Insight Host

Jenny Brockie

Jenny Brockie is one of Australia’s most experienced and respected journalists and broadcasters. Her media career of more than 40 years spans digital, television, radio and print. Brockie currently hosts the multi-award winning program Insight on SBS TV.

Prior to her work at SBS, she spent more than two decades at the ABC in a variety of roles including television documentary producer/director, morning radio presenter, television interviewer and national and international reporter.

She started her career as a cadet reporter in ABC television and radio news in 1977, moving to daily television current affairs in 1979. She joined the Four Corners reporting team in 1983.

In 1985-86, Brockie took a year’s maternity leave, briefly returning to Four Corners as a reporter, before she was recruited to help establish a Documentary Department at the ABC in 1987. It was there – as Producer/Director – that she made the ground-breaking documentaries Cop It Sweet about Sydney’s Redfern police, and So Help Me God about Campbelltown local court south-west of Sydney.

In 1994, Brockie took up an offer to present the Morning Show on ABC Radio Sydney, then 2BL. After two years, she returned to television to produce her own interview series Speaking Personally, before making two further television documentary series for the ABC – Our Street about three different streets in Australia and Bad Behaviour about criminal motivation.

In 2001, she left the ABC to present the weekly current affairs show Insight on SBS television.

Brockie has won a swag of awards for her work including a Gold Walkley, three other Walkley Awards (two for documentaries and one for Interviewing), a Logie, two Australian Film Institute Awards, and a Human Rights Award. She has also won eight United Nations Association Media Peace Awards for her work on Insight.

Living Black Host

Karla Grant

Karla Grant, a proud woman of the Arrernte people, is the Executive Producer and host of Australia’s award-winning and longest-running Indigenous current affairs show Living Black on NITV. With more than two decades of media experience, Grant has dedicated a huge part of her career to working in Indigenous news and current affairs, witnessing and reporting on the shifts in policy and attitude towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

Starting at SBS almost 20 years ago as a presenter, producer, reporter and director of the Walkley award-winning ICAM – Indigenous Current Affairs Magazine – program, Grant was appointed as the Executive Producer of the network’s Indigenous Media Unit, where she developed Living Black – now a Deadly Award-winning show.

For 11 years, she managed SBS’s coverage of The Deadly Awards. Before joining SBS, Grant worked on Channel 10’s Aboriginal Australia and hosted a weekly show on Canberra’s community radio station 2XX.

ShellShocked Media and 9Honey

Shelly Horton

Shelly Horton’s high school guidance counsellor said she was too opinionated and talked too much, so she should tone it down. Rather than take his advice, she turned it into a job description and became a journalist.

Now Horton’s opinion can be heard nationally a number of times each week with regular segments on Channel Nine’s Today, Today Extra, 3pm News and Weekend Today. She’s also the lifestyle presenter for 9Honey.com.au and co-host of Talking Married – a chat show dissecting Married At First Sight.

Her career highlights include 11 years reporting for ABC Radio and TV, eight years as a presenter on Channel Seven, six years as a journalist at Fairfax and five years as the South Pacific correspondent for Entertainment Tonight USA.

As if that’s not enough, she is a sought-after MC and also runs her own presentation and media training company, called ShellShocked Media.

She teaches people how to shine on camera and how to build their confidence. Basically, she helps people find their inner Beyoncé.

Editor

Michelle Gunn

Michelle Gunn is the editor of The Weekend Australian. Under her editorship, the newspaper has won the News Media Award Weekend News Brand of the year for four out of the past five years.

In 2018, the newspaper also took out the overall News Brand of the Year award. Gunn was appointed editor in September 2012. Prior to that, she held many senior positions on the paper including Deputy Editor, National Chief of Staff, Sydney Bureau Chief and Social Affairs editor.

She is married with two teenage boys.

Creator and Presenter

Jan Fran

Jan Fran was once described by a very drunk girl in the line to the toilet at a music festival as, “that girl who talks about politics on the internet,” which to-date remains the most accurate description of what she does.

She is the creator, writer and presenter of the online opinion segment, The Frant, and her videos have been viewed more than 18 million times since she first started making them in 2018.

Fran is also a journalist and TV presenter who is best known for hosting The Feed on SBSVICELAND, Medicine or Myth on SBS and the podcasts, Sexism and the City and The Few Who Do.

She has shot and produced documentaries from all over the world for SBS TV. She regularly appears as a guest-host on The Project and has appeared as a commentator on Q&A, ABC Breakfast, Paul Murray Live, Studio 10, The Latest, The Today Show, Insiders, Lateline, The Drum and Triple J’s Hack.

Fran is an ambassador for Plan International Australia where she advocates for women and girls and her strong reporting on women’s issues earned her a 2018 Walkley nomination for Women’s Leadership in Media.

