Desley, along with Jim Ilievski is the co-founder of Aberrant Learning and the creator of Contextualist Cohort Coaching, a series of experiences that impact both individual and collective leadership and organisational culture.

For more than 20 years Desley has spoken at conferences and gatherings all over the world presenting her ideas on leadership and culture through the lens of complexity, context and collective wisdom.

Delivering interactive keynotes aimed at inspiring, informing, and facilitating action Desley supports progress in even the most challenging of circumstances.

Supporting the development of sense making capacity to meet the requirements of modern work, Desley is not afraid to have difficult conversations from a place of integrity and deep respect.​Desley's executive career, including as managing Director of a global IT company, doctoral research (Contextualist coaching for complex times) and 20 years of executive coaching have given her ​an appreciation of the extraordinary demands placed on leaders, an understanding of what makes contemporary workplaces tick, why people get stuck and what to do about it. Desley's work is an innovation in how to think about and facilitate adult learning. ​​A keyboard player, singer (and want-to-be drummer), Desley lives with her musician husband and white Turkish Angora rescue cat.