Ashleigh Conwell

Meet Ashleigh Conwell

Ashleigh was 29 and 17 weeks pregnant with triplets when her husband died suddenly in an accident. People were so kind - the flowers, the lasagnes, the messages. But none of them came with a roadmap for what actually came next. The estate. The financial collapse. The administrative nightmare. The months when her brain wasn't working but the decisions kept coming.

So she built one. Counsellors handle the emotional weight. Funeral directors handle the day. Lawyers handle the estate. But no one walks you through the practical chronology of life after loss - and organisations don't have systems to support people through it. That's what Yellow Falcon is.

In the organisations Ashleigh works with, one in four employees are grieving at any time. Most offer bereavement leave, then nothing. Support stops at the exact moment it's needed most - month three, month six, the anniversary. The cost appears later as absence, performance issues, or resignations, but it's never labelled as grief. A bereaved employee loses roughly 30 working days to absence and impaired focus in the year after a loss - which equates to roughly $21,000 in lost productivity per person. That doesn't factor in the employee's own financial crisis - loss of spouse's income, compounding superannuation gaps, bills unchanged.

Psychosocial risk now sits within Work Health and Safety obligations, and grief is one of the most overlooked hazards organisations carry.

Ashleigh helps organisations solve this with keynotes, training, workshops, and advisory to build manager capability, response protocols, and systems that ensure someone checks in when most have moved on. Not therapy. Not a wellbeing initiative. The practical framework organisations actually need, complementing existing EAP services.

My Why

I navigated the worst days of my life without a roadmap. I lost my husband at 29 when I was 17 weeks pregnant with triplets. I quickly learnt that emotional support existed everywhere - counsellors, support groups, even kind words from strangers. Lawyers handled the estate. Financial advisors help with the money. But what didn't exist was someone walking me through the practical chronology of what actually came next: the calls, the forms, the questions and the decisions I never imagined making so young.

I built Yellow Falcon so no one has to figure it out alone like I did.

Grief follows us into the workplace. One in four employees are grieving at any time and I see organisations losing people every single year to grief. Talented people, developed people, people the organisation has invested in. They leave quietly because they concluded their workplace had no room for what they were carrying. That's preventable.

Most organisations treat grief like an event: a card, some flowers, compassionate leave, then assume it's handled. They stop paying attention at the exact moment the real difficulty begins. The cost appears later, unlabelled but showing as absence, performance issues, resignations and no one connects it back to the death of a loved one just months earlier.

I speak and advise because organisations can change this. They can build systems where support is consistent, where check-ins happen at month three and month six, the anniversary and beyond, where grief is treated as foreseeable psychosocial risk instead of a personal problem to manage alone.

That's what drives me: making sure the support I had to fight for becomes standard, not luck.

My Accomplishments

✅ Raising happy, thriving kids ✅ Founder of Yellow Falcon: practical grief support framework built from lived experience ✅ Built manager training and protocols that minimise absence spikes and resignations from organisations while shifting grief from card-and-flowers reflex to managed psychosocial risk ✅ Mental Health First Aid Accredited ✅ Women Changing the World Awards - Global & APAC: Bronze for "Overcoming the Odds" (2026), Finalist "Changemaker of the Year" (2026), Finalist "Wellbeing Programs" (2026), Silver "Wellbeing Programs" Asia Pacific (2025) ✅ Recognised by MIT as "A thoughtful, responsible and highly contextual adoption plan for sensitive grief support" ✅ Trusted by leading organisations including Palliative Care Queensland, Ambulance Wish Queensland and Allianz Global Partners

Fun facts

⭐ What does Yellow Falcon mean? Yellow represents joy and the solar plexus of inner confidence and self belief. Falcon is my maiden and married name combined - representing my growth and that I'm not tied to my past or trauma. ⭐ I am a qualified reformer pilates instructor ⭐ I love a perfectly colour coded spreadsheet ⭐ I can sing "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" in Japanese

How I can help

Keynotes on the hidden cost of grief and why it's now a psychosocial risk organisations can't ignore

Manager training and workshops that give leaders the words, the protocols, and the systems to actually support bereaved employees

Advisory services to build grief-informed policies, response protocols, and organisational systems

Creating frameworks where support continues at month 3, month 6, and the anniversary - not just the fortnight of the event

The practical foundation organisations need to meet WHS obligations and retain people navigating grief

More from Ashleigh Conwell

Watch Ashleigh Conwell in action ↗