In 2010, Fran moved to Bangladesh where she spent one year living in Dhaka and working as a communications specialist for UNICEF.

She has also lived in Lebanon, France and Uganda. She speaks three languages, most of them terribly.

Troll Hunter

Ginger Gorman

Ginger Gorman is an award-winning social-justice journalist based in Canberra, Australia. In 2013, Gorman and her family suffered the effects of online hate first-hand, and it was this experience that set her on a professional journey into the world of trolls.

In 2017, her series of articles on trolling for Fairfax newspapers in Australia went viral and became some of the most read Australian stories of the year.

She is now in demand as an expert on online hate and has written and spoken extensively about trolling and social media self-defence in Australian and global contexts.

Her first book, Troll Hunting, was published in February 2019.

Leader

Marina Go

Marina Go is Chair of Suncorp Super Netball and Ovarian Cancer Australia, a non-executive director of Energy Australia, Autosports Group, 7-Eleven, Pro-Pac, and The Walkley Foundation, Chair of the Advisory Board for the Centre For Media Transition at the University of Technology Sydney, a director of PWC’s Diversity Advisory Board, and author of the business book for women, Break Through: 20 Success Strategies for Female Leaders.

Boss magazine named her as one of 20 True Leaders of 2016.

Go has more than 25 years of leadership experience in the media industry, having started her career as a journalist.

She is a founder of the female leadership website Women’s Agenda and food magazine disruptor Australian Good Taste, a former Editor-in-chief of ELLE and Dolly magazines and Crikey Publisher.

Go is the former Chair of the Wests Tigers NRL Club and Private Media CEO. She has an MBA from The Australian Graduate School of Management and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Award-winning Political Journalist

Annika Smethurst

Annika Smethurst is the National Political Editor for the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Herald Sunday and Sunday Mail – Sunday News Corp papers). She began her print career in Bendigo in regional Victoria before being selected for a cadetship with the Herald and Weekly Times in Melbourne.

She worked as a state political reporter at the Herald Sun before joining the Canberra press gallery. In 2015, she won a Walkley for the Choppergate scandal. She won her second Walkley in 2017 for a series of articles which revealed former Health Minister Sussan Ley had purchased a property while on a taxpayer-funded trip to the Gold Coast.

Smethurst was the 2016 Young Press Gallery Journalist of the Year and the 2017 Press Gallery journalist of the year.

In June, her Canberra apartment was raided by seven AFP officers a year after she wrote a story revealing the Australian Signals Directorate was seeking to broaden its powers to spy on Australian citizens, prompting a global debate about press freedom.

She regularly appears on Sky News, as well as The Drum and Insiders on the ABC.

Journalist and Filmmaker

Yaara Bou Melhem

Yaara Bou Melhem is an intrepid independent journalist and filmmaker. Her films include exclusive reports where she crawls through Syrian rebel-held tunnels, films in lawless Libyan jails after the fall of Gaddafi, explored taboo subjects like youth suicide in remote Aboriginal communities and reported more uplifting stories about doctors giving free health care in Nepal and conservation efforts in New Zealand.

Her observational documentaries for Witness, Al Jazeera English include gaining intimate access to Time Person of the Year Maria Ressa in the War on Truth – a film about the Filipino editor’s campaign against the forces manipulating social media giants to undermine democracies worldwide. The film is now being developed into a feature documentary.

She has also directed and produced Creating a Nation about an Aboriginal man creating an independent Indigenous nation and Saudi Design Queens is about two young women in Saudi Arabia hosting a design event that is pushing boundaries of art and tradition for the network.

She is currently in production on a feature documentary film Dark Arts, a part human, part artificial intelligence-driven journey into the visualizations of one of the world’s leading contemporary artists as he battles to reveal the invisible forces shaping our lives and futures.

Her films have received a number of accolades including UN Media Peace Awards, New York Film and TV Festival Awards, a Hong Kong Human Rights Press Award and Walkley Awards for her films from Australia, Asia and the MENA region.

Editor

Virginia Haussegger

Virginia Haussegger is Director of the 50/50 by 2030 Foundation, at the University of Canberra’s Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis (IGPA), and Chief Editor of BroadAgenda, Australia’s leading research-based Gender Equality blog.

Haussegger’s extensive media career spans 30 years, in which she has reported from around the globe for leading current affair programs on Channel 7, the 9 Network, and ABC TV.

From 2001 she anchored ABC TV News in Canberra for 15 years. A former weekly columnist for The Canberra Times, she remains a regular contributor to Fairfax media.

Her book Wonder Woman: the myth of ‘having it all’ (A&U) was launched in a live broadcast at the National Press Club by Julia Gillard.

She is the 2019 ACT Australian of the Year. In 2014 she was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to the community, gender equity, and the media.

