PASSION.

PURPOSE.

CRED.

Meet CRED’s multidisciplinary team of passionate, industry leading experts.

Sarah Reilly

CEO & Founder

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 community led and participatory planning for social assets, social cohesion and community resilience. Sarah champions collaboration for design, delivery and management of equitable and beautiful places and services for and with the people they are for. With over 25 years industry experience, she is a big ideas generator who is changing the way things work in social policy and practice. 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.

The depth of Sarah’s experience is always apparent – she facilitates, and advises at all levels from community groups to senior executives, to councillors and ministers. Sarah 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 the highest ethics. She has built a solid business with a 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. She delivers national Social Planning training for PIA.

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Jen Guice

Director, Engagement & Resilience

Jen has over 25 years industry experience in engagement, strategic communications, strategy development and project management for government, not-for-profit organisations, and the private sector in 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 creates community. Jen is trusted by her clients and sought after for her creative, warm, strategic, successful, and fun facilitation and innovative 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 make CRED’s community and stakeholder engagement projects exemplary

Jen has forged a reputation in the industry as a leader by designing and delivering research and engagement projects that build community resilience and social cohesion. Jen is an authentic, empathetic, and caring leader who connects with people across generations, cultures and places. Jen specialises in designing research and engagement processes that elevate the voices of diverse and under-represented communities

With a background in the sciences, Jen excels at interpreting and communicating complex information simply and clearly.

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Julia Miller-Randle

Director, Social Planning

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 well 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.

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Abinaya Rajavelu

Director, Place and Design

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.

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Elise O'Ryan

Associate Director

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.

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Ruth Carnac

Senior Project Manager

Ruth is a communications and engagement specialist with over 15 years’ experience across strategic communications, marketing, stakeholder and community engagement, social research, and placemaking.

She has worked with complex organisations across all tiers of government and the private sector to help them better connect with and understand their communities. With deep expertise in masterplanning, cultural planning, social research, and placemaking, Ruth brings strategic clarity, creative storytelling, and stakeholder empathy to ensure communities feel heard and project outcomes align with real needs.

A strong advocate for gender-sensitive and inclusive planning, Ruth has led over 20 co-design safety walks with women, girls and gender-diverse people for the NSW Government’s Safer Cities Program. Passionate about the intersection of culture, community and place, she leverages the arts to foster connection, share stories and enliven cities—spanning projects from large mixed-use precincts to cultural plans and programs for local government.

Ruth’s warm, approachable facilitation style is grounded in building trust, creating safe spaces for dialogue, and ensuring all voices—especially those often underrepresented—are heard and valued.

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Phoebe Schumacher

Engagement & Culture Manager

Phoebe is an accomplished communications and engagement specialist with eight years of experience. As an IAP2 accredited engagement professional, Phoebe manages a range of research, engagement and resilience projects for CRED’s local, state and private sector clients. 

Holding a Bachelor of City Planning (Hons) from the University of NSW, Phoebe’s background in urban planning provides her with a deep understanding of complex projects and their community dynamics. She is committed to building meaningful connections with the community and stakeholders and ensuring a positive community-centric approach for all projects. 

Phoebe is a member of the Engagement Institute Emerging Practitioners network and was previously Vice-Convenor of the Planning Institute of Australia’s NSW Young Planners Committee.

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Sarah Kerridge-Creedy

Senior Social Planner

Sarah is an accomplished social infrastructure and social impact specialist with a passion for applying creative ways of thinking to ensure every project leaves a long lasting, positive legacy. She excels in multifaceted projects with complex community needs and opportunities to deliver safe, sustainable and inclusive spaces.

Sarah is experienced in leading the preparation of Social Impact Assessments, Crime Prevention through Environmental Design Assessments and Social Infrastructure and Open Space Needs Assessments for a range of developments in the public and private sector, both local and state significant.

Drawing on over four years of experience, Sarah is highly skilled in undertaking social research, including demographic, spatial and policy analysis. She is also experienced in undertaking stakeholder and community engagement for projects in regional and metropolitan areas. Sarah values working within a collaborative environment to better understand how well considered social planning can unlock positive outcomes for the client and community alike.

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Liana Hor

Consultant

Since joining CRED Consulting in 2023, Liana has grown into a Consultant where she works directly with clients and supports the delivery of community and stakeholder engagement projects. As a Bachelor of Commerce and Advanced Studies graduate from the University of Sydney, her background in International Business and Management equips her with a people-first approach to all that she does.

She is energetic and passionate about providing quality outcomes for communities and stakeholders, and has engaged with thousands of community members and stakeholders during her time at CRED.

Liana is skilled at analysing qualitative and quantitative data, delivering community consultation activities, writing thorough engagement outcomes reports, and producing community-friendly communications and engagement plans

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.

