Dr Heather Smith PSM FAIIA is the 23rd AIIA National President. She is also, since June 2021, a Professor at the ANU National Security College. Before this Dr Smith served as Secretary of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science from September 2017-January 2020. As CEO, Heather led a department of over 2,300 staff, a portfolio of around 10,000 staff, and was a key contributor to decisions on Australia’s national innovation budget.

Heather has had nearly 20 years’ experience in the Australian Public Service at senior levels leading significant initiatives covering economic, industry, innovation, communications, resources, foreign affairs, national security and intelligence matters.

Heather was Secretary of the Department of Communications and the Arts (2016-2017). Prior to this she served as Deputy Secretary in the departments of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (2013-2016) and Foreign Affairs and Trade (2010-2013), and was Deputy Director-General in the Office of National Assessments (2005-2010). She has also worked at the Australian Treasury (2003-2005) and at the Reserve Bank of Australia (1988-1990).

In October 2013 she was appointed by Prime Minister Abbott as Australia’s G20 Sherpa, overseeing Australia’s Presidency of the G20 in 2014.

Heather has previously served as: chair of the Australian Space Agency Advisory Council; as a member of the boards of Innovation and Science Australia; CSIRO; the Australian Nuclear Science Technology Organisation; the Australian Institute of Marine Science; and Infrastructure Australia. She has also been a member of the advisory panel to Prime Minister Gillard’s white paper, Australia and the Asian Century.

Heather is a director of Challenger Limited; chair of the board of advisers to Aura, a digital-identity start-up; and deputy chair of the United States Studies Centre. She is currently chair of the independent panel undertaking a review into the Australian Public Sector Hierarchy and Classification System. She is also a member of the Westpac Scholars National Selection Panel and a member of Chief Executive Women.

In June 2015 Heather was awarded a Public Service Medal. She was the recipient of the University of Queensland’s Alumni Excellence Award in 2016, and in 2019 was awarded the ANU College of Business and Economics Distinguished Alumni Award.

Heather holds a PhD in Economics from the Australian National University and a B. Economics (Hons 1) from the University of Queensland. From 1994-2000 she was an academic specialising on North Asia at the Australian National University. She has been a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. In 2012, Heather completed the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School.

Simon Birmingham has served as a Liberal Party Senator for South Australia since May 2007 and is the current Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. Under the Morrison Government Simon was appointed to position of Minister for Finance and Leader of the Government in the Senate after serving as Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. Prior to which he served as the Minister for Education and Training, Assistant Minister in the education portfolio and before that as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray-Darling Basin and the Environment.

Before joining Munro Leys in 2000, Jon Apted had a long and varied career in the Fijian Government legal service. He has held office as Fiji’s Permanent (Industrial) Arbitrator and as the Sugar Industry Tribunal. He was one of the two legal counsel to the Fiji Constitution Review Commission chaired by Sir Paul Reeves (1995-1996) and was also the chief electoral officer responsible for the supervision of Fiji’s 1992 and 1994 Parliamentary elections.

Jon has been a solicitor, litigator and legislative drafter in the Attorney-General’s Chambers and has appeared as an advocate in important constitutional and administrative law cases. He has advised on a number of legislative measures in the commercial, corporate, securities, intellectual property, employment and human rights areas. He was a member of the first board of the Capital Markets Development Authority.

At Munro Leys, Jon advises and litigates in the areas of constitutional, employment, administrative, general commercial and intellectual property law.

Jon is an occasional presenter and commentator on public law issues in Fiji.

An experienced journalist and newsbreaker with more than two decades in the industry, working in Australia, the UK and globally in television, print, digital, social media and radio, Latika Bourke is currently writer-at-large for The Nightly. Previously, she wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age. She has been based in London since 2016.

Latika began her career in her hometown of Bathurst in regional NSW, producing, writing and presenting radio news bulletins as well as producing and presenting local talkback programs.

After graduating from university, she moved to Sydney to work for the now-defunct 2UE radio station and the national Macquarie Radio network as a general radio reporter, before being posted to the Canberra press gallery in 2009.

In 2010, she was recruited by the ABC to be their first social media reporter alongside her duties as a federal political reporter, working online as well as for radio news, radio current affairs and television news. She also presented live television news bulletins on ABC's 24 News channel and presented a political television talk show.

