| Principal Master Instructor MHFA Australia, Highest Level Awarded | 25+ Years Experience Leadership and Behavioural Change | 300+ MHFA Courses Delivered Over the Past Eight Years | Valued SBAAS Partner Founder, Northern Rivers Training |
Stuart Mitchell is one of Australia’s most experienced workplace mental health and leadership capability specialists, and a valued partner of SBAAS through his own practice, Northern Rivers Training and Development. With more than twenty-five years of local and international experience in organisational development, leadership training, and behavioural change, Stuart holds Principal Master Instructor status with Mental Health First Aid Australia, the highest accreditation the organisation awards. Through this partnership, SBAAS clients gain access to genuinely specialist mental health and leadership expertise, proven at every scale.
Stuart’s core specialisation sits at the intersection of psychosocial risk and practical human skills. He helps leaders and teams move beyond awareness and into the concrete capabilities required to lead psychologically safe, high-performing workplaces. His programs are designed around real obligations, mapped to the WHS Act and ISO 45003, and built on the understanding that supportive leadership is not a soft nicety but a genuine control that addresses a significant share of recognised psychosocial hazards. Psychological safety, mental fitness, and resilience are not slogans in his work. They are capabilities he builds, deliberately and measurably.
The track record behind that specialisation is substantial. In 2024 Stuart was selected as one of only four trainers globally to deliver dsm-firmenich’s Global Mental Fitness Champions program, helping certify more than six hundred peer supporters across the Americas, Europe, and Asia, a program reported in the company’s Integrated Annual Report. He has worked with Woolworths continuously since 2018, delivering more than 125 courses across the organisation, and has trained teams at Clayton Utz, Kennedys Law, Airbus, Downer, Bupa, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Swimming Australia’s senior coaching staff in preparation for the Paris 2024 Olympics. He delivers at Fortune 500 and ASX 200 scale, with a digital-first facilitation style built for hybrid and globally dispersed teams.
Stuart’s path to this work is as broad as it is deep. He began facilitating in Brisbane in 2000, spent years with Business Networking International as a facilitator and Area Director, and in 2007 was invited by BNI founder Dr Ivan Misner to contribute an essay on the psychology of communication to the New York Times bestseller Masters of Sales, alongside authors including Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, and Brian Tracy. He trained in London with Natural Training and was competitively selected to train with Gustav Kaser Training International in Switzerland. That journey, combined with his background as a counselling psychotherapist, is why Stuart bridges clinical psychological insight and everyday leadership practice so naturally. He makes the human side of work both understandable and genuinely actionable.
| ⚠️ A NOTE FROM STUART I have spent twenty-five years studying communication, emotional intelligence, and what actually makes a team feel safe and human. So I offer the following professional opinion, fully aware that it will not be welcomed in every corner of the office. Eric’s dad jokes are good for you. A leader who is willing to be that uncool, that consistently, and that unbothered by the response, gives everyone else quiet permission to relax and be themselves. That is not nothing. That is culture. I understand this puts me alongside Johnson and Tomas, and I understand a coalition has been forming on the other side under Claire’s careful leadership. I want to be respectful of that. But as the resident expert on psychological safety, I must, in good conscience, side with the jokes. I laugh sincerely, and the research is, broadly, on my side. I appreciate this is the worst possible development for everyone else. 😄 |
EDUCATION AND CREDENTIALS
Clinical Insight, Everyday Leadership
- Principal Master Instructor, Mental Health First Aid Australia (highest accreditation awarded)
- Bachelor of Applied Social Science (Applied Psychology) – ACAP
- Diploma of Human Resource Management
- Certificate IV in Training and Assessment (TAE40116)
- Accredited Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) Coach – Wiley
- Licensed International Trainer – Gustav Kaser Training International
- Advanced Coaching and Communication Mastery – REAL Education
- dsm-firmenich, Woolworths, Dan Murphy’s and Bupa Australia
- Clayton Utz, Kennedys Law, Airbus, Downer and Arup
- Swimming Australia, Department of Veterans Affairs and Yahoo Australia
- Accredited Mental Health First Aid delivery (Standard, Refresher, Blended)
- Psychosocial risk management aligned to the WHS Act and ISO 45003
- Psychological safety and mentally healthy workplace culture
- Mental fitness and resilience frameworks
- Leadership development, coaching skills and facilitation
- Emotional intelligence, difficult conversations and conflict resolution
- Founder and Principal, Northern Rivers Training and Development
- Delivered in partnership with specialist networks including HSE Global
- A valued delivery partner to SBAAS
WORK WITH STUART
Ready to Lead Mentally Healthy Teams?
Whether you need accredited Mental Health First Aid, psychosocial risk capability aligned to your obligations, or leadership training that genuinely changes behaviour, SBAAS partners with Stuart and Northern Rivers Training and Development to bring you specialist expertise, proven at every scale.
📞 (07) 3916 9896 | ✉️ info@sbaas.com.au | 🌐 sbaas.com.au
In partnership with Northern Rivers Training and Development · northernriverstraining.com.au
