I design the structures that decide how work works.
Capability and competency frameworks, skills taxonomies and job architecture. It has been the through-line of my career since 2012, and it is the work I care about most.
Frameworks were never a pivot. They have been the constant.
It started in 2012 at Reed Medical Education, building training for Australian GPs around the RACGP's core competencies, the same core skills that sit at the heart of their competency framework today.
From there to CEB, working with the role-based competency models they put into organisations through offerings like the HR Leadership Council.
Then to LiveHire as Public Sector Director, where I cut my teeth in solution design by implementing local, state and federal government frameworks into recruitment and talent mobility software.
In 2020 I joined Acorn, a platform built on a capability-led strategy. I came in first to stand up the marketing function and the company's voice in the category, which leaned heavily on knowing the domain. From there I moved into the work I do now as Head of Capabilities, full-time framework design and implementation.
Four sectors. One thread. I have seen frameworks from the professional body side, the corporate side, the government side and the platform side. Most people who do this work have only seen one.
A few years ago I stopped working around frameworks and started building them. The choice became obvious once I let it.
This is the work I am best at, and the work I want to do. I have not looked back.
How I work
Diagnose
I look for structural friction. Where language is conflated, frameworks overlap, or responsibilities blur.
Architect
I build clean models and taxonomies that bring coherence to capability, competency, skills and tasks.
Pressure-test
I test the design against reality. Against AI impact, automation logic and real operating constraints.
Publish
When something holds up, I share it, so it can be challenged, refined and put to use.
My credentials
The benefits of my approach
Systems-led
Work is an interconnected system. Change one layer without understanding the rest, and instability follows.
Built to evolve
Architecture must adapt as technology, strategy and labour markets shift. Static models create fragility.
Clarity over complexity
The aim is not complexity. It is precision. So decisions about people and performance are grounded in structure, not jargon.
I work with the scaffolding behind the world’s job data.
Where I’m focused
BenSatchwell.com is my way of making sense of how jobs, tasks, and skills are evolving. And sharing those insights with anyone wrestling with the same shifts.
The Australian HR Institute trusts me to teach this.
I moderate AHRI's course on developing a capability framework, which means practitioners across the country learn the discipline through a model I stand behind.
I have published on framework design in Training Journal, and I speak on capability, skills and the structure of work, including at the National HR Summit.
%20(1).jpg)
Clarity and fairness in how work is defined.
The way roles are defined, the capability people bring is mapped, and tasks are structured decides who thrives, who stalls and how organisations perform. When that structure is poorly built, performance suffers quietly. Careers stall. AI initiatives fail.
I care about getting it right because clarity reduces politics, fairness reduces ambiguity, and good structure lets people contribute with purpose and confidence.