Gyongyi Horvath - Senior Consultant

About

Gyongyi Horvath is a Senior Consultant at Beacon Strategies. Gyongyi is a multidisciplinary service designer and evaluator with experience across government, not-for-profit and consulting helping organisations understand their impact and deliver better for the communities their serve. She brings deep expertise across the justice, mental health, education and disability sectors, where she has successfully led and delivered policy reform, new programs and projects over the last 13 years. Gyongyi excels in leveraging mixed method research and co-design frameworks to facilitate strategic conversations, enable evidence-based decisions and inform investment in strategy, service innovation and implementation. 

Capabilities

Gyongyi combines deep sector expertise with a varied skillset across evaluation, program and service design, organizational strategy, stakeholder and community engagement and project delivery.   

Gyongyi is highly skilled in mixed method, qualitative and participatory research to demonstrate impact and identify opportunity areas. She adapts easily to varied audiences and quickly builds rapport, helping to connect, engage and align stakeholders to deliver desired project outcomes. An engaging communicator, she is equally at home crafting compelling narratives through research findings and visual reports, as well as facilitating workshops and community engagement sessions. An adept project manager, she is experienced in managing risks and competing priorities in evolving circumstances to deliver complex projects on time and budget. As a strategic and collaborative problem-solver, she combines analytical skills with creative flair to develop evidence-based, innovative and measurable solutions to complex problems.  

Academic Qualifications

• Master of Arts in Communications, University of Leicester

• Bachelor of International Studies (Honours), University of New South Wales

Professional Experience

Gyongyi has held program, project and team leadership roles across government, not-for-profit and consulting organisations prior to commencing at Beacon Strategies. 

• Senior Consultant – Beacon Strategies (2026 – Present) 

• Evaluation and Service Design Consultant – Theory & Form (Self-employed) (2024 – 2026) 

• Lead Design & Evaluation Strategist – Prime Motive (2022 - 2023) 

• Lead Service Design & Evaluation Consultant – Beaker & Flint (2020 – 2022) 

• Senior Service Design Consultant – Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (2020) 

• Principal Manager – Department of Justice and Community Safety (2018 – 2020) 

• Senior Adviser, Strategy & Experience - Department of Justice and Community Safety (2017 – 2018) 

• Program Manager – Generation Next (2014 – 2017) 

• Program Manager – Courage to Care NSW (2012 – 2014) 

• Information and Projects Officer – People with Disability Australia (2011 – 2012) 

Professional Memberships

• Australian Evaluation Society 

Career Highlights

• Demonstrated the desirability and feasibility of the Koori Pathways program to support improved court navigation and support coordination for First Nations participants in court programs in Victoria, helping to secure $5M in funding for its implementation. 

• Developed ongoing, longitudinal measurement tools to assess the ongoing impact of the Victorian court system’s flagship cultural learning program and delivered a point-in-time evaluation, helping to build the case for expanded funding. 

• Co-designed a multi-channel support experience and the engagement strategy for patients affected by pancreatic cancer and their carers for PanKind (Pancreatic Cancer Australia), resulting in greater responsiveness and support for high risk and newly diagnosed patients and their carers as well as improved referral pathways.  

• Led the evaluation of the Victorian courts-wide Self-determination and Koori Employment Plans, informing priority focus areas to align with broader reforms, policy and practice change in the context of Victoria’s treaty process. 

• Led the development of Uniting Agewell’s retirement villages strategy and high-level operating model, helping to define an operating model that enables continuity of care across home care, independent living and residential aged care settings. 

Personal Interests

Gyongyi is a keen runner and hiker. She also enjoys cooking (Hungarian, Singaporean and Korean are personal favourites), reading fiction from as many countries as possible and planning the next travel adventure. These days, outside of work she is most likely found exploring the outdoors with her young family and building elaborate duplo creations, usually involving imaginary trains.