In 2014, she was recruited by The Sydney Morning Herald & The Age to join the Canberra bureau as a political reporter.

In 2016, she moved to London to work as a breaking and international reporter for the papers and specialises in geopolitics, national security, defence and foreign affairs.

She is an experienced moderator, MC and frequent media commentator appearing on the BBC and Monocole Radio.

Her memoir, From India with Love was published in 2015.

A journalist since 1971, Graeme Dobell writes on Australian foreign policy and defence. He is Senior Fellow with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and for several years wrote a weekly column for ASPI’s digital magazine, The Strategist. In 2021, he wrote an intellectual history of ASPI’s work over its first two decades: An informed and independent voice: ASPI, 2001-2021.

Dr Connie Cai Ru Gan is a lecturer in Planetary Health at the School of Medicine and Dentistry's Centre for Environment and Population Health (CEPH). Her research focuses on practical strategy development to shift the healthcare paradigm from "sick" care to healthcare that matters for sustainability. She is passionate about leveraging networked institutions and a settings-based approach to promote the health of people and the planet.

In her doctoral thesis, "Future-proofing Hospitals Against Disasters in a Changing Climate," she partnered with the International Health-Promoting Hospital network to 1) reduce disaster risks by examining health aspects of disasters and extreme weather events, and 2) develop climate change adaptation strategies to support hospitals to achieve sustainability and resiliency. She examined national risk assessment tools and their compatibility with international accreditation standards to create innovative, actionable adaptation strategies, helping hospitals and the communities they serve better manage the complex challenges relating to current and future health emergencies. Such novel advancements have been cited in the WHO Interim Guidance (Dec 2020) and featured on Health Care Without Harm Sustainability in Action as breakthroughs that prevent disruptions to critical health services during health emergencies.

Since July 2021, Dr. Gan has been the research coordinator at CEPH, the lead institute for the WHO Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management (Health-EDRM) Knowledge Hub [Area 3: Addressing health needs of vulnerable sub-populations]. The project has built a multi-country database on China, Indonesia, and Viet Nam that has provided local knowledge-sharing opportunities and networks, identified capacity-building needs, and policy actions. In 2020, WHO launched the first-ever guidelines to decarbonize and build the resilience of healthcare facilities, which suggested bringing both climate-resilient and environmentally sustainable perspectives into healthcare settings. Connie partners with the Health, Environment, and Climate Action Foundation 360 (HECAF360) to pilot the WHO Guide on Climate Resilient and Environmentally Sustainable Health Care Facilities (CRESH) in three different ecological regions in Nepal, well-known for its climate-related disasters, such as floods and heatwaves.

In her professional services as a sustainability coordinator of the Task Force on Health-Promoting Hospitals (HPH) and the Environment (since 2014); and as the Asia Pacific Focal Point of the Women Leaders for Planetary Health Network, she hopes to contribute to accelerating policy action on climate change in healthcare.

Outside of work, she enjoys boxing and training in Karate.

Baogang He (Ph.D, ANU 1994) is Alfred Deakin Professor at Deakin University, and the Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. Professor He is widely known for his work in Chinese politics, in particular the deliberative politics in China as well as in regionalism, international relations, federalism, and multiculturalism in Asia. His publications are found in top journals including Science, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Peace Research, Political Theory, Political Studies, and Perspectives on Politics. His two papers (“Authoritarian Deliberation: The Deliberative Turn in Chinese Political Development,” co-authored with Mark Warren, and “The Domestic Politics of the Belt and Road Initiative and its Implications”) are on the top 1% of the highly cited research papers in the Web of Sciences as of 11 Feb 2021. His recent co-authored books include China’s Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War and Peace in the New Chinese Century, John Keane and Baogang He (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024), Comparative Federalism in Asia (Baogang He, Michael Breen and Laura Reumann, Routledge, June 2023).

Christopher Heard is a disaster risk reduction and emergency management policy expert, with particular interests in disaster risk finance, governance and the economics of disaster risk. He studied economics and science at Northwestern University and the University of Queensland and is based in Hobart, where he is currently the Assistant Director, Security and Emergency Management in the Department of Premier and Cabinet. He is an inaugural member of the AIIA-Japan Foundation Indo-Pacific Cooperation Network.

