The Hon John Brumby (Chair)

Former Premier of Victoria, has immense experience in public life, serving for more than 10 years as Treasurer and then Premier of Victoria, 6 years as Leader of the Victorian Opposition and 7 years as Federal MHR for Bendigo during the period of the Hawke Government.  Since retiring from politics, Mr Brumby has accepted a number of Board positions as well as a joint appointment to both the University of Melbourne and Monash University as a Professorial Fellow.  He is Chairman of the Motor Trades Association of Australia (MTAA) Superannuation Fund, Chairman of Citywide Service Solutions Pty Ltd and Chairman of BioCurate Pty Ltd.  Mr Brumby is also a Member of the Business and Economics (B&E) Board, Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne.  In addition, Mr Brumby is Chairman of the Fred Hollows Foundation and National President of the Australia China Business Council.

Professor Margaret Sheil

 Provost at the University of Melbourne since April 2012. From 2007 to 2012 Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Research Council (ARC). Professor Sheil is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (FRACI), the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (FTSE), and was made an inaugural Fellow of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Mass Spectrometry (FANZSMS) in February 2014. Professor Sheil is a member of the Australia Indonesia Committee, the, Advisory Council of the CSIRO Science Industry Endowment Fund (SIEF), a member of the University’s Advisory Board for Coursera since 2012, the Clunies Ross Awards Committee of ATSE and is the Education Specialist on the Board of the Australian National Selection Commission for UNESCO. Prior to joining the ARC, Professor Sheil had been Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Dean of Science and a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Wollongong and had held research positions at the Australian National University and the University of Utah, USA. She has a PhD and BSc(Hons) in Chemistry from the University of New South Wales.

Professor Mark Considine

Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne and Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of Political Science. His research areas include governance studies, comparative social policy, employment services, public sector reform, local development, and organisational sociology. Mark is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences.

Dr Pradeep Philip 

Dr Pradeep Philip is a former Director of Policy in the Office of the Prime Minister of Australia between 2007 and 2009, Secretary of the Victorian Department of Health between 2012 and 2015 (currently Department of Health and Human Services). He has served in senior executive roles in the Department of Premier and Cabinet in both Queensland and Victoria, and also worked in the Commonwealth Department of The Treasury.  He was appointed as the inaugural CEO of LaunchVic, the Victorian Government's new entity to foster, develop and accelerate entrepreneurship in the Victorian economy.  He is now the Founder and Director of a boutique advisory firm, Ergo Consilium.

Ben Hubbard

Ben Hubbard is General Manager of Public Policy and Strategy at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers and a public policy graduate of the University of Melbourne. He is a former Chief of Staff to Australia’s Prime Minister (2011-2013), Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (2007-2009) and Principal Adviser to the Victorian Premier (1999-2002 and 2004-2007). Ben was also Chief Executive Officer of the Victoria Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority, the Government agency coordinating the recovery of communities affected by the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.

 Anna Cronin

Anna Cronin is Victoria’s first Commissioner for Better Regulation appointed by the Victorian Government in 2015.  She has been closely involved in policy development for 25 years, and has held a number of senior leadership and policy positions in the Federal, Victorian and Western Australian Governments. She previously led the National Farmers' Federation as Chief Executive Officer for five years.

 Dr Helen Szoke

Chief Executive of Oxfam Australia, Dr Helen Szoke is a human rights advocate who has worked for many years to stop race discrimination in Australia. Dr Szoke served as Australia’s Federal Race Discrimination Commissioner, following seven years as the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner.

 Judith Troeth AM

Liberal Senator for Victoria in the Federal Government for 18 years, Judith Troeth AM the first female Member of Parliament in the Agricultural portfolio, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Foresty from 1997 to 2004. She has also been Chair and Deputy Chair of a number of Senate Committees. Currently Chair of the Austin Health Board.

Jennifer Westacott 

 Jennifer Westacott has served as the Chief Executive of the Business Council of Australia since 2011. For over 20 years Jennifer occupied critical leadership positions in the New South Wales and Victorian governments. She was the Director of Housing and the Secretary of Education in Victoria, and most recently was the Director-General of the New South Wales Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources. From 2005 to 2011 Jennifer was a senior partner and Board Director at KPMG. She is also a National Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and since 2013 has been a Non-Executive Director of Wesfarmers Limited and Chair of the Mental Health Council of Australia.

Miles Kupa

Miles Kupa is a former Australian diplomat, with extensive experience both overseas and in Canberra.  He was High Commissioner to Malaysia (2010-2014) and Singapore (2005-2008). He was Ambassador to Iraq, the Philippines and Thailand, and also had postings in Egypt, France and Indonesia (as deputy head of mission). In Canberra he held a range of senior positions: as head of the Foreign Affairs Branch in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet; as head of the Foreign Minister’s Office; and in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade including as Deputy Secretary. He concluded his foreign service career in 2014, and is now a part-time consultant. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the ANU.

Dr Ian Watt AC 

Dr Ian Watt AC is a former Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet between 2011 and 2014 and head of the Australian Public Service from 2011 until he resigned late 2014. Prior to that, he was Secretary of the Departments of Defence; Finance; and Communications, Information Technology and the Arts between 2001 and 2011. Dr Watt is Chairman of BAE Systems Australia and serves on the Boards of Citigroup Pty Ltd, Smartgroup Corporation, the Grattan Institute (The University of Melbourne), O'Connell Street Associates Pty Ltd and CEDA. 

John Lord 

John Lord is the founder of Neota Logic where he leads the pack of innovators in an AI platform. John has been instrumental in providing vision and building platforms that advance access to justice and legal advice. For example, Neota's been engaged to develop an interactive portal for New Mexico legal aid in a project funded by the Legal Services Corporation; and has collaborated with Georgetown University Law Centre in now eight semester-long courses in which students build Neota Logic applications serving the public interest. Neota’s software is now taught in conjunction with pro bono projects in ten leading law schools around the world. Neota has also collaborated with the world's largest employment and labour law firm, Littler Mendelson in a joint venture, ComplianceHR. In July 2014, John was honoured as a top innovator in the legal industry as part of a group of “the most interesting, proactive and courageous leaders in the world of law, scholarship, and legal technology".

Professor Craig Jeffrey 

Professor Craig Jeffery is Director of the Australia India Institute, Professor of Human Geography at the University of Melbourne. He is former Professor of Development Geography at the University of Oxford and Official Fellow of St. John's College. He is a leading authority on South Asian youth and also writes on Indian democracy, educational transformation, globalization, and the 'social revolution' that he sees occurring across India in the Twenty-First Century. Professor Jeffrey is currently leading a large project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council on educated unemployed youth in South Asia. Craig Jeffrey was recently elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and, in addition to his academic work, is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4, Times Literary Supplement, and The Guardian.