Mel Bampton

Success lies in the ability to make discipline a joy and joy a discipline

Profile

Mel Bampton is a world-class interviewer, speaker, and creative force, best known for shaping some of Australia’s most iconic media projects. As the creator of Like A Version and The Producer Series, Mel revolutionised the way audiences engage with music, crafting unforgettable storytelling experiences that have become a cultural institution.

With a media career spanning broadcasting, live events, content creation, writing, and podcasting, Mel has interviewed some of the biggest names in music, science and entertainment, drawing out profound, unexpected, and deeply human moments. As gritty as she is compassionate, Mel’s signature approach - marked by an unparalleled ability to connect - makes her a powerful voice for high-profile interviews, in-depth panels, and keynotes.

Beyond media, Mel is also an internationally certified therapist, specialising in women's hormonal health and mental health for more than a decade, bringing a unique depth of insight into human behaviour, adaptability, and resilience. This expertise shapes her work as a speaker, allowing her to connect with audiences on a profound level, whether that’s in the lightness of gentle narratives or the most challenging topics of the human experience.

As a dynamic and engaging speaker, Mel captivates audiences with thought-provoking discussions, innovative storytelling, and a rare ability to challenge perspectives. Her work bridges art, culture, leadership and human potential, offering a compelling mix of depth, humour, and insight that resonates across industries.

Mel’s ability to cut through noise, ask the right questions, and spark meaningful dialogue makes her an asset to any stage.

Expertise

Talking Points

The Physiology Of Impactful Public Speaking

If you have important ideas to share, they can only ever be as impactful as your capacity to communicate them. Whether it’s to one person or 1 000 000, mastering the art of being heard is essential to success. The amount of brilliant ideas that never get a chance to thrive because they are buried beneath an inability to get them from brain, to mouth to ears. The phenomenal people who should be leaders but are not, because they lack the capacity to speak like one. The Physiology of Impactful Public Speaking turns that on its head. If you have something to say, if you’ve got something meaningful to share, if you have something that the world needs to hear, then this practical presentation will equip you and your teams to make sure that when you public speak, you cannot be ignored.

Whether you are a positive changemaker, a meaningful mischief-maker or want to be a leader with positive influence, courageous, deeply-seated communication is a non-negotiable in a landscape that is becoming increasingly untrustworthy. Public speaking, showing up as a real human being with heart, pace, vulnerability and power, has no comparison in terms of making ideas and leadership count.

Impactful public speaking is an inside job. Content is key, delivery is paramount and attitude is everything. The Physiology of Impactful Public Speaking is a potent keynote, full of takeaways that can be applied on the spot or a full-day workshop that integrates all aspects of body and mind, to elevate, exponentially, individual and collective capacity to be heard.

Drawing on nearly three decades as a national broadcaster, storyteller, and internationally certified therapist, Mel Bampton commands a rare skillset that enables influential connection that carves positive change. As the creator of the iconic Like A Version and a world-class interviewer who has conversed with global figures from Quentin Tarantino to Professor David Suzuki, Mel combines a career’s worth of frontline insights and a decade of therapeutic clinic work, into a dynamic, deeply human, interactive keynote.

In this transformative session, participants will discover:

• How to communicate before they’ve even opened their mouths
• How to deliver clearly so that every word lands
• The art of being heard and holding attention when delivering key information
• Techniques for courageous conversations that circumvent tension and instead foster trust
• How to embody powerful public speaking
• Strategies to overcome fear, resistance, and self-censorship in high-stakes moments, such as communication of vital ideas
• How to use public speaking as a tool to drive personal wellbeing

With intelligence, grit, wit, and deeply practical tools, Mel equips leaders and teams to embody courageous communication - turning conversations into catalysts for change - starting with the physiology of each individual.

Dissolving Patterns: Escaping The Cage Of Restrictive Conditioning

“We’re all living in cages with the doors wide open.” — George Lucas

What if the biggest barrier to your growth wasn’t your workload, your circumstances, or other people — but the identity you’ve unconsciously built around who you think you are and the behaviours that accompany it?

In this session, we’ll explore the tension between who we’ve come to believe we are and the struggle to get to where we want to be. We’ll get curious about the resistance that keeps us repeating unhelpful patterns - stress, overthinking, emotional reactivity, burnout, the way we eat, sleep, the things we use to prop up or bring down — even when we know better.

This is a grounded, science-backed, bigger-picture conversation about change — real change — that starts with learning how to get the most out of every moment, by making YOU more malleable.

Imagine showing up to a challenge without resistance. Listening without defensiveness. Leading with elasticity and clarity instead of friction and fatigue. What would your workday, your team dynamics, your personal life feel like if your mind was no longer spinning in overdrive or stuck in underperformance?

Dissolving Patterns offers simple, potent, readily accessible tools for everyone, to retrain your nervous system, reframe stuck mindsets, and create the space for better decisions, deeper connection, and more meaningful work. This is all about the ability of you and your teams to meet their own comfortable fullest potential in every moment, nothing more and nothing less.
This keynote or workshop delivers:
Tangible strategies to dissolve internal chaos and promote mental agility

Practical understanding of the human mind drawn from Yoga Therapy, neuroscience, and ancient philosophy

A compassionate lens to see where you are stuck and where you are strong

Practical tools to promote efficiency and resilience

Strategies to build more connected professional relationships that drive collaboration and creativity

Vulva La Revolution: The Power of Perimenopause

Forget the stereotypes. This is not the end — it's the uprising.

Perimenopause isn’t a pathology. It’s a radical recalibration. A messy, magnificent threshold that asks women not to fade quietly into the background — but to rise.

In this bold, irreverent, and deeply human keynote, Mel Bampton takes the stage with wit, warmth, and the kind of wisdom that only comes from living through decades of cultural contradiction — and coming out the other side with your humour (and ovaries) intact.

Through personal storytelling, cultural critique, and unfiltered truths about ageing, identity, and womanhood, Vulva La Revolution reframes perimenopause not as a crisis, but as a creative combustion — a second spring, a time when energy once spent on reproduction is reclaimed for deeper purpose, leadership, and joy.

Expect to laugh, maybe cry, and definitely rethink everything you thought you knew about “the change.”

Audiences will walk away with:

A fierce new respect for the perimenopausal mind and body

Language to counteract the tired old narratives of decline

A fresh lens on what it means to lead, create, and influence in midlife and beyond

Permission to be powerful, unapologetic, and yes — a little bit sweary

Because if there’s one thing this world needs right now, it’s empowered elder women. And maybe… a good hot water bottle.

This is not a women’s health talk. It’s a revolution in perspective.
Vulva La Revolution. Join me!

MC & Host

Mel Bampton is an experienced MC and Host with a 30-year media career spanning live events, broadcasting and podcasting. As the creator of Like A Version, she’s shaped Australian culture and interviewed global leaders across music, science and entertainment.

Mel brings clarity, warmth and professionalism to every event, with a proven ability to spark authentic connection and meaningful dialogue. Her background in therapy adds depth to her hosting style, making her ideal for panels, interviews and programs that require both insight and impact.