Dr Kiriloi M. Ingram is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security at Charles Sturt University working on the Contemporary Threats to Australian Security (CTAS) project. She received her doctorate in Political Science at the University of Queensland. Her research analyses on the role of gender in non-state politically motivated violent group’s propaganda and politico-military strategies, and her thesis analysed how and why Islamic State propaganda constructs and manipulates gender to target and appeal to transnational audiences.

She has published extensively with international forums, including the International Centre for Counter Terrorism at The Hague, Lawfare, VOX-Pol, ABC Australia, and the Australian Institute for International Affairs, as well as in high ranking academic journals including ‘Terrorism and Political Violence’ and ‘Journal for Deradicalization’.

She regularly presents her research at national and international conferences to academic, government, and industry audiences such as at the Centre of Excellence for National Security Workshop of S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (Singapore), Australian Political Studies Association Conference (Australia), Terrorism and Social Media Conference (United Kingdom), and Charles Sturt University's Terrorism Masterclasses.

In 2019, Kiriloi was recognised and appointed as a Pacific Forum Young Leader, and in 2022 Kiriloi was recognised in the Top 25 Young Women to Watch in International Affairs. Kiriloi also holds a Bachelor of Arts with an extended major in Political Science from UQ, and a Bachelor of International Security Studies with Honours from the Australian National University.

Professionally, Kiriloi has supported gender sensitive peacebuilding and P/CVE programme development in Mindanao, Southern Philippines, Raqqa, Syria, Indonesia, Bangladesh. Her work aims to equip and empower local women to develop their own strategies to build meaningful peace in their local communities.

Dr Henry Ivarature has worked and travelled extensively in the Pacific Islands for over 28 years doing research and writing about development issues, as well as a public servant. He has worked at the National Research Institute and the at the Department of Prime Minister & NEC; as a regional civil servant with the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat in Fiji and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Canberra. Dr Ivarature performed development program work with PNG Sustainable Development Program Limited managing socio-economic development projects for the Western Province and pubic sector leadership training and development at the sub-national level in PNG with Abt Associates.

Dr Ivarature’s areas of research and writing is cross-disciplinary and covers the areas of medical sociology, health, politics and political instability, regionalism, education (the politics of free education in PNG), governance and democracy, particularly elections. He has observed elections in Samoa, Niue, Cook Islands and Nauru and analysed elections in Tonga, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Papua New Guinea.

Dr Ivarature’s current areas of research are in understanding political instability, particularly, in the Western Pacific (PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu) looking more closely at the executive stability. He has also looked at other Pacific Island countries like Kiribati, Nauru, and Tuvalu as well.

Dr Ivarature has written about cross-border trafficking of firearms through the PNG-Indonesia border and the political economy of drugs (marijuana in PNG), gun control, the infamous Sandline Affairs, criminal deportees in Tonga, and environment and climate change through the Commonwealth Technical Working Group on Small Islands Resilient States (2013-2014).

Zara Kimpton OAM was appointed National Vice President of the Australian Institute of International Affairs in 2010. She completed her BA in Political Science, Fine Arts and Economics at Melbourne University. She subsequently pursued a career in stockbroking with William Noall & Son in Melbourne, the mining/investment industry with Consolidated Gold Fields Australia in Sydney and banking with Banque Nationale de Paris in Melbourne. She then worked in New York in the interior design industry and later ran her own business in this field in Melbourne. Zara joined the council of the Australian Institute of International Affairs Victoria in 1997 and was President from 2003 to 2006. She was made a life member of AIIAV in 2007. She has been involved in AIIAV study tours to South Africa (1996), Sri Lanka (2003), Russia (2008), Vietnam (2001) and China (2012) and led the tours to South America (2000) and Indonesia (2009). Zara chaired the national Fundraising Task Force in 2007 and is now the National Patron of the Friends of the AIIA. She has also represented the AIIA at conferences in Malaysia, Japan, Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom and in 2017 was a delegate to the Women 20 (W20) summit in Germany. She was the leader of the Australian delegation to the W20 Argentina 2018 summit and the Japan W20 2019 summit. She is currently a joint proprietor of a cattle and sheep station in north-eastern Victoria. Apart from international affairs her main interests are travel, the arts, tennis, horse riding, hiking, and speaking French. In 2011 Zara was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to international relations through executive roles with the Australian Institute of International Affairs Victoria.

