Meet the Australian HR Director of the Year nominees shaping 2026

Two of the country's most closely watched people leaders have opened up about what earned them a nomination for Australian HR Director of the Year, ahead of the Australian HR Awards 2026 gala at The Fullerton Hotel Sydney on 4 September.

Sarah Novelli, executive director of people and culture (APAC) at BGIS, and Kate Ludwig, chief people officer at Story House Early Learning, spoke to HRD about the initiatives behind their nominations, and what's keeping them up at night heading into next year.

Turning people data into commercial strategy

For Novelli, the standout work of the past 18 months has been repositioning HR at BGIS – a global facilities management company – as a driver of business performance rather than a support function.

"We've basically positioned ourselves that our people and culture teams are actually there to drive productivity across the business," Novelli said.

Her team has partnered with Deakin University to analyse workforce data alongside operational metrics.

"We use a lot of our people data to show the business that we can tell you where we're productive and where we're not, and where we need to invest money to be more productive – and make more money as an organisation – and where we're kind of wasting our money."

She believes that grounding is essential as AI adoption accelerates across HR. "Data should be at the core of every CPO's, every HR director's skill set," she said.

"It doesn't mean that you have to know the data, but you have to have smart people around you who understand the data and can connect it back to the organisation's objectives."

Looking to 2026, Novelli expects HR to be pulled in a more commercial direction as organisations chase leaner operating models.

"Organisations want to operate leaner, they want to operate with less people, they want to make more margins," she said, adding that leaders themselves will need new skills to manage teams through AI-driven role change: "Are we investing in the right skill set for our leaders to support what's coming?"

Steadying a fast-changing sector

Ludwig's nomination reflects a different kind of pressure test – leading people strategy through what she describes as sustained upheaval in early learning.

"We've been on a quite a transformation at Story House," she said. "Being able to create a culture and an EVP and implement programs across what has been a really challenging backdrop in our sector, is probably the key reason."

Story House's workforce is 95 per cent female and spread across three states, which Ludwig said shapes how programs are designed.

"Being able to manage our people and support them, and create programs that help people feel part of our national umbrella and brand – but also allow them to work in their local communities and do what they love, which is caring for and educating children."

Regulatory change is the dominant theme on her radar for the rest of 2026. "There's a lot of regulatory change in our sector at the moment," she said.

"Really making sure that we are providing the relevant supports and being really conscious of what we're implementing and how we're implementing it – that communication piece is obviously key."

Story House is also mid-expansion, opening new services into 2027, which Ludwig said has to be balanced against protecting the stability of existing sites.

She pointed to the sector's pace of regulatory change as a reason HR has to move faster than in other industries: "The speed at which change occurs is rapid, so being able to pivot quickly and make sure we've got the infrastructure in place to respond."

A continuous feedback loop with staff, she said, underpins that agility: "We aren't so rigid that we can't recognise, okay, something didn't quite work – how do we actually improve it, or what do we change now?"

What's next for the profession

Both leaders flagged AI and workforce data as unavoidable, but neither sees technology as the whole story. Novelli said she is watching how smaller organisations approach health and wellbeing programs with limited budgets, calling some SME entries in past awards more inventive than those from big-budget employers.

Ludwig, meanwhile, is focused on keeping her distributed, people-heavy workforce engaged through a period of regulatory and operational change.

Nominations for the 2026 Australian HR Awards closed on 8 May, with excellence awardees announced in June ahead of September's ceremony. Last year's Australian HR Director of the Year went to Ben Mansour of Anglo American.

To see the full list of nominees for the 2026 HR Awards, click here.