Haussegger is Patron of the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre. She has served on a number of boards and committees including: UN Women National Committee Australia; the Snowy Hydro SouthCare Trust; Our Watch, Media Advisory Committee; and Women in Media Canberra.

She currently sits on the Board of the ACT Government’s Cultural Facilities Corporation.

Managing Director

Bobbi Mahlab

Bobbi Mahlab is the owner and Managing Director of Mahlab, a content marketing agency she founded in 1997. A pioneer of content marketing in Australia, Mahlab agency is a three-time global finalist for Content Agency of the Year and was named Small Publisher of the Year in 2017 and 2018.

In October 2016, she co-founded Mentor Walks Australia, a ‘speed mentoring’ program modelled on Mentor Walks Asia, where senior women walk and talk with aspiring female leaders for an hour, once a month. Mentor Walks is now in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra, Wollongong and Geelong with plans to expand further. Since launching, more than 1850 women have participated in the program.

In 2017, Mahlab became a juror for Oceania and South Asia of the Cartier Women’s Initiative which awards $US 1million to female-led, purpose-led, early-stage businesses.

In 2015, she was selected by EY to participate in the Entrepreneurial Winning Women program, Asia-Pacific.

Mahlab has experience on many non-profit boards including the Sydney Women’s Fund Advisory Board and the Young Girls Refuge, an accommodation service for homeless teenage girls.

She is a former board member of Publishers Australia.

In this year’s B&T Women in Media awards, she is a finalist for Entrepreneur and Social Change Maker.

An honours graduate of the University of Melbourne, Mahlab began her career in journalism as a graduate cadet with the Melbourne Herald.

She has two teenage sons and has lived in Melbourne, Canberra, New York and Sydney.

Seven News

Paula Doneman

Paula Doneman is a crime and investigative journalist, a true crime author, and podcaster.

Journalist and Presenter

Patricia Karvelas

Patricia Karvelas is a prominent and highly respected Australian journalist, beginning her professional career at the ABC and SBS 20 years ago. She currently presents Radio National’s flagship radio current affairs program RN Drive – a role she took up in January 2015.

Karvelas also hosts two national affairs television programs on the ABC News 24 channel, Friday Night at 8pm, featuring in a panel zooming out into the week’s news called Friday Fix.

In January 2015, Karvelas was appointed host of RN Drive on Radio National.

She previously worked for The Australian newspaper, covering federal politics and Karvelas, an Australian television commentary program broadcast weekly on Sky News Australia.

Since April 2016, Karvelas has cohosted The Party Room, a political podcast, with fellow ABC Radio National personality Fran Kelly.

She also hosts afternoon briefing on the ABC news channel weekdays at 4pm, wrapping the day’s big stories with interviews and analysis.

Trailblazer

Rachel Berger

Rachel Berger is one of Australia’s most highly regarded, adept and adaptive comedic talents working variously as a comedian, broadcaster, novelist, columnist, agitator and television entertainer.

She’s taken four solo shows to the Edinburgh Festival and her dynamic presence and engagingly sharp observations have made her an extremely popular performer both live and on television, across Australia and overseas.

Berger’s high public profile has done much to establish the position of women in comedy providing a distinctive voice for women’s opinions and viewpoints.

She’s also a woman of remarkably diversified talents. In addition to playing the xylophone and carving avocado pips into small Buddhas, she’s recently stopped feeling guilty. There are no cows too sacred for this Berger.

Living Treasure

Caroline Jones

Caroline Jones AO Hon DLitt (University Sunshine Coast; Hon DLitt (Sydney University) is national co-patron, with Victoria Laurie, of Women in Media.

She is a veteran journalist, author and broadcaster, who has had a 50-year association with the ABC; working most recently with ABCTV Australian Story (1996-2016).

She was the first woman reporter on This Day Tonight (the first Australian national current affairs program, from 1968-72), and the first woman to anchor Four Corners (1972-81), concurrently with broadcasting on ABC Sydney morning radio.

She is a sponsor of the Mary MacKillop Tertiary Indigenous Scholarship Program, and on her retirement, the ABC created the ABC News Caroline Jones Indigenous Scholarship.

Digital Specialist

Sue Bell

Sue Bell is a digital learning consultant and an interactive media specialist. She designs, develops, and delivers digital media, design thinking, and cyber entrepreneurship training for private organisations, tertiary institutions, and media professionals.

Her passion is to up-skill women in the digital technology space and to expand people’s online engagement using interactive storytelling for social media platforms.

She also teaches micro-credentialed courses on how to write stories for new and emerging technologies, including virtual, augmented, and mixed reality.

Sue is the founder and director of the successful Launceston Freelance Festival where Australia’s top freelancers converge for several days of workshops, networking, and fun.

