Kathleen is a senior business executive at Newcrest Mining based in Melbourne. She leads the company’s global Social Performance and Human Rights Assurance Program and provides strategic oversight and advice to exploration, project and operations teams.
Kathleen is former National Vice-President of the Australia Indonesia Business Council (AIBC) 2017-2018, and former State Chair of the AIBC in Queensland 2012-2017. In 2016 Kathleen was awarded the Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA) Award in Queensland as a leading advocate and educator of the bilateral relationship between Australia and Indonesia. She was selected by Diversity Council of Australia (DCA) to be part of an advisory board in the development of DCA’s Leading in the Asian Century research report which was released in September 2015. She was also selected as a key stakeholder at the Red Meat Advisory Forum hosted by the Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) in 2015, and was engaged by Trade & Investment Queensland (TIQ) for the development of their Asia Strategy in 2016. Further, she has been interviewed by Asia Options, SBS, Country Life Australia, Kompas, and The Jakarta Post for her perspective on the Australia Indonesia relationship.
Kathleen has served on the national board of the Griffith Asia Institute (GAI), and as an Independent Director on the national board of the United Nations Association of Australia (UNAA). In 2014, Kathleen graduated from the Asialink Asia Leaders Program, and in 2015 she completed the Australia Institute of Company Directors (AICD) Directors Course.
Kathleen has a PhD in Politics and International Studies from Murdoch University, has published widely in international journals such as Harvard Asia Quarterly and Asian Ethnicity on Islam, nationalism and ethnic conflict, and has published a book on religious and ethnic conflict in Eastern Indonesia. Kathleen has worked and lived in Indonesia for many years and is fluent in Indonesian.