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emeli paulo
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Culture & Co-design

Navigate change. Work through differences.Agree on what comes next.

When a department is growing or restructuring, a team needs clearer ways of working, or a community needs a genuine say, the process matters. I design and facilitate workplace culture workshops and community co-design that help people think clearly, work through differences and agree on practical ways forward.

For boards, CEOs, owners, People and Culture leaders, department heads and community engagement leads responsible for bringing people together and moving work forward.

I’m Emeli Paulo, your lead designer and facilitator. I deliver this work through SoCo, with specialist collaborators included where the agreed scope requires them.

Book a call (opens Calendly in a new tab)Send a written enquiry

An initial conversation with Emeli to explore fit, scope and timing.

Explore the services

Workplace culture and team workshops · Community co-design and partnerships

The depth of practice behind each engagement

10,000+
Workshops & facilitated experiences
Across Emeli's practice
1,200+
Programs designed & delivered
Across Emeli's practice

Career-wide reach and delivery, not measures of evaluated outcomes. Emeli’s LinkedIn profile (opens in a new tab)

You have the people and the expertise. Let’s help them work together.

Sometimes the challenge is agreeing on priorities. Sometimes it is how people communicate, make decisions or share responsibility. I design a process around what your group needs to work through.

  • Your department or team is in a growth stage, navigating a restructure or transition.
  • Your community needs a meaningful say in what happens next.
  • Your partners need shared purpose and clearer contributions.
  • Your team needs to turn its vision and values into everyday behaviours.
  • Your board and executive need to get on the same page.
  • Your sites or venues operate differently and feel disconnected.
  • Your team is carrying change fatigue or friction, and needs space to regroup and reset how you work together.

Two ways into the work

What do you need to work on?

Workplace Culture & Team Workshops

For CEOs, owners, People and Culture leaders and department heads who need their people working towards a shared direction.

Work through change, clarify values and behaviours, strengthen collaboration and agree on practical ways of working.

Community Co-design & Partnerships

For program, engagement and partnership leads shaping decisions with communities and coordinating work across organisations.

Bring lived experience, cultural knowledge and different perspectives into shared priorities, program design and practical next steps.

Workshops and facilitated processes

Vision, Values & Behaviour

Your team co-designs what your vision and values look like in practice, defining on-brand and off-brand behaviours through the situations they encounter at work.

A culture reset can begin with space to pause, acknowledge what people are carrying and reconnect before agreeing on expectations and next steps. Restorative time and shared meals can be included where they suit the group. This work does not replace formal processes for addressing harm or unsafe work.

Useful for
Department restructures, team transitions, culture resets, vision and values work, leadership alignment and recurring friction.
Possible outputs
Team-designed behaviour agreements, leadership charters and clearer ways of working, with a basis for putting agreed behaviours into practice.

Community & Place Co-design

Help people shape the initiatives, spaces and decisions that affect their communities.

Useful for
Place-based initiatives, community planning and participatory program design.
Possible outputs
Shared priorities, participant insights, facilitated community conversations and an agreed action plan.

Partnerships & Collective Action

Help organisations and networks build shared purpose, clarify contributions and work together beyond individual projects.

Useful for
Communities of practice, cross-sector partnerships and transitions beyond program funding.
Possible outputs
Partner agreements, shared leadership arrangements, contributions, responsibilities and next steps.

Strategic Planning Facilitation

Give boards and teams the space and structure to explore choices, test priorities and agree on direction.

Your leaders bring the organisational and strategic expertise. Emeli designs and facilitates the process so they can participate fully.

Useful for
Board planning days, strategy refreshes and organisational priority setting.
Possible outputs
Agreed priorities, documented decisions, unresolved questions and an action plan. Strategy drafting and document design can be included within an agreed scope.

Experience across the organisation

From boards and shareholders to leaders and frontline teams, I design connected processes around the people who need to be involved. Engagements can span different organisational levels, venues and locations.

DFFH · Paving the Way Forward

Community of Practice & lived-experience workforce learning

Facilitated cross-sector collaboration across government, service providers and community partners, alongside bespoke learning to help staff integrate lived experience into everyday practice. Network transition planning saw six partner organisations volunteer to host future sessions beyond initial program funding.