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Teah Hammet

Consultant

Teah is a Consultant with 4 years of experience in private sector planning. She brings a broad skill set from working across the built environment sector, from due diligence and development assessments to social impact assessments and strategic planning. She is known for her collaborative approach to deliver thoughtful, people-focused outcomes.

Graduating with First Class Honours from the Queensland University of Technology in 2025, Teah holds a double degree in Urban Development and Science. Her Honours thesis explored natural disaster risk assessment for land use planning in South East Queensland, with a focus on compound risk—demonstrating her ability to translate complex scientific research into practical planning solutions.

Teah’s commitment to inclusive and sustainable communities led her to pursue international study through the Planning and Design for the Just City Summer School at TU Delft in the Netherlands. She has also contributed to advocacy initiatives with organisations such as Sweltering Cities and the Jane Goodall Institute Australia.

Teah is an active advocate for the next generation of planners – deeply committed to shaping cities that are resilient, equitable, and designed to enhance the wellbeing of all who live within them.

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Arya Mahadik

Project Officer

Arya is a purpose-driven economist with experience in developing comprehensive business cases and cost-benefit analyses, particularly for infrastructure projects. With a Bachelor of Economics degree from the University of Sydney, she brings her strong technical and problem solving skills  CRED’s projects.

She is passionate about delivering evidence-based insights that contribute to real-life impact for communities.

Proficient in technical tools such as Excel, Strata and Matlab, Arya is adept at translating complex data into compelling, data-informed stories. Her ability to balance technical rigour with a people-focused lens makes her a valuable asset to CRED’s multi-discplinary team.

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Ashlee Orleow

Visual Communications Officer

Ashlee is a creative thinker with a deep passion for systems thinking, problem-solving, and storytelling. Her work as a graphic designer is driven by a love for visual storytelling and UX design, and loves a challenge for tackling complex problems through abstract conceptualisation and analytical design thinking.

Innovation and creating positive change is at the core of Ashlee’s work, which is refined by her studies in Creative Intelligence and Innovation at UTS. This degree has empowered her to think critically and creatively, using systems thinking to approach complexity, build future scenarios, and drive entrepreneurship.

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LUCY EVANS

executive assistant

Lucy is an experienced Executive Assistant and People & Culture professional with over four years’ experience supporting senior leaders and high-performing teams in fast-paced, creative environments.

She brings a strong operational mindset and a people-first approach, with a proven track record of streamlining processes, improving team effectiveness, and being the trusted go-to when things need to get done.

Naturally drawn to roles that blend organisation, strategy and people, Lucy is known for staying calm under pressure, thinking several steps ahead, and keeping momentum behind the scenes. Her ability to balance structure with adaptability makes her a valued support to leaders and a key contributor to collaborative, high-performing teams.

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Ryan James

Head of Partnerships

Ryan has a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning and Environments with a career focused on policy development, investment decision-making and community development across government and advisory settings. As Head of Enterprise Development, he focuses on strengthening long-term relationships that support CRED’s enduring impact. His work centres on building structured, ongoing partnerships and developing innovative tools that enable CRED’s research and insights to inform planning and decision-making for councils, business and communities navigating change and growth.

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Sarah Burgess

Senior Consultant, Social Strategy

Sarah is a highly experienced urban planner specialising in social planning and the creation of healthy urban environments. With a passion for fostering vibrant, sustainable communities, she works collaboratively with local stakeholders to design and implement quality places that promote well-being and sustainability for all.

With over 20 years of experience spanning public and private sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom, Sarah has developed expertise in strategic planning, policy development and advocacy, community engagement and urban research and evaluation. She is adept at translating complex concepts into user-friendly strategies and actionable policies that are practical, clear and impactful.

Sarah has collaborated extensively with key stakeholders to develop innovative policies, tools and resources that strengthen the connection between people and place. Her experience includes preparing community plans, conducting needs assessments and drafting spatial planning documents.

Lisa Bryant

Senior Consultant, Social Policy and Advocacy

Lisa Bryant is renowned for her expertise in crafting communications that sing. She makes complex concepts simple, and authors publications that people want to read. She also is a subject matter expert in early education and care provision and not-for-profit organisations.

With over 40 years of experience, she has successfully guided governments, organisations, and communities to better understand and meet the needs of children and families. A strong advocate for services that meet people’s needs easily, Lisa is a sought-after communications specialist, keynote speaker, and policy writer. Her in-depth knowledge of Federal and State Government policies, academic research, and industry trends, positions her as a leading figure in social policy research.

Lisa’s acclaimed work simplifies complex government plans, operational requirements, and complex messages making her a trusted advisor for governments and peak organisations. Her opinion pieces are regularly featured by the Sydney Morning Herald, the ABC, and The Guardian.

Work with us

Interested in joining CRED Consulting? View our current job opportunities and learn more about working with our team.

Current opportunities