Ms Helen McKelvie

Experience, background and philosophy

Helen McKelvie is NIODA’s Consulting Lead and a member of the teaching staff in the Master of Leadership and Management (Organisation Dynamics). She brings more than 30 years of professional experience across the public and private sectors to her work as a consultant, coach, supervisor, and facilitator. In roles as socio-legal researcher, lawyer, policy and project manager, and internal planning consultant, Helen has consistently engaged with complex challenges in organisations and systems, integrating research with reflective practice and connecting people and ideas to create new possibilities.

Helen holds a Master of Leadership and Management (Organisation Dynamics) from NIODA, along with Law and Arts degrees. She is accredited in a range of frameworks that enrich her practice: PRISM Brain Mapping (a neuroscience-based behavioural mapping tool), Analytic-Network Coaching, the Wild Leadership Questionnaire, and is registered as an A-N Coach. She is also an accredited Physical Intelligence Coach with the Physical Intelligence Institute (UK) and has training in workplace mediation. Her background and qualifications as a yoga teacher bring an additional dimension of somatic awareness and mind–body integration to her work.

Helen is currently a PhD candidate at NIODA, researching Integrating somatic experience in the practice of systems psychodynamics. This research reflects her long-standing interest in how embodied experience informs leadership, collaboration, and organisational life.

Her consulting, coaching, and supervision practice is informed by systems psychodynamics, creating reflective space for respectful communication, insight, and alignment with organisational role and purpose. Helen’s philosophy is grounded in curiosity, containment, and care: she believes that sustainable change comes not from imposing solutions, but from helping leaders and teams uncover hidden dynamics, make sense of complexity, and work with greater clarity and confidence.

Helen is a member of Group Relations Australia (GRA) and the International Society for the Psychoanalytical Study of Organizations (ISPSO).