Cobb Lane

Vision, values and everyday practice

Helped establish the business’s vision and values, followed by workshops with leaders and staff to explore how those values translate into everyday behaviours. Subsequent engagements have supported teams as the business expanded.

Keystone Radiology

Shareholders, leadership and staff

Worked with shareholders, senior leadership and staff across regional locations. The engagement included interviews, synthesis and facilitated work, with a further phase focused on developing a shareholder Code of Conduct.

Midsumma

Board cohesion and strategic direction

Facilitated board sessions focused on cohesion and shared direction. A repeat three-year engagement brought newer and existing directors together to work on priorities for the next four-year strategic plan. The work also included culture design with the leadership team and co-design with all festival staff.

Built through trust and recommendation

My work has grown through repeat engagements and introductions from leaders and board directors who have experienced my facilitation and recommended me to their organisations.

Clients & testimonials

What teams say about the work.

More client voices
Emeli's facilitation skills are unparalleled. She has a unique ability to engage participants and create an environment where everyone feels heard. After her workshops, our team cohesion improved significantly, leading to better collaboration across departments.

Helen Bathos

Safe & Equal

Read original
Emeli took the time to understand our specific challenges and tailored her workshops to meet our needs. Her ability to connect with participants and facilitate meaningful discussions made a lasting impact on our team dynamics.

Keiran Spiteri

Owner

Yolk Group

Read original

How we work together

  1. Clarify the challenge

    Discuss what needs to change, who needs to be involved and what decisions the group can influence.

  2. Design participation

    Shape the agenda, preparation and ways people can contribute, including access requirements.

  3. Facilitate the work

    Guide the conversations, activities and decisions needed to move forward.

  4. Capture agreements

    Document priorities, decisions, responsibilities and unresolved questions within the agreed scope.

  5. Plan follow-through

    Agree what happens next and whether further sessions or implementation support would help.

A focused session or a connected series, shaped around your group and the work ahead. Deliverables and follow-up are agreed before we begin.

Book a call (opens Calendly in a new tab)Send a written enquiry

An initial conversation with Emeli to explore fit, scope and timing.

Location

At your workplace or offsite

I can come to your workplace, or help arrange an offsite setting in Melbourne.

Through a hospitality partnership with The Mulberry Group (opens in a new tab), workshops and strategic planning sessions can be paired with morning tea, lunch or dinner.

We consider group size, accessibility, privacy and dietary requirements when choosing the setting. Venue hire and hospitality are quoted separately from facilitation.

Who is in the room matters. So does how the room works.

Emeli’s Rotuman, Fijian and Australian lived experience informs her attention to power, belonging and whose knowledge gets heard. Her approach combines skilled facilitation, humour and practical experience with an intersectional understanding of participation.

I consider who helps shape the agenda, how people contribute, whose perspectives influence decisions and what support is needed afterwards.

Human Ecosystems Design considers the people, relationships, places and systems that shape how we live and work together. It informs how we design each engagement I lead.

In practice

  • Written input, quiet thinking, pairs and group discussion.
  • Access needs considered during planning.
  • Local knowledge and lived experience treated as expertise.
  • Clear communication about what participants can influence.
  • Follow-through on what was heard and agreed.

Led by Emeli Paulo

I’m a facilitator and human ecosystems designer who helps people think clearly, connect honestly and work through complicated questions together. I bring warmth, humour and an ability to notice what is happening between people, then design a process that helps the group move forward.

I lead the design and facilitation of your engagement. Where the agreed scope needs specialist expertise, SoCo provides the structure for collaborators in learning design, intersectional practice, research, writing or visual communication.

More about Emeli
Emeli Paulo laughing, wearing a colourful patterned shirt.

Questions

What do your people need to work through?

Tell me about your group, the challenge and what you want to be different. We’ll explore a process that fits.

Book a call (opens Calendly in a new tab)Send a written enquiry

An initial conversation with Emeli to explore fit, scope and timing.

Capabilities

The practice behind the process.

Research, evaluation, intercultural practice and organisational development inform how I design each engagement. Explore the broader capability portfolio for partnership and commissioning conversations.