Workplace Researcher

Dr Libby Sander

Libby Sander is Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Bond University, an agenda contributor at the World Economic Forum and founder and director of the Future of Work Project.

Her research is on workplaces, the future of work and its impact on our lives spans organisational behaviour, neuroscience, architecture, psychology, entrepreneurship and urban design.

Sander is a regular guest on ABC radio throughout Australia, 3AW in Melbourne, and has appeared on Channel 7’s Sunrise, ABC TV’s science program Catalyst, The Drum for ABC, ABC News, and spoken at TEDx discussing her research and commenting on issues on work, society and future trends in organisations.

She is a feature writer for The Conversation, and her articles have been published in the Harvard Business Review, Newsweek, Fast Company, The Guardian, the BBC, ABC, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and on SBS with more than 1.5 million readers to date

Sander is the co-author of Work in the 21st Century: How do I Log On?. Libby is currently working on a new book Office Space: A Research Overview to be published by Routledge.

The Digital Skills Agency

Corinne Podger

Corinne Podger is the Director and Principal of the Digital Skills Agency. Since 2013, she has designed and run training for more than 4000 journalists and communicators from businesses, NGOs and universities in over 20 countries.

Brands she has worked with include: the BBC, Thomson Reuters, CNN, Forbes, the Financial Times, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, the University of Melbourne, and the World Health Organisation.

Podger’s teaching draws on 30 years of industry experience as a television, radio, online, social media and print journalist, primarily with the ABC and BBC World Service.

She continues to write for the European Journalism Observatory, the International Journalists’ Network and WAN-IFRA, speaks regularly at conferences, and serves as a consultant to the annual Mobile Journalism Conference for Asia.

Award-winning storyteller

Caroline Graham

Caroline Graham is an award-winning reporter and university lecturer, who teaches journalism and creative writing at Bond University. She is the co-writer/co-producer of Lost in Larrimah, a six-part literary true crime podcast published by The Australian in 2018.

The series won several awards, including a Walkley Award, and has since been optioned by HBO, with Orange is the New Black showrunner Sara Lee Hess attached as a writer.

Graham is also the co-author of Writing Feature Stories: How to research and write articles – from listicles to longform (Allen & Unwin, 2017) and when she’s not teaching, she writes fiction and creative non-fiction.

She has received a national citation for her contributions to tertiary education and is passionate about mentoring the next generation of reporters.

Her students have collaborated on data-driven investigative journalism projects for News Corp, The Guardian and a range of other publications.

Media Business Owner

Jules Ingall

Jules Ingall is a Gold Coast-based photographer and content creator. Forging a career following a break due to the demands of her celebrity husband and as a mother, she has created a business using social media and her photography skills.

She combines her photography and writing skills and regularly contributes to magazines and publications with Travel Stories as well as being a travel guide specialist and women’s only tour guide to help women get out of their comfort zone and expand their skills. For Ingall, photography is not just a job, it’s her passion and her willingness to share her skills and secrets has seen her business thrive and grow.

Working with brands, her main focus is to create unique and inspiring content for brands to use on social media and digital platforms, including model and portrait shoots.

Ingall’s years of success as a working mother, businesswoman and wife to a celebrity husband Russell Ingall – a retired Professional V8 Supercar Champion – have afforded her with a unique set of skills well suited to this career change.

Radio Host

Bianca Dye

Three-time winner of Australia’s Best Radio Personality, Bianca Dye is a warm and cheeky voice, with a wit and style that endears her to the many celebrities she’s interviewed.

Madonna, Nicole Kidman, Michael Bublé, Justin Timberlake, Robbie Williams, Pink, and Kylie Minogue are just a few of the stars that have opened up and shared their stories with Dye.

She has worked in Sydney on NOVA96.9, had a successful stint as #1 Breakfast show at i98fm in NSW and is currently back in her home state of Queensland, where it all began at the Gold Coast’s GOLD FM Drive show.

In January 2017, Dye joined the 97.3 FM Breakfast Show with co-hosts Terry Hansen and Bob Gallagher. By July 2017, the team were celebrating being the #1FM Breakfast show in the market.

Dye is not just a radio personality, having anchored her own show Access All Areas on Foxtel’s Arena and appearing regularly on A Current Affair, 20 to 1, and Thank God You’re Here. She is also a regular guest, known for her honest opinions and playful personality on Ten’s Studio 10 and The Project as well as Nine’s TODAY Show and Seven’s The Morning Show.

She has also to co-written a book titled Playing Hard To Get and is in the process of writing her second book on living with anxiety.

Dye is a passionate national voice for mental health awareness and has a huge following on her Instagram page @anxietyfree. She is also an ambassador for many animal-based charities including the Orangutan project (TOP) and the RSPCA.