Maima is the Pacific Research Fellow and academic co-lead of the Regional Perspectives research collaboration, between the Adelaide University with Pacific partners funded by the Defence, Science and Technology Group. The program focuses on the security challenges facing the Pacific Islands and examines how Australia pursues its security in the region and beyond. She is also pursuing PhD studies, focusing on the intersection of security and justice in Pacific communities. She has a particular interest in whole of country processes, grounded theories and applied research approaches.

Her research interests include: Pacific security, geopolitics, development.

Maima has over 20 years of international development experience in the Pacific at national and regional levels. She has presented on Pacific policies to Australia strategic dialogues, (Safeguarding Australia Summit, Australia Leadership Retreat) including the Asia Pacific Leadership Network. She has also taught on the Pacific's strategic priorities and policies as a Visiting Fellow to the Australian College of Defence. She has working experiences of Bougainville, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Fiji, Nauru, Niue, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. She worked for the Pacific Security College at the Australian National University in Canberra before joining the Adelaide University.

She was bestowed the Samoan high chief title of Maualaivao in 2008.

Martine is an experienced executive within the government, nonprofit and international policy sectors with expertise in public policy development, formulation and promotion in Australia and internationally.

Martine was previously the CEO of the Committee for Melbourne, beginning in March 2016. Before her time with the Committee, Martine was CEO of the Australia China Business Council (ACBC), where she led the development of the organisation’s national strategy.

Prior to her role at the ACBC, Martine was Deputy Director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy, where she led the organisation’s business and organisational development. As Secretary-General of the Australian Red Cross (ARC) from 2001 based at its national headquarters in Melbourne, 2004, she worked on a national transformation strategy to help the ARC improve its delivery of community and relief services across Australia and globally.

Martine was a senior Australian diplomat for 17 years and an adviser to Foreign Minister Evans from 1992 to 1994.

She served on the Australia National University Council from 2004-2014. She is a member of the Australian Volunteers International (AVI) board, chairs AVI’s Governance Committee and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Indigenous Runway Project. Martine speaks French, German and Spanish and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs (FAIIA).

Martine commenced her position as Asialink Group CEO in March 2022.

Daweena is a dedicated professional with a wealth of experience in the non-profit sector. Currently working at PowerHousing Australia as a Senior Policy and Advocacy Advisor, she plays a pivotal role in advancing housing policies and advocating for the needs of community housing providers. Her expertise lies in policy development, stakeholder engagement, and strategic planning, particularly in the realm of social and affordable housing.

Previously, Daweena contributed significantly to the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE), where she focused on research and policy analysis to promote improved public health outcomes to minimise alcohol harms across Australia. Her work at FARE further honed her skills in creating evidence-based solutions and advocating for policy changes.

Passionate about creating inclusive communities, Daweena is also actively involved in mentoring young professionals and advocating for the rights of immigrants, refugees, and displaced people. Her commitment to social justice and equity is evident in her efforts to integrate lived experiences with policy recommendations, aiming to improve outcomes for vulnerable populations.

Nanthini Sambanthan is Associate Research Fellow in the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Programme at the Centre of Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) , Nanyang Technological University (NTU) , Singapore. She holds a Masters in International Relations (International Security) from the University of Melbourne, and a Bachelor of Arts (Politics and Gender Studies) from La Trobe University. Her research interests include climate security in Southeast Asia, looking at HADR through a gendered lens and the role of militaries in the disaster management landscape in the Indo-Pacific.

Shirley Scott is a Professor of International Law and International Relations in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at UNSW Canberra.

Professor Scott's internationally-recognised research at the intersection of International Law and International Relations is especially relevant in light of current geopolitical and environmental challenges. One of her most significant contributions to scholarship has been her theory of international law as ideology. She has also contributed widely to scholarly understanding of theoretical questions arising in relation to the political operation of international law and of topics including the nature of US engagement with international law, the importance of international law to Australian security, Antarctic governance and non-militarization, international dispute resolution, and climate security governance. Professor Scott is contributing to contemporary analysis of threats to the international rules based order, how that order operated in the past, and the nature and significance of change to international law at a systemic level. She is also at the forefront of international debate regarding what constructive role the UN Security Council could play in addressing climate insecurity.

