Emily Hamilton

Emily is a lead strategic designer with over a decade of experience transforming services and strategies in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.

Emily specialises in facilitating high-quality co-design approaches that foster experimentation and connection between diverse people. She leads rich participatory processes to design futures in collaboration with the communities at the centre of the challenge. Her approach is trauma-informed, takes a systems view, and embraces ambiguity to create meaningful outcomes for those involved.

Emily has a particular interest in reform in the mental health sector. She has delivered a transformation strategy for Alfred Mental Health and Addiction, co-designed a new service model with the Burnet Institute to break cycles of incarceration, and led the participatory development of a future-state strategy with Beyond Blue.

Emily has a Master's in Design Strategy and Innovation, with which she explored complexity theory and how to navigate uncertainty to make informed decisions about the future. She has run multiple community workshops and conference events on topics such as preparing organisations for authentic co-design or experimenting with future thinking. Emily is a current member of CoDesignCo, a network of practitioners working to co-create compassionate systems.