Mobile Journalism Expert

Rob Layton

Rob Layton is a journalist-turned-educator who specialises in computational smartphone photography and filmmaking, particularly underwater. His work has been showcased around the world and won a number of international awards.

Layton also trains journalists in Australia, Britain, Europe and Asia on how to professionally use their phones.

Media Lawyer

Sophie Scott

Sophie Scott is one of Queensland’s most experienced media lawyers. She provides advice to Australia’s largest media organisations. She helps journalists and media organisations mitigate and manage risk, protect their sources and defend claims against them.

Leadership Insights

Margot Andersen

Obsessed with helping people create career and leadership momentum, Margot Andersen helps leaders take action to move themselves, their teams and their business forward. Her expertise is focused on building meaningful career pathways, aligning and raising capability and unlocking potential both for ourselves and the people we lead.

A globally experienced leader, she combines a background in senior operational leadership and talent management roles in both the private and corporate sectors. Her personal career story is one of managing growth and opportunity – with moves around the world, the country and in and around organisations.

Professionally, she supports businesses and individuals lead through transition and change scenarios including high growth and turnaround strategies, mergers and acquisitions, restructures and sale processes.

Andersen is the Owner and Director of talentinsight Australia, a career management, leadership and HR consultancy; and Founder of the Insync Network, a group that supports expatriates both personally and professionally as they navigate the move home.

She is a regular writer for CEO Magazine, The Employee Mobility Institute and various other leadership publications.

Associate Editor

Emma Macdonald

Emma Macdonald has worked on the front line of daily newspaper journalism for 23 years before moving to the ‘new media’ of online and magazine platform HerCanberra in 2016 where she is Associate Editor.

She has written on a huge range of issues, from politics to education, social affairs, health, and women’s affairs. Macdonald began her journalistic career with the Australian Financial Review before moving to The Canberra Times where she spent 13 years covering federal politics from the Press Gallery, rising to become Bureau Chief at The Canberra Times.

She has won numerous awards for her work – these include two Walkley Awards (1993, 2003) and selection as a national Walkley finalist (2001). Macdonald was awarded the John Douglas British Prize for Journalism in 1998, and in 2002 was awarded a Vincent Fairfax Ethics in Leadership Fellowship. She was highly commended for her political journalism through the Paul Lyneham Press Gallery Journalism Award in 2002 and was recognised as a University of Canberra Distinguished Alumni in 2011.

She has been published widely, from The Times (UK) to the Business Standard (India), to Cosmopolitan magazine. Macdonald has been a regular commentator on politics for programs including Meet the Press and radio current affairs across the country.

She is dedicated to promoting women in media – becoming Convenor of Women in Media Canberra in 2015. In this role, she hosts regular live broadcast National Press Club addresses and founded the Caroline Jones Women in Media Young Journalists Award, which is now in its third year.

Macdonald has also been a Walkley Award judge across various categories and has mentored a series of journalists throughout her career.

A mother of two, she co-founded the maternal health charity Send Hope Not Flowers in 2010, shortly after the birth of her now nine-year-old daughter.

She won an ACT Telstra Business Woman of the Year Award for Send Hope’s work in 2016 and has raised almost one million dollars, which has been spent on safe birth programs and maternal health training across eight developing countries.

In recent years, Macdonald has forged a reputation in emceeing and moderating events and has dabbled in the odd podcast. She is increasingly adept at juggling.

Senior Journalist

Victoria Laurie

Victoria Laurie is a senior journalist and feature writer with The Australian, in the Perth bureau. She has worked in TV, on radio and for magazines including The Bulletin, HQ, Australian Geographic, and The Weekend Australian magazine.

She is a founding member of Women in Media and its national co-patron with Caroline Jones.

Innovator

Dr Peta Stapleton

Associate Professor Peta Stapleton is a clinical/health psychologist at Bond University, Australia, and embraces evidence-based practice and is passionate about new and innovative techniques.

Stapleton is known for her food cravings research using Emotional Freedom Techniques or ‘Tapping’, and has led a world -first study investigating the impact of tapping in the brain through a fMRI study.

She has been recognised with the Harvey Baker Research Award for meticulous research in energy psychology, the Global Weight Management Congress Industry Professional Award of Excellence, and the greatest contribution to the field of Energy Psychology.

Co-chair

Kathy McLeish

Kathy McLeish is the Co-Chair of Women in Media Australia and was the founding Convenor of Women in Media Queensland.

An award-winning ABC journalist and producer who has reported for programs across the network including 7.30 Qld, Stateline, 7.30, Landline, Australian Story and TV and radio news and current affairs.

She has executive produced Stateline and 7.30 Qld.

She’s currently searching out with wonderful towns and communities across the country for ABC TV’s Back Roads.

