Dr. Judi Newman
Dr. Judi Newman brings powerful, research-driven insights on leadership, influence and learning through an evidence-based neuroscience lens.
Why you should book Dr. Judi Newman for your next event
- Gain practical, evidence-based tools that strengthen leadership influence, trust and learning impact across industries.
- Learn how neuroscience closes the gap between organisational practice and what actually drives motivation, behaviour and performance.
- Experience research-grounded strategies shaped by a prize-winning PhD, real-world leadership, coaching and global consulting expertise.
Non-binding request for Judi Newman
Award-winning researcher and leading voice in organisational and educational neuroscience.
Dr. Judi Newman is a respected researcher, speaker, author and coach known for transforming how leaders think, learn and influence through a neuroscience lens. As Director of The Academy of Organisational Neuroscience Australia, she translates the latest social cognitive and educational neuroscience into practical strategies that shift behaviour and elevate leadership capacity. With a strong background as a high school principal, executive performance coach and award-winning academic, she equips organisations and systems with brainwise practices that build trust, clarity and impact.
Dr. Judi Newman
Dr. Judi Newman is one of the most prominent voices in organisational and educational neuroscience, recognised for turning scientific research into powerful leadership practice. As Director of The Academy of Organisational Neuroscience Australia, she specialises in bridging the gap between what organisations typically do and what the science shows will drive trust, influence and effective learning. Her mission is clear: to strengthen leadership capacity and boost learning impact by sharing evidence-based strategies grounded in contemporary neuroscience.
Judi holds a PhD focused on applying findings from social cognitive neuroscience to leadership, motivation, learning and influence. Her work highlights how leaders can leverage scientific insights to inspire, unite and elevate performance across teams and systems. This research excellence has been acknowledged widely. Her PhD earned the Paul Andersen Research Prize for the most outstanding thesis of the academic year in 2022, alongside the ACEL New Voice Award for Leadership Research in 2023. She has also received the Industry Leadership Award (CQU) and became a finalist for Learning Consultant of the Year. Earlier in her career, she made history as the first principal to receive a Department of Education research scholarship that included international travel.
Book Dr Judi Newman for your event
Judi’s background blends real-world leadership with rigorous academic research. She is a former high school principal and former executive performance coach at systems level, bringing firsthand experience of what leaders face in complex environments. This gives her keynotes, workshops and consulting engagements a depth that resonates across education, business and government. Her approach integrates psychology, education and neuroscience to create frameworks that are both practical and scientifically grounded.
Today, Judi works with organisations, schools and systems across Australia, Canada and the USA. Her work spans writing university curriculum, coaching executives in brain-based methods, supervising PhD research students, facilitating workshops and delivering keynote presentations at major conferences. She also leads the Leadership and Learning Round Table Hub for the Institute of Organisational Neuroscience, collaborating with international neuroscientists, neuroeducators and medical doctors to explore emerging research and its organisational implications.
Leadership, learning and trust
One of Judi’s strongest research contributions highlights how rapidly we assess others within seconds based on trustworthiness, warmth and credibility. These three elements shape whether a leader can influence, connect and create traction. Judi’s insights show how leaders can intentionally build these attributes to strengthen rapport and foster growth across teams.
Her latest book, Influence: How Educational Leaders Transform Thinking to Inspire, Unite and Deliver (Amba Press), unpacks 12 leadership attributes linked to trust, rapport and long-term influence. Though grounded in education, the book has gained recognition in business circles for its practical and relevant frameworks that translate across industries.
Applying neuroscience to practice
Judi’s sessions are known for their clarity, accessibility and direct connection to daily leadership challenges. She introduces evidence-based strategies that align with the brain’s natural processes, enabling leaders to enhance decision-making, motivation, collaboration and sustained performance. Her focus on “brainwise practices” gives leaders a way to rethink habits, interactions and organisational culture with measurable impact.
