Play On: How Purposeful Play Unlocks Human Potential At Work with Dara Simkin

Many of us tend to think of work and play as two separate concepts. We banish play to outside work hours, or as busy working adults some of us barely play at all. Today, Alexis Zahner and I are speaking with a woman who will change how you think about play. Dara Simkin shares how these restrictive, rigid ideas about play do us, our leadership and our business a massive disservice. She unpacks how play is actually an essential component of our humanity, and what we stand to gain when we welcome play into our worklives and beyond.

Dara Simkin is a play pioneer, speaker and facilitator, who works with leaders looking to unlock creativity, connectedness and innovation for themselves and their teams. She is founder and Chief Play Officer at CultureHero, and is a thought leader in shifting our understanding of play and its implications for business. 

Her playful, experiential craft as a speaker and facilitator creates an engaging learning space for audiences. The content she delivers is both thought-provoking and entertaining — exploring the transformative benefits of purposeful play and the urgency for it in our working lives. She empowers professionals to embrace the beauty of discomfort, while challenging them to consider the consequences of a life void of play. She has shared the stage with world-renowned play researcher Dr Stuart Brown and IDEO Play Lab founder Brendan Boyle when she created and hosted the 2018 and 2019 Break Out play conferences in Melbourne. She’s also presented to organisations like AGL, PWC, McKinsey, MYOB, MediBank and IAG. Her unique energy and enthusiasm is contagious. She emulates the importance of being playfully bold to bring forth greater connection, well-being and new thinking in the world of work.