Coverage more than 20 years in media has included extensive reporting of Queensland natural disasters, the Nauru Detention Centre riots, the last Mentoring Taskforce handover in Afghanistan and race correspondent for the Sydney to Hobart yacht race.

McLeish was named Queensland Journalist of the Year for an investigative series, which triggered a Commission of Inquiry and a $60 million restructuring of youth mental health services in Queensland.

She has degrees in journalism and psychology.

Editor

Jill Poulsen

Jill Poulsen is the deputy editor of the NT News and editor of the Sunday Territorian. For the best part of a decade, she has been working as a journalist across Queensland and the Northern Territory.

Before returning to Darwin at the start of this year, she was working as a senior journalist and columnist for The Courier-Mail in Brisbane. Poulsen completed a Bachelor of Journalism at the University of Queensland in 2010 and got her first job at the Chinchilla News.

She later joined News Corp as a iournalist for the NT News, going on to become the paper’s head of news.

She said she has been lucky to be surrounded by strong female leaders in her time as a journalist and was thrilled to be part of the founding committee for WIM NT to help give back to the industry.

Media Executive

Anita Jacoby

Anita Jacoby, AM, is one of Australia’s most experienced media executives with a career spanning more than 30 years in the broadcast industry. An award-winning TV, film and current affairs producer, she has created and produced hundreds of hours of content for many of Australia’s most successful programs.

Jacoby is currently an Associate Member of the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Appointed by the Minister for Communications in 2013, her term has recently been extended to 2023. From 2013-2015 she was Managing Director of ITV Studios Australia, responsible for the Australian operations of this worldwide production company.

Prior to ITV, Jacoby managed one of the most successful independent production companies, Zapruder’s other films, alongside Andrew Denton. Zapruder’s produced many successful original programs including Enough Rope, The Gruen Transfer, Hungry Beast and Elders.

She has worked in senior production roles for all Australia’s commercial networks as well as the ABC, SBS and Foxtel, on programs such as 60 Minutes, Witness, Sunday, Laws and Today Show.

Her work has seen her awarded five AFI (Australian Film Institute) Awards, an AACTA (Australian Academy of Cinema & TV Arts) Award, an Order of Australia Media Award, Logie, Asia-Pacific Broadcast Union Award and numerous other professional awards.

Jacoby is a strong advocate for women in media and leadership. She is a member of Chief Executive Women and the Australian Institute of Company Director’s; a non-executive director of Women in Media and Documentary Australia Foundation; a member of Screen Producer’s Australia and an Ambassador/Advisory Board member for 1 Million Women. She is also a director of the Australian Film Institute/AACTA, The Funding Network and an Ambassador and Chair of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme’s 60th Anniversary Committee.

Previously, she was a Director of headspace (National Youth Mental Health Foundation) from 2013-2016 and Arts Law Centre Australia, 2013-2016.

Jacoby mentors many women and men in the media industry. She also supports a number of NFP’s including the Walkley Foundation (established the annual Jacoby Walkley Scholarship in 2013 for young broadcast journalists), Alzheimer’s Australia and Belvoir Theatre.

In 2019 she was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia.

Co-chair

Cath Webber

Cath Webber is the Co-Chair of Women In Media Australia. She has worked in the media for more than 20 years, appears weekly on Channel 7’s Sunrise as a commentator and is a founding member of the Queensland WiM committee.

Webber is a Strategic Communications Adviser and prior to that was Editor of the Gold Coast Bulletin – its first female editor in 130 years and the same paper where she started as a cadet in 1995.

Before returning to the paper where she started her journalism career, she was assistant editor across The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, deputy editor at the Townsville Bulletin and deputy features editor at the Irish Examiner, a national broadsheet in Ireland.

She is also passionate about digital, having worked as website editor for www.thetelegraph.com.au. Webber has a degree in journalism and film and television.

Executive Producer

Cathie Schnitzerling

Cathie Schnitzerling is the Executive Producer of the ABC’s rural flagship television program Landline. She was previously the Regional Editor for Queensland, managing 10 ABC bureaux with 120 staff and responsible for the editorial content in radio, television, online and social media for the regions.

She was the first woman to become Director of News for the Ten Network in Brisbane and Sydney. She’s worked in three capital cities for three different networks and has been a television and radio reporter, presenter and producer.

Schnitzerling has also produced an independent documentary for SBS and has won awards for her documentary writing and television production.

She also headed media, communications and marketing teams in state government.

In 2014, Schnitzerling was recognised for her mentoring and leadership skills with a Queensland Clarion award for her Contribution to Journalism.

A mother of two adult children, she has recently graduated from the Queensland University of Technology Business School with a certificate in leadership, coaching and mentoring.