Examples of key themes she covers include:
How neuroscience shapes trust and credibility
What boosts or blocks learning in organisations
Brain-based coaching techniques
Motivation and behaviour through a scientific lens
Influence practices that drive engagement and alignment
How leaders can embed research-aligned habits into daily work
A trusted guide for science-driven leadership
Whether working with executives, school leaders, emerging leaders or system-wide teams, Judi brings a combination of authority, warmth and practical expertise. Her audiences value that her strategies are not theoretical ideas but deeply researched, award-winning insights supported by her academic and leadership background. She helps leaders understand not only how the brain responds, but also what they can do today to create trust, strengthen influence and transform learning.
Dr Judi Newman stands out as a guide for organisations seeking grounded, science-driven leadership development. Her work sits at the intersection of research, experience and meaningful change, giving audiences a roadmap to lead with clarity, humanity and evidence.
Keynotes
Keynote by Dr. Judi Newman:
Leaders are brain changers
Our brain evolved over 50000 years ago for the purpose of the survival in the Stone Age. The brain takes thousands of years to evolve so modern humans have very much the same brain as the Paleolithic man, so your brain operates on primitive software. This has significant implications for leadership and learning in the workplace across every sector or context. This is why we judge a leader in the first few seconds by their trustworthiness, their warmth and their credibility.
A deep understanding of how our brain thinks, will provide strategies for decision making that align with the way our brain best operatives for powerful leadership and learning insights and practices. There is limited change in thinking and behaviour, without neuroplastic changes in the brain over time. Building trust, and rapport for personal and organisational growth through the12 leadership attributes is the foundation for transforming thinking to strengthen leadership influence. This is about building strategic leaders around you, rather than rely on accidental managers.
There is a gap between what neuroscience shows and what organisations do. Leaders and teachers can learn how to adjust their behaviours and practices to align with the physiology, not against it, to strengthen their influence. The new research of the neuroplastician draws knowledge from the fields of neurophysiology, neurolinguistics, neuroplasticity and neurocoaching to inform evidence based practice. Applied social neuroscience has much to offer the future of educational leadership.
Breakout workshop
Build strategic leaders rather than rely on accidental managers.
Explore the implications for elevating leadership influence of teams through sharing practical strategies you can use the very next day in schools and other organisations. Without neuroplastic changes over time, there is limited learning and behaviour change, reducing the likelihood of moving from knowing to doing. Understand how to change thinking for new behaviours towards collect team habits. Learn what it takes to inspire others and be an agent of change through structures, protocols and mindsets that shape desired behaviours. How do you create strategic leaders around you rather than rely on accidental managers?
Keynote by Dr. Judi Newman:
How the brain thinks and learns best
A plumber knows how to navigate pipes, valves, water pressure, back flow and drainage; a heart surgeon learns about the anatomy of the heart and how the parts connect and operate. So then, it is essential that teachers have a deep understanding of the brain, how we learn, think and remember.
Join Dr Judi Newman to explore memory techniques, what it takes to have an insight, learning readiness, why we only get insights when we are not stressed and how to reduce cognitive overload and the conditions necessary for the brain to encode and learn? Discover high yield teaching methodologies, teaching strategies and learning experiences that speed up the impact of learning uptake. This workshop will provide you with practical strategies you can use in the classroom or your training sessions the very next day.
Judi is a former high school principal and classroom teacher who’s PhD research was conducted in large schools. She currently works with educational leaders across the world in regard to how the brain learns best.
Breakout workshop
The brainwise classroom
Explore what a brainwise classroom looks like. Discuss how to transform your school form the brain up. Unpack the 10 steps to easily apply what we know about applied neuroscience as a pedagogical framework. Discover why the first five minutes and the last five minutes of the lesson require careful planning, try memory techniques that work, why the brain is context and state sensitive and how creativity and learning is inhibited when we are stressed. Discuss learning ready activities to calm and ground the learner before learning takes and how the eights steps to engage the learner are essential foundation knowledge for anyone in the classroom, human relations or training business.