Professor Scott has held visiting fellowships and appointments including at Beasley School of Law, China Foreign Affairs University and the University of Hamburg. In 2020 she was a Senior Visiting Fellow with the Berlin-Potsdam Research Group on International Law, Rise or Decline at the Freie Universität. In 2023 Professor Scott was an academic observer in Helsinki with the Australian delegation to the 45th Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting and meeting of the Committee for Environmental Protection.

Professor Scott is co-chair of the Editorial Board of the Asian Journal of International Law and was President of the Asian Society of International Law from 2019-2021. She is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia. She has also made significant contributions to the International Law Section of the International Studies Association, including as Programme Chair and Section Chair.

Salote Tagivakatini is a lawyer and former diplomat with over 15 years of experience with governments and intergovernmental organizations, she has experience in international development, prosecution, security and law enforcement, international relations, governance, and compliance in the Pacific. As Counsellor and Deputy Head of Mission for the Republic of Fiji in Australia between 2019 – 2023, she was instrumental in the negotiations, consultations, design, delivery, and outcomes of the historic Fiji-Australia Vuvale Partnership Agreement. Salote received the 2022 Geddes Gavel Award from the Australian War College in 2022. This award is given to the best student from the Australian and international cohorts who contributed and demonstrated the greatest understanding of political, diplomatic, military, cultural and economic factors that influence regional relationships and decision-making.

Ryoya Tasai currently works for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Lao PDR, managing some projects including nutrition and resilience activities to prevent and mitigate effects of climate shocks. Before that, Ryoya worked for the Resilience unit of WFP Malawi and International NGOs in Japan, Paraguay and Sudan. Also, Ryoya worked for a Japanese startup company creating fundraising campaigns and supporting more than 200 crowdfunding projects mainly for international NGOs. He earned his MA in Development Studies at the Institute of Development Studies, the University of Sussex. Record of Awards: “30 Japanese who contribute to the world (2021)” awarded by Newsweek Japan.

Cynthia Veliko is the Regional Representative to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Regional Office for South-East Asia.

Cynthia Veliko has worked across the UN system since 1999, and has served with the OHCHR since March 2006 as Human Rights Advisor in three countries – Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. She was appointed in August 2017 as Regional Representative to OHCHR Regional Office for South-East Asia.

Dr Bryce Wakefield is the National Executive Director of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University. He has lived, worked and researched in the United States, Japan, Europe and New Zealand. He trained as a political scientist with particular expertise in International Relations and the international affairs of East Asia.

From 2008 to 2012 Bryce was the associate responsible for Northeast Asian programs at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. In this role, he was responsible for conceiving, designing and organising around 60 events in Washington, including policy briefings in the U.S. Congress, on political issues in Australia, Taiwan, North and South Korea and Japan. He co-organised, with the Wilson Center’s partners, three major annual policy conferences in Tokyo. He has also given talks in Japanese, including for parliamentarians at the National Diet.

He was also a university lecturer with tenure in area studies and international relations at Leiden University in the Netherlands. While at Leiden from 2012-2018 he taught numerous classes on the foreign policy and domestic politics of Japan, the politics of East Asia, comparative politics, and the relationship between politics and culture. He designed and implemented a successful specialization on culture and politics for Leiden’s graduate program in International Relations. During his time as a university academic he also delivered training, induction and briefing sessions for Dutch and international diplomats in the Hague and in Japan.

Bryce is regularly quoted in the media. His work and views on political issues in Asia and Australasia have appeared in such outlets as the Australian Financial Review, BusinessWeek, Der Spiegel, Financial Times, SCMP, the Telegraph, de Volkskrant and the Washington Times, as well as on the ABC, ACN, SBS, BBC News, CNBC, CSPAN, 7News Australia, and Sky News Australia and in such Japanese outlets as the Daily Yomiuri, NHK and the Sankei Shimbun. In February 2015, the Tokyo bureau chief of the New York Times named him as one of 10 “influential and reliable intellectuals” outside Washington who could help policymakers better know Japan.