Presenter

Jillian Whiting

Jillian Whiting is a familiar face on Queensland television, with more than 25 years’ experience as a journalist, newsreader and TV presenter with the Seven and Nine networks.

She’s also been a regular presenter on local radio and travel contributor and opinion columnist for News Corp papers.

Whiting is a partner and director of communication agency Media Potential, a Brisbane based company which specialises in media and presentation skills and TV presenting courses.

She is currently a presenter on Channel Seven’s lifestyle program, The Great Day Out, and regular MC facilitator for Queensland corporate events.

Lawyer

Steven Morris

Morris Commercial Law provides a comprehensive range of legal services for companies and businesses in a range of different industries. He also acts for developers, investors, owners, landlords, buyers, property fund managers and listed property trusts.

Morris Commercial Law has a history of providing expertise to clients by giving commercial, innovative yet practical advice in the areas of Business, Commercial and Property.

Morris is a specialist in the areas of commercial, business and property law, with 35 years’ experience in senior positions in major law firms and funds management firms.

He has particular expertise in:

• Business Law
• Corporate and Transactional Advice
• Business Acquisitions and Structuring
• Property Law and Leasing
• General Commercial Law
• Franchising Law
• Intellectual Property rights

His skills and experience mean that he can provide a comprehensive “one-stop shop” for clients that are interested in setting up a new business, drafting shareholder agreements, employment contracts, independent contractor agreements, Confidentiality Agreements, Audio Consent agreements.

The work Morris is currently undertaking represents a broad spectrum of commercial, corporate and property work and entails mainly acting for SME’s and encompasses:

• Business purchases and sales;
• Liquor Licence transfers;
• Industrial and commercial property purchases and sales;
• Business sales and purchases;
• Retail, commercial and industrial leasing for landlords and tenants;
• Retail shop lease advice and compliance;
• Franchising set up and roll out;
• Company and Trust set up;
• Shareholders & Unitholder agreements;
• Set up and drafting of website privacy statements, terms and conditions and refunds policies; and
• Director disputes and work out arrangements

Morris Commercial Law provides “mid-size firm” experience with an affordable cost structure, a wealth of experience of more than 35 years in practice, and no-nonsense, sensible, down-to-earth, pragmatic legal and commercial advice.

Journalist, Author, Speaker

Tracey Spicer

Tracey Spicer AM is a multiple Walkley Award-winning author, journalist and broadcaster who has anchored national programs for ABC TV and radio, Network Ten and Sky News.

The inaugural national convenor of Women in Media and national co-founder of NOW Australia, Spicer is one of the most sought-after keynote speakers and emcees in the region.

This year, she is receiving the Sydney Peace Prize with American activist Tarana Burke, on behalf of the global #metoo movement.

She has also been named the NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year and in 2018 was chosen as one of the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence, winning the Social Enterprise and Not-For-Profit category.

She was also named Agenda Setter of the Year by the website Women’s Agenda. For her 30 years of media and charity work, Spicer has been awarded the Order of Australia.

Highlights of her outstanding career include writing, producing and presenting documentaries on women and girls in Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda, Papua New Guinea and India. She is an Ambassador for ActionAid, World Vision, Cancer Council NSW, Domestic Violence NSW, QUT’s Learning Potential Fund and SISTER2sister, and Patron of the Pancreatic Cancer Alliance.

Her first book, The Good Girl Stripped Bare, became a bestseller within weeks of publication and her TEDx Talk, The Lady Stripped Bare, has attracted more than five million views worldwide.

Spicer’s essays have appeared in dozens of books including Women of Letters, She’s Having a Laugh, Father Figures, Unbreakable, and Bewitched & Bedevilled: Women Write the Gillard Years.

She is currently working on a documentary about the #metoo movement, which she spearheaded in Australia through tireless investigative journalism.

But her greatest joy is spending time with her husband Jason, and children Taj and Grace.

Bond University

Professor Tim Brailsford

Professor Tim Brailsford, PhD FAIM FCPA SFFin, has served as the seventh President of Bond University since 2012. Bond is Australia’s first private non-profit university, opening its doors in 1989.

Prior to his appointment at Bond University, Brailsford’s career in the tertiary sector was largely with Go8 institutions including the Australian National University, Monash University and the Universities of Melbourne and Queensland. In addition, he has held numerous visiting roles in Europe, the UK, North America and China.

Among various achievements, Brailsford was the first Australian to be appointed to the North American and European Boards for accreditation of business education. He has been elected as President of several professional and learned societies; and he holds Fellowships with CPA Australia, the Australian Institute of Management and the Financial Services Institute of Australasia.

Brailsford also has experience on commercial boards, government agencies and professional committees. His interests including making sense of global economics, the transforming role of education on our youth, the role of sport in modern society and the drivers of corporate performance.

