National Advisory Committee
Professor Nareen Young
Professor Nareen Young is Industry Professor, Indigenous Policy (Indigenous Workforce Diversity) at Jumbunna Institute of Indigenous Education and Research at University of Technology, Sydney. She leads the UTS Jumbunna Research Indigenous People and Work Research and Practice Hub, launched in March 2019, an international first.
Prior to her current appointment Nareen has spent over twenty years developing her standing as one of Australia’s leading and most respected employment diversity practitioners, leading two peak diversity employment organisations (NSW Working Women’s Centre and Diversity Council Australia) to enormous impact and success. She has lead diversity thinking and practice in Australia, and most recently as employment lead for PwC’s Indigenous Consulting where she developed many concepts for Indigenous employment diversity practice, and is influenced by her own Indigenous and culturally diverse heritages in this regard. Nareen has received many awards and accolades for her work, has commentated widely and published and presented Nationally and internationally.
Additionally, Nareen has significant governance experience. She spent a three year term as a Director of Indigenous Business Australia and currently serves as non-executive Director of Souths Cares, BlakDance and Diversity Arts Australia.
Professor Rae Cooper
Professor Rae Cooper (PhD) is Associate Dean (Programs), the University of Sydney Business School.
Rae is Co-Director of theWomen, Work and Leadership Research Group. Rae is Associate Editor of theJournal of Industrial Relations.
Rae is a leading researcher on the world of work and has a particular interest in gender and work, women’s careers and flexible employment. She has received grants from the Australian Research Council, from state and federal governments and has worked in collaboration with leading organisations including the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Australian Council of Trade Unions through her research. Presently she is working on three key projects which examine: 1. The Future of Women’s Work; 2. Women’s work in non-traditional occupations 3. Pathways to Non-Executive Directorships.
Rae is a leading educator and teaches classes in employment relations, HR and management across undergraduate, postgraduate and executive classes. She supervises several PhD, MPhil and Honours students working on projects spanning employment relations, gender and work and organisational policy. She is co-author of the leading text Employment Relations: Theory and Practice.
Rae uses her research expertise to contribute to public debates about work and careers and is a key Australian commentator on workplace matters in television, radio and print media. She is regularly approached to speak to business and policy audiences on her research. In addition to her academic roles, Rae has been a non-Executive Director on several boards of public sector businesses and NGOs including three years to 2015 as Chair of the Board of Directors of Australian Hearing and three years as a NED for the NSW TAFE Commission. Rae has played a leadership role in organisations in the women’s policy area including previously being Chair of both the NSW Premiers Expert Advisory Council on Women and the NSW Working Women’s Centre.
Alana Johnson
Alana Johnson is renowned public speaker and facilitator of conversations. She is recognized nationally and internationally for her work in rural development, women’s advancement, leadership training and community activism.
In 2018, Alana was inducted into the Victorian Women’s Honour Roll, she was named in the inaugural 100 Women of Agribusiness in Australia in 2014 and in 2013 the inaugural 100 Women of Influence in Australia by the Australian Financial Review.
Alana was the Victorian Rural Women’s Award winner for 2010 and Australian runner up. She has appeared on the ABC television Q+A panel and features in Women’s Word of Wisdom, launched by the Governor General at the International Women’s Day 100th anniversary celebrations at Government House.
A pioneer in rural women’s leadership in Australia, Alana is a founding member of Australian Women in Agriculture and former President of the Foundation for Australian Agricultural Women. Alana is a member of a fifth generation farming family, breeding cattle and growing trees near Benalla in Victoria.
Currently Alana is the Dep. Chair of the Victorian Catchment Management Council, the Chair of the Victorian Women’s Trust, a Director of Goulburn Murray Water and the inaugural Chair of the Dugdale Trust for Women and Girls. She is a member of the Victorian Ministerial Council for Women’s Equality and a member of the strategic advisory group to the Invisible Farmer project at Museums Victoria and a reference group member for the Victorian Rural women’s Network.
Alana is a co-founder and past President of the Voices for Indi, initiating the democracy project in the electorate of Indi which saw Cathy McGowan elected in 2013 and 2016 as the Independent MP for Indi followed by Helen Haines in 2019.
A graduate of the Australian Rural Leadership Program and the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a Social Scientist, clinical Family Therapist and Social Worker, Alana has been awarded a PhD scholarship to research the future of Australian Agriculture at Monash University.
Tasneem Chopra
A Cross-cultural Consultant, Tasneem Chopra was listed as one of ‘50 Women you Need to Know’ in 2017’s Herald Sun International Women’s Day count, following a listing in The Australian Magazine’s ‘Top 10 Thinkers’ and ‘The Age’s Top 50 Movers & Shakers’ in previous years. Through her consultancy, she speaks across the private and public sector to issues of cultural competence, gender, leadership and intersectional discrimination.
