ABOUT DONNA.
Experience shapes the way you see things.
Donna Burns has spent more than 25 years working with people, organisations and systems — from frontline environments through organisational change, executive leadership, strategy and governance.
That breadth of experience has shaped the way she works today: looking beyond the obvious, understanding different perspectives and helping people find clarity in complex situations.
THE STORY SO FAR.
A career built from seeing things from different sides.
Donna’s perspective hasn’t been shaped by one role, organisation or sector.
Her career began in frontline healthcare, including nursing and emergency environments, before expanding into organisational change, consulting, executive leadership, strategy and governance.
Each experience brought a different view of how organisations work — where systems support people, where they create barriers and what it takes to move from good intentions to practical outcomes.
Over time, Donna’s work has increasingly centred on the spaces between people, organisations and ideas: bringing different perspectives together, navigating complexity and helping create a clearer way forward.
Frontline experience
Organisational change
Strategy + consulting
Executive leadership
Governance + advisory
Donna today
Different experiences give you a different view of what’s possible.
PERSPECTIVE.
The longer you work with complexity, the more you learn to look beyond the obvious.
Strategies, structures and systems ultimately affect people. Understanding their experience changes the quality of the decisions we make.
PEOPLE MATTER
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES MAKE THE WORK STRONGER
Complex challenges rarely belong to one person or have one answer. Better thinking happens when the right perspectives are brought into the conversation.
CLARITY COMES BEFORE ACTION
Good conversations and strong strategies matter, but so does what happens afterwards. Donna stays interested in how thinking translates into practical progress.
Moving quickly isn’t always the same as moving forward. Taking the time to understand what is really happening creates stronger decisions about what happens next.
THE WORK HAS TO GO SOMEWHERE
THE WAY DONNA WORKS.
Start with listening. Stay curious. Keep moving the work forward.
Donna doesn’t arrive with a predetermined answer. She starts by understanding the environment, listening to the people closest to the work and asking questions that help uncover what may not yet be visible.
LISTEN DEEPLY
Understand before responding.
STAY CURIOUS
Ask questions that open up possibilities rather than close them down.
BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER
Make space for different experiences, expertise and perspectives.
MAKE IT PRACTICAL
Find a way forward that can actually be acted upon.
THE NEXT CHAPTER.
From individual experience to collective capability.
Donna founded Intersect to create a structure for work that requires more perspectives, expertise and capability around the table.
Where Donna contributes individually through advisory, leadership, facilitation and conversation, Intersect creates the opportunity to bring broader teams together around strategy, partnership and delivery.
REAL CHANGE. CO-DESIGNED.
TODAY.
The work keeps evolving.
Donna continues to work alongside leaders, organisations and teams navigating complex challenges, while contributing to conversations around leadership, organisations, systems and the way people work together.
There’s always more to learn, and more we can do together.
