Stephanie Thompson 

Stephanie has been working as a Corporate Psychologist since the mid 1990s, and as an Executive Coach since the early 2000s.

Winding the clock back a little further, Stephanie began her career as a Research Psychologist.  After graduating with a double honours degree in Psychology and Management Studies, including a first class grade for one of her theses, she was snapped up by her professors at the PUniversity of Leeds, United Kingdom, to assist with research for Nestec Switzerland and the National Health Service.

She studied counselling methodologies in the Organisational Psychology Department, and the effect of food substances on human experience in the Biopsychology Department.

Soon, though, an adventurous spirit whisked her off to Asia…

There Stephanie lectured at the Singapore Institute of Commerce for a couple of years, before Saville & Holdsworth (SHL) set up their first office in the region.  Stephanie was very fortunate to be selected as SHL's first Consultant Occupational Psychologist deployed in South-East Asia.

SHL, at that time the most admired occupational psychology firm in the world, proved to be an unparalleled training ground.  Stephanie found herself in the privileged position of co-authoring and population trialling tools that to this day stand as some of the most rigorously constructed psychometric instruments available to the human resources profession in the Asia-Pacific region.

She also trained and qualified other occupational psychologists and human resources practitioners to the British Psychological Society's Level B psychometric accreditation standards, as well as interviewing techniques, using management assessment tools and other core skills.

After five years spent serving businesses across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Indonesia, Stephanie was invited to Australia by McKenzie Consulting Group on a specialist visa, to up-skill McKenzie's psychological assessment practice, McKenzie Carrick.  At that time organisational psychology was still in its infancy in Australia, with little in the way of formal training or work experience available to budding organisational psychologists.

Stephanie spent three years with McKenzie, finishing up as Technical Director, McKenzie Group.

It was this strong foundation in organisational psychology that lead Stephanie to open her own Sydney consultancy in the year 2000 — Insight Initiatives Pty Ltd, trading as Insight Matters.

Much impetus also came from her craving to create a personality measure that was at least as precise as SHL's Occupational Personality Questionnaire, but a much more accessible, modern and user-friendly instrument.  From this, Qualia Personality was born and continues to be developed today.

Stephanie also added Executive Coaching to her repertoire, under the tutelage of Performance Consultants (United Kingdom), the originators of the field of business coaching.  Thus she was one of the first Coaching Psychologists, starting out more than a decade before the field began to take shape.

So Stephanie has made her mark on the organisational psychology profession in Australia, with her emphasis on technical rigour tempered by her congenial, pragmatic approach.  She is known for her friendly professionalism and dedication to the principle of do what works, or don't do it at all.

As a result, Insight Matters enjoys a solid reputation in the field as a small firm with commendable competence in psychometrics, executive coaching and all manner of human resources problem-solving.