Dan Pronk resigned himself to studying medicine on an army scholarship after failing dismally in his first career dream of professional triathlon. Upon qualifying as an army doctor Dan completed SAS selection and moved into Special Operations where he served for five years, including four tours of Afghanistan. He was awarded a Commendation for Distinguished Service for his conduct in combat on his second tour.

Upon discharge from the army Dan completed a Master of Business Administration and moved into medical leadership roles including as a Deputy Director of a regional hospital, and Medical Director for a state prison health service. He is married to a very tolerant wife and has three sons. In his spare time he can often be found driving his vintage Lamborghini in the Adelaide Hills..

Ben’s resilience journey started at the age of 16 months when his annoyingly talented brother Dan was born.  Since then, he has continued as a student, teacher and practitioner of resilience, including through his 24-year Army career. The majority of this time was in the SAS, and involved multiple deployments to Timor Leste, Iraq and Afghanistan – where he was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for leadership in combat – before finishing as Commanding Officer. 

In 2018, Ben co-founded Mettle Global, a premium consultancy which delivers resilience solutions to clients globally. He is an Adjunct Faculty member at the Australian Graduate School of Management, where he delivers leadership programs within Australia’s top-ranked MBA program.  He is also the co-host of the Unforgiving60 podcast and a proud husband and father to two children.

Tim is convinced that his military career started through a clerical error which developed into 16 years of service including with the Australia Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment. Tim’s operational service included in the Asia Pacific Region and Africa, as well as on Special Recovery/ Counter Terrorist operations. He was personally selected to raise the East Coast Counter Terrorist capability in 2002 and later he served as an SAS Squadron Commander including leading the operation to capture the North Korean drug vessel MV PONG SU.

After his military career, Tim consulted to the United Nations during the Afghan Parliamentary Elections in 2005 before basing from Dubai running multinational companies. He returned to Australia to co-found the Mettle Group of Companies. Tim is the co-host of the Unforgiving60 podcast. He is on the Advisory Board of Starlight Children’s Foundation and a Board Member of the RSL in Western Australia. Tim has an MBA and is married with three wonderful children and is a poor didgeridoo player and a frequently injured sub-amateur athlete.

Lies always wanted to write a book as a child. Little did she know that this book would end up being a PhD thesis in Psychology. As a student at Ghent University in Belgium, Lies found herself fascinated by the idea that the scientific method can be applied to study psychological phenomena. This led her to pursue a PhD through which she specialised in examining how the way we perceive the world shapes our emotional experiences.

After realising her dream of moving to Australia, Lies became co-director of the Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion at the University of Western Australia. At the centre, she leads a team of researchers who aim to disentangle the complex interactions between our thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. The knowledge this research generates helps us understand why some people are more resilient than others, and how we can foster better resilience.