Fashion Editor and Singer

Glynis Traill-Nash

Glynis Traill-Nash has established herself as one of Australia’s most highly regarded fashion writers and commentators. She is currently the Fashion Editor of The Australian, where she writes across all sections of the paper, including the monthly luxury glossy Wish and The Weekend Australian Magazine.

For well over a decade, she has become a front-row fixture at Australian fashion shows and events and her engaging, informative – and opinionated – writing has endeared her to readers of a number of publications including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sun-Herald, Vogue Australia, Vogue China, Qantas, Harper’s Bazaar, Grazia and In Style.

In addition, she has been performing as a jazz singer for more than 20 years, from her hometown of Perth to London – where she went from a guest artist at Ronnie Scott’s to headlining Pizza on the Park – and Sydney.

She launched her debut album After Blue (available on iTunes!) in 2013 and is overdue on a follow-up.

News Anchor

Sandra Sully

Sandra Sully is a senior journalist and anchor of TEN Eyewitness News First At Five Sydney and is Managing News Editor of ten daily. She has been part of the TEN News team since 1990 and celebrated her 25th anniversary at the Network in 2015.

As one of the most recognisable and respected faces on Australian television, Sully has also hosted major network news events including the Federal Budget, the Royal Wedding coverage from London and Oprah Winfrey’s Big ‘O’ event at the Botanical Gardens. She also co-hosted TEN’s interactive, real-life crime series Wanted.

Sully’s career includes 18 years as the highly popular Presenter and Senior Editor of TEN Late News with Sports Tonight. In that role, Sully was the first Australian journalist to break the news of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. She has subsequently covered anniversary commemorations of both the Bali bombings and the September 11 attacks.

Her documentary credits include travelling to Timor in 2010 to produce Independent Future, a report on how the then-new nation was coping post-liberation.

In 2009, her documentary Sandakan – Sheer Bloody Murder revealed the tragic story of hardship and horror faced by Australian prisoners of war in Borneo on the infamous death marches of World War II. It premiered on Network Ten over the Anzac Day weekend that year.

Sully was one of the first journalists in the country to fully understand the impact and embrace the digital media revolution. Seeing early on the power of the platform and its ability to immediately deliver up-to-date and breaking news, Sully has established herself as one of the nation’s news leaders online, building a mass following on social media platforms.

Sully’s engaging warmth, style and versatility have enabled her to cover numerous events such as Commonwealth and Olympic Games, as well as becoming the first woman to co-host the iconic Melbourne Cup/Spring Carnival, a role she filled for seven years.

She is a passionate sports fan and sits on the Board of Hockey Australia, as well as being one of the first women members of the prestigious Carbine Club of New South Wales, which supports children in sport.

Sully is an Ambassador for National Adoption Awareness and, as well as being committed to several charity organisations, including her position as Co-Patron of Spinal Cure and Ambassador for the NSW Crime Stoppers. She is also a National Ambassador for Do Something, which encourages social change.

Sully’s passion for news has fortified her position as one of the finest newsreaders in the country, delivering TEN Eyewitness News First At Five bulletins with integrity and credibility.

Magazine editor-in-chief

Sarrah Le Marquand

Sarrah Le Marquand left university determined to pursue a career in political journalism but an early detour on a magazine devoted to the surprisingly intricate world of daytime soap operas redirected her career.

In the years that followed she was employed as a magazine entertainment reporter and film critic on breakfast TV before joining The Daily Telegraph in 2005 as a television writer. She went on to assume various roles at the newspaper including film editor, columnist, features chief of staff and deputy features editor. In 2008, she was appointed features editor.

In 2010 after returning from maternity leave following the birth of her first child, she began writing a weekly column covering everything from politics to pop culture to parenthood.

In 2014, she was appointed opinion editor of The Daily Telegraph and went on to become the founding editor of RendezView, the opinion hub for News Corp Australia that will turn five next March.

In 2016, Le Marquand was named editor-in-chief of the soon-to-be-launched Stellar magazine, a role she remains in to this day.

She is a weekly panellist on the Today show and a regular co-host of The Project and has a recurring guest on ABC radio. She has also appeared on Q&A, Sky News, The Drum, Studio 10, Mornings, The Morning Show and Sunrise.

Marketing

Louise Davis

Louise Davis is a marketing leader who recently stepped out of the corporate world. Tired and lost on what was really important to her, she made a bold move from the busy city life of Sydney to clear her mind, rediscover her purpose and be close to the grounding energy of the beach on the Gold Coast.

Walking on the beach every day to ground herself, is a ritual for Davis.

Freedom, adventure, flexibility and gratitude are some of her core values and Davis applies these to each choice she makes in her life, including setting up a business of her own which is focussed on purposefully working alongside small and medium businesses to set up their marketing programs and teams to deliver their business objectives.