and architect with almost 10 years’ experience working as a consultant in India, Australia, France, and the Netherlands. Abi works at the intersection of social planning, community strategy, and placemaking and has created a reputation for rigorous, visually engaging, and technically detailed work.

Her passion is facilitating happy and healthy cities through participatory research, evidence-based planning and evaluation and she has substantial experience in public space, social infrastructure and recreational planning and community and stakeholder engagement.  Having lived and worked across the globe, she is acutely aware of how different people use cities and is constantly looking for ways to innovate and create places where people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities can connect and have a great time together. She is particularly passionate about inclusive cities for women and girls and culturally diverse communities.

Abi has been awarded the ‘Jane Jacobs Fellowship’ with the Center for Living City in New York with the goal of enhancing young people’s understanding and complexity of contemporary urban life and, as a result, promoting increased civic engagement. She is a member of Parks and Leisure Australia NSW/ACT Council where she is the Generative representative.

Phoebe is a motivated and enthusiastic individual who consistently works to deliver a high-quality service to the client. Phoebe has a passion for meaningful and genuine engagement with the community. She enjoys collaborating with others to achieve positive outcomes and brings a strong work ethic to every project.

Phoebe has over four years’ experience working as a communications and engagement specialist. Phoebe’s background in urban planning and experience working on a variety of projects across numerous sectors have given her a strong understanding of the dynamics of complex projects and their relationship to the community. This enables her to develop tailored engagement solutions to suit each project.

Phoebe is highly skilled in writing comprehensive engagement reports and designing and producing high-quality communications materials, and she is committed to delivering a positive community-centric approach for all projects. Phoebe was previously a member of the IAP2 Sydney Local Network Advisory Group and Vice-Convenor of the Planning Institute of Australia’s NSW Young Planners Committee.

Phoebe also coordinates the People and Culture function at Cred, where her role combines her love of community engagement and her love of people.

Devon is a driven and passionate strategic thinker. With a background in Human Geography, Devon is an experienced urban strategist who has a strong interest in the impact policy has on place, and the impact of place on policy.

Devon is a curious and quick learner who is skilled at working with multi-disciplinary teams and taking a nuanced approach to problem solving. Unafraid of bold and creative ideas, he encourages clients and stakeholders to think differently about how to address their needs. Coming from Aotearoa New Zealand, Devon is experienced in working with diverse people from diverse places – from infrastructure providers in big cities, councils in regional centres, and rural community groups. 

He has strong research, communication and engagement skills and he is dedicated to finding evidence-based, place-specific solutions for client needs.

Lara has over two years’ experience working in social planning and engagement. She graduated with a Masters in Political Ecology, Degrowth and Environmental Justice at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Lara is committed to building connected communities and believes in the importance of applying an intersectional perspective to social planning and development. She also recognises the importance of giving people a voice in shaping decision-making.

Prior to joining Cred, Lara worked in community development at Willoughby City Council, and contributed to the City of Sydney’s Green Square active travel behaviour change program, which won the Greater Sydney Planning Award for Great Community Collaboration in 2018.

Ari is a curious and creative social research and policy professional, passionate about evidence-based decision-making for social change.

Ariadne has meticulous quantitative and qualitative research skills, along with the ability to disseminate complex findings into plain English.

With a Bachelor of Social Research and Policy, and currently completing a Masters of Public Policy and Governance at UNSW, Ari has strong written and verbal communication skills, with expertise in communicating to a wide array of stakeholders, and the ability to apply critical and creative thinking to problems.

Her skills and passion for evidence-based decision-making and social impact make her an asset to the Cred Consulting team.

Freshly back from the UK, Terry has spent the last 10 years reviving the British Farmhouse Cheese scene with Neal’s Yard Dairy. His work included sourcing cheese, fostering connections and celebrating tradition and innovation. Terry has a knack for navigating complex situations and brings a thoughtful, structured and analytical lens to processes and challenges. His empathetic and calm approach means he can bring people together and ensure everyone’s voice is heard.

Amy is a town planner and place-maker with a strong commitment to social justice. She has 5 years’ experience in statutory planning, strategic planning, urban design and place activation. She is skilled at project management co-ordination, research and policy and has an in depth understanding of the NSW Planning System.

Amy champions the planning practice for young and emerging planners in the industry through her role as Co-Convenor of the Planning Institute of Australia’s NSW Young Planner’s Committee. Her dedication to the profession has recently been recognised at the national level, with her appointment to the PIA Board as Director.

She is an advocate for women’s rights, with a particular focus on women’s safety in public spaces at night. Her significant contributions has been recognised with accolades at both the NSW and National Awards for Planning Excellence in 2022/2023.

Liana recently graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Commerce and Advanced Studies, majoring in International Business and Management and Leadership. Liana supports our marketing and engagement teams in delivering and facilitating Cred Consulting’s community and stakeholder engagement initiatives, and coordinating our socials and Creducation events.

Liana is working towards becoming a purpose-led leader focused on creating a positive change in the world for disadvantaged communities and brings this as her passion to all her work with Cred Consulting.

Gisela is a trained Landscape Architect with 3+ years experience working on a range of  landscape projects varying from open spaces to public domain, and large scale residential.

Coming from a design background, she is passionate about new forms of collaboration and providing more and improved public spaces that priorities diverse forms of interactions, access, and social inclusion.

Her passion for delivering public spaces that understand and celebrate communities drove her shift in career towards social planning. She values collaborating with communities and understands the importance of giving people a voice to deliver positive outcomes for their neighbourhoods.

Gisela’s expertise includes an understanding of local ecology, graphic design, visual communication, research and analysis, computer-aided documentation, and a commitment to delivering positive environmental outcomes.

Aylar is an urban planner and designer with a Master of City Planning degree from the University of New South Wales. She is passionate about creating sustainable, liveable, healthy and vibrant, cities and communities where people can thrive and live happily.

As an urban planner, she wants to help create high quality public realm and social infrastructure, as well as physical infrastructure. She is particularly enthusiastic about developing exceptional public spaces and community facilities such as public green spaces, parks and community centres.

Aylar is proficient in GIS and spatial analysis – which enables her to create informative, engaging and visually pleasant maps and data representations, which can facilitate a holistic and data-driven approach towards community, social and strategic planning and development.