Tasneem’s clients have included the Australian Human Rights Commission, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, the Judicial Council of Victoria, the Department of Justice and Victorian Women Lawyers, amongst others. She is also a Board Director for Ambulance Victoria, The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), and outgoing Director of the Luke Batty Foundation, NOW Australia and Chair of the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights.
Tasneem is a TEDx Melbourne speaker and has written for The Guardian & The Age, the Griffith Law Journal and presented on BBC World, and ABC’s Q&A, The Drum and ABC radio, where she is an occasional host and panellist.
Jamila Rizvi
Jamila Rizvi is an author, presenter and political commentator. She is Editor-at-Large for the Nine Network's Future Women platform and hosts their podcast of the same name. Jamila writes a weekly column for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, is a regular commentator on The Project, Today, The Drum and ABC News Breakfast and an occasional host on ABC Radio Melbourne.
Jamila's best-selling book Not Just Lucky, a career manifesto for millennial women, was published by Penguin in June 2017 and long listed for the Australian Book Industry Awards in 2018. Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard has called it, ‘feisty and inquisitive, a fresh take on modern feminist issues.’
Her second book, an anthology of letters about the first three months of life with a newborn, called The Motherhood, was released in April 2017. So far, Jamila has donated more than $15,000 in proceeds from The Motherhood to CARE Australia, helping give women and girls in the developing world a better life.
Jamila is the co-founder of the popular event series Tea with Jam and Clare, which she hosts with singer Clare Bowditch. The event attracts audiences in their thousands each year. In 2014 Jamila was named one of Cosmopolitan’s 30 Most Successful Women Under 30 and in 2015 was listed as one of Australia’s 100 Women of Influence by the Australian Financial Review. In 2017 she was included in the Weekly Review’s top ten list of young rising stars in Melbourne.
Prior to entering the media, Jamila worked in politics as an advisor to the Rudd and Gillard governments. She has advised governments at the highest levels on issues including employment, women, media, child care, and youth affairs. Jamila is an Ambassador for CARE Australia, and a board member of the Melbourne’s Writer’s Festival.
Jamila holds bachelor degrees in law and commerce from the Australian National University, was President of the students' union in 2008 and was named as the university's Young Alumnus of the Year in 2014. She lives in Melbourne with her husband Jeremy, very excitable three-year-old son, Rafi and a lot of washed but regrettably unfolded washing.
Dr Yves Rees
Dr Yves Rees is a writer, historian and podcaster living on stolen and unceded Wurundjeri land. At present, Yves is a Lecturer in History at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and co-host of Archive Fever podcast.
Yves was the recipient of the 2020 Calibre Essay Prize, awarded for their essay ‘Reading the Mess Backwards’. Their memoir All About Yves: Notes from a Transition will be published by Allen & Unwin in 2021.
Yves has received the Serle Award for Best Postgraduate Thesis in Australian History, the Ken Inglis Prize, an Endeavour Research Fellowship, the ANU Gender Institute Research Excellence Award, a La Trobe ECR Research Excellence Award, and was a finalist for the 2019 CHASS Future Leader Award. They will be a 2021 Varuna Residential Fellow.
Yves has published widely across Australian gender, transnational and economic history. Yves is the co-editor of Transnationalism, Nationalism and Australian History (Palgrave, 2017) and their first monograph Travelling to Tomorrow: Australian Women and the American Century is contracted with Nebraska University Press. Yves holds a PhD in History from the Australian National University and an MA in History from University College London, and has been a Visiting Researcher at Georgetown University.
Yves is a regular contributor to ABC radio and their writing has featured in Guardian Australia, The Age, Overland, Meanjin, Inside Story, the Sydney Review of Books, ABC Online, Archer, The Conversation and the Australian Book Review. At present, Yves is a co-convenor of the Melbourne Feminist History Group and sits on the Board of the History Council of Victoria. Yves is transgender and uses they/them pronouns. Yves writes on transgender history and politics, and volunteers with Transgender Victoria.
Ged Kearney MP
Ged Kearney is the Federal Member for Cooper. Ged has served in the parliament since March 2018, when she was elected in a by-election. She is the first woman to hold the seat.
Ged is the Shadow Assistant Minister for Skills and the Shadow Assistant Minister for Aged Care.
Ged started her working life as a nurse and rose to become Federal Secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation. From 2010, Ged served as the president of the ACTU – the peak body of Australia’s union movement – where she fought for better conditions for Australian workers.
Ged’s working life – from nurse to President of the ACTU to parliamentarian – has been about fighting for the rights of others.
She is a strong voice for social justice, decent jobs and universal healthcare inside Labor and the Parliament. Ged is a passionate advocate for the environment, leading the push for Labor to declare a climate emergency. Throughout her career, Ged has supported a humane response to refugees and was instrumental in developing the medevac legislation.
Ged was born and raised in Melbourne and lived in Cooper for over 25 years. Ged has four children, two stepdaughters and two much loved grandchildren.