Flybuys has been shortlisted for Best Leadership Development Strategy at the 2026 Human Resources Director Australia Awards, recognising a three-year leadership transformation delivered in partnership with Maximus.
The recognition places Flybuys among an impressive field of leading Australian organisations and reflects the depth of work undertaken to strengthen the leadership foundations behind one of Australia’s most loved brands.
For more than 30 years, Flybuys has helped Australians unlock greater value from everyday spending. Today, the organisation serves approximately 10 million members and reaches two in three Australian households through partnerships with some of Australia’s most trusted retailers.
At its core, Flybuys exists to create value – for members seeking more from their everyday purchases, for partners building deeper customer relationships, and for the communities that benefit when strong organisations continue to innovate, grow and contribute.
That commitment to value creation is one of the reasons the partnership between Flybuys and Maximus has been so meaningful. We believe leadership is one of the most important levers of value creation. It is what enables organisations to navigate complexity, translate strategy into action, build momentum through change and create better outcomes for shareholders, employees, customers, partners and communities. Flybuys shares this belief.
Working alongside CEO Anna Lee and the Flybuys leadership team, Maximus designed and delivered a multi-year leadership program to support a significant business transformation. The ambition was not simply to build individual leadership capability, but to create the conditions for enterprise-wide alignment, accountability and sustained performance.
Building a leadership foundation for transformation
The work began in 2023 with the creation of the Leadership Collective, bringing the Executive Leadership Team, Senior Leadership Team and People Experience leaders together as one enterprise team. This created a shared leadership baseline and helped leaders align around a common purpose, leadership language and set of priorities.
From there, the program evolved in step with the business. Year one focused on diagnostics, coaching and leadership forums to establish clarity and connection across the organisation. In 2024, the work shifted to enabling transformation through operating model change and Agile adoption. From 2025, the focus moved into growth mode, with leadership routines reinforcing enterprise priorities, deeper accountability and cross-functional execution.
Through each phase, leadership became the connective tissue of enterprise value – linking strategy to execution, culture to performance, technology to adoption, and vision to results.
Connecting leadership to enterprise value
When those elements become disconnected, organisations slow down. When they align, value creation accelerates.
An integrated leadership ecosystem helped embed the shift, combining real-time employee listening, executive coaching, accountability forums and immersive leadership experiences. Over time, leaders began to look beyond their own functions and take greater ownership of the performance of the whole enterprise.
That shift created the conditions for Flybuys to move with greater clarity and pace. Sharper strategic priorities, stronger accountability and leaders aligned around what mattered most helped the organisation bring new and upgraded member-focused initiatives to life, including the Flybuys App, a new data platform, a 1:1 communications platform and AI-enabled Service Centre capability.
The momentum has also been recognised externally, with Flybuys named Canstar Blue’s Most Satisfied Customer Rewards Program and Best Loyalty Program, alongside recognition at the Asia Pacific Loyalty Awards for three consecutive years.
The HRD Australia Awards finalist recognition adds another important marker of progress. It acknowledges not only the strength of the leadership development strategy, but the role leadership has played in helping Flybuys continue to evolve, grow and create value for the people it serves.
What the Flybuys transformation demonstrates
For Maximus, the Flybuys story demonstrates what becomes possible when leadership is connected directly to the work of the business. When leaders share a clear understanding of purpose, priorities and accountability, organisations are better able to execute strategy, adapt to change and create value at scale.
As partners in this work, we have been privileged to walk alongside the Flybuys leadership team throughout this transformation. Their willingness to invest in leadership, listen deeply to their people and remain focused on creating value for members has been central to the outcomes achieved.
More broadly, the story reinforces an important lesson for Australian organisations. Leadership development creates the greatest impact when it is not treated as a program on the side of the business, but as a value creation system for enabling the business to perform, adapt and grow.
For over 24 years, Maximus has led the market in leadership impact. With experience across 25 countries and more than 200,000 leaders, we deliver transformational leadership development, culture evolution and organisational shifts towards strategic outcomes. From management teams to board members, and across every industry, we work with an incredible array of leaders to deliver disproportionate impact.
Learn how we partner with leaders and organisations to create lasting change.
