Associate Director, ANU Below Zero, Sustainability Division
Member organisation: Australian National University
I am a sustainability professional who is also an experienced general manager with a highly collaborative style, a background in communications and excellent interpersonal, negotiation and partnership-building skills.
I am passionate about advocating for environmental sustainability and a strong supporter of ACTS. ACTS’ current portfolio of activities is very impressive, particularly given the evolution of the organisation. I am a strong believer in cross-sector knowledge sharing, having attended a number of ACTS workshops and found them to be invaluable. I would relish the chance to build on this to further increase ACTS’ impact.
I bring the following skills to the ACTS board:
- Environmental sustainability. I hold a Masters in Environmental Management from UNSW and have been working in sustainability related roles since 2010. My current role is Associate Director in the Sustainability Division at the Australian National University, with a focus on organisational decarbonisation, including campus electrification, reducing travel emissions, carbon removal and linking operations and research and teaching. Prior to this I led the operations of the ANU Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions. I was instrumental in setting the targets and strategy of the ANU Below Zero Program and was recognised with an Award for Outstanding Leadership in 2020 as a result.
- Governance. I have completed the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) Foundations of Directorship course and will be doing the AICD Company Directors course in early 2024. I have significant experience engaging with university governance structures as well as previous experience as a school board member.
- General / program management. I have extensive experience setting goals, developing innovative strategies and plans, leading and implementing programs and projects, financial and risk management, people management and mentoring, monitoring and evaluation and reporting across a range of entities, both in the university sector and in other sectors as a General Manager.
- Strategic engagement and communications – With a background in communications, I have significant experience in engaging and consulting with stakeholders, collaborating, facilitating, negotiating, building partnerships, and developing and implementing communications strategies.
- Experience across Asia and the Pacific. Whilst the majority of my most recent experience has been in Australia, I spent two years in a regional Asian role establishing a research agency based in Hong Kong. More recently I have built relationships with Pacific universities whilst leading a project engaging Pacific stakeholders with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. I could apply this experience to help grow the ACTS member network across Asia and the Pacific.
One of my long-term goals is to apply my skills to embed sustainability into the governance, culture and operations of a range of organisations. A Director role with ACTS would not only help shape the strategic direction of ACTS, but would also provide a springboard to facilitate broader sustainability advocacy, magnifying impact.