Bryce’s academic publications to date focus on constitutional issues and defence policy, political marketing and national identity in Japan. While at the Wilson Center, he also edited and contributed to several of the centre’s multi-author publications on East Asian politics and foreign policy. He has also written on New Zealand’s foreign policy and has been called to the Australian Senate Foreign Affairs and Defence References Select Committee to give expert testimony.

Bryce lived in Japan from 1998 to 2004 and earned his master’s degree from Osaka University’s School of International Public Policy. He earned his PhD in political studies from the University of Auckland.

The Honourable Dr Penelope Wensley AC was born in Toowoomba and completed a Bachelor of Arts degree with First Class Honours at the University of Queensland in 1967. In 1968, she joined the Australian Foreign service and pursued a highly distinguished career as a diplomat, representing Australia in a wide range of overseas posts and senior policy positions until 2008, when she became Queensland’s twenty-fifth Governor.

Among her prestigious diplomatic appointments, she served as Australia’s Ambassador to the United Nations for seven years, in both Geneva and New York, as Ambassador for the Environment, High Commissioner to India and Ambassador to France. She has been awarded honorary Doctorates by The University of Queensland, Griffith University, JCU (James Cook University), and the Queensland University of Technology.

In 1994, The University of Queensland named her as the first woman Alumnus of the Year. In 2001, Penelope was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), for her distinguished contributions to Australia’s international relations. On Australia Day 2011 she was appointed a Companion (AC) in the General Division of the Order of Australia: “For eminent contribution to the people of Queensland, and to Australia’s international relations through senior diplomatic representational roles and as a key contributor to initiatives of the United Nations.”

Penelope is a Fellow of The Women’s College and of Kings College within the University of Queensland, a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs (FAIIA) and an Honorary Fellow of the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand (HFEIANZ). In addition to her role as Patron of Alumni Friends, she is the National Patron of Soil Science Australia. She is Chairman of the Australian Institute of Marine Science Council and of the Reef Advisory Committee, established by the Australian and Queensland Governments to advise on the implementation of Reef 2050-the Long term Sustainability Plan for the Great Barrier Reef.

Hugh White AO FAIIA is Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University. His work focuses primarily on Australian strategic and defence policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, and global strategic affairs especially as they influence Australia and the Asia-Pacific. He has served as an intelligence analyst with the Office of National Assessments, as a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald, as a senior adviser on the staffs of Defence Minister Kim Beazley and Prime Minister Bob Hawke, and as a senior official in the Department of Defence, where from 1995 to 2000 he was Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence, and as the first Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). In the 1970s he studied philosophy at Melbourne and Oxford Universities. He was the principal author of Australia’s 2000 Defence White Paper. His major publications include Power Shift: Australia’s future between Washington and Beijing, [2010], The China Choice: Why America should share power, [2012], Without America: Australia’s future in the New Asia [2017], and How to defend Australia [2019].

Tim Yeend is an international trade and geoeconomic specialist with over 30 years’ experience at the highest levels of government and in the international system. Most recently he was Associate Secretary for Trade and Investment in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Prior to this he was Principal Adviser and Chief of Staff at the World Trade Organization.
Mr Yeend has been at the forefront of Australia’s response to key geo-strategic and economic security challenges in the Indo-Pacific and at the WTO, as well as leading bilateral trade relations including India, Japan, China and the EU. At the WTO Mr Yeend played a key role in efforts to modernise and streamline the multilateral trading system including its dispute settlement function and new initiatives in areas like electronic commerce and other services trade..
Mr Yeend has also served as Australia’s Ambassador to the WTO as well as holding senior positions in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, including assignments in Indonesia and South Africa. He also worked as an adviser to former Deputy Prime Ministers Tim Fischer and Mark Vaile.

Before assuming his current role, he worked at the World Trade Organization as Principal Adviser and Chief of Staff to former Director-General Roberto Azevedo and current Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iwaela. He also led the World Trade Organization’s engagement with G20 Leaders as WTO Sherpa.

Prior to this, he was the Australian Ambassador to the WTO and other international economic organisations in Geneva. He has also worked in a number of senior positions in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, including overseas assignments in Switzerland, Indonesia and South Africa. He worked as an adviser to former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer and Trade Minister Mark Vaile. He has also worked in the former Departments of Primary Industries and Energy and Transport.