Advisory Group
Our Advisory Board brings together experts with a wide range of backgrounds whose perspectives help shape our strategy and priorities.
I join this Advisory Group with much fervour. We need to collaborate, listen and care more deeply than ever before, providing simple and clear feedback loops and recommendations from lived experience, that see our systemic structures meet the needs of all families in Australia. The time is now.
Current Members
| Kirsten Andrews | Vice President (External Engagement), University of Sydney |
| Bernadette Black AM | CEO of SEED Futures |
| Lee Cooper | Executive Design Manager, ThinkPlace Global; Founder, Radical Box; Founding Board Member of the Social Enterprise Council NSW and ACT |
| Fred Dust |
Founder, Dust & Company; former Global Managing Partner, IDEO |
| Frances Foster-Thorpe |
Executive Director of Shaping Futures and Chief Data Officer, NSW Government Cabinet Office |
| Jaky Troy | Professor of Linguistics; Director, Indigenous Research, University of Sydney |
Former Members
| Rae Cooper AO | (2019–22) Professor of Gender, Work and Employment Relations, University of Sydney |
| Tim Soutphommasane | (2019–22) Professor of Practice, University of Sydney |
| Will Somerville | (2019–22) Director, Unbound Philanthropy |
| Gurnek Bains | (2019–22) Chief Executive Officer, Global Future |
| Michael Trail AM | (2019–22) Chairman, Goodstart Early Learning, Executive Director, For Purpose Investments, and Director, MH Carnegie & Co and Sunsuper |
| Eileen Gillooly | (2019–22) Executive Director of the Heyman Center for the Humanities and Society of Fellows at Columbia University, New York |
| Robyn Holt | (2023–25) Design Consultant and Co-Founder of Monocle Magazine |
Kirsten Andrews
Kirsten Andrews is the Vice-President (External Engagement) at the University of Sydney. The role is the University's strategic lead for externally facing activities, with responsibility for industry, government and community engagement, marketing and communications, media and public relations, museums and cultural engagement, events and student recruitment, admissions and mobility.
Kirsten joined the University of Sydney in 2013 as Head of Media and PR before becoming Director of Media and Government Relations. She then spent three years as Chief of Staff to the Vice-Chancellor.
“The University of Sydney is full of people who want to change the world, many through public policy. Many of them aren’t sure how to do that. The Lab has already demonstrated it can help them, and I want to help it grow its impact on both the University and public policy.”
Prior to joining the University, Kirsten held senior positions in government and the not-for-profit sector, including at the National Heart Foundation, as Chief of Staff to a federal minister, and Deputy Director of Communications to the Premier of New South Wales.
She began her career at the University of South Australia where she worked in public affairs and student recruitment. Kirsten holds a BA in Communication Studies (Hons) from the University of South Australia and a MA in Public Policy from the University of Sydney. She has also completed a residential leadership course at the London School of Economics.
Bernadette Black AM
Bernadette is driven by a vision to see Australia lead the world in implementing strengths-based, primary preventative policies and funding solutions, enabling all families and future generations to thrive. From her beginnings as a 16-year-old mother to founding and leading Brave Foundation, Australia’s only national organization dedicated to supporting young parents, Bernadette's commitment to ending intergenerational disadvantage is unwavering. She served as the inaugural CEO of Brave Foundation and, in October 2024, was appointed Founder and CEO of SEED Futures.
With a background rooted in lived experience, Bernadette is a powerful systems change leader, tackling the systemic issues that contribute to intergenerational disadvantage. Currently, in Australia, a child enters out-of-home care every six hours, a stark reflection of our systems failing to meet needs early. Bernadette has the passion, expertise, and drive to shift this, bringing together diverse stakeholders—including Commonwealth and State Governments, philanthropy, and community leaders—through initiatives like the Primary Preventative Round Table. This forum is exploring how to embed a primary preventative framework in Australia, one that proactively supports families to prevent crises before they occur.
In addition to leading conversations on policy reform, Bernadette and her team have developed the Incremental Reform Catalogue, an innovative tool for progressively transforming systems based on community and lived experience. Bernadette convenes an advisory council of 24 experts, meeting quarterly to help refine this work.
Bernadette’s leadership is backed by an impressive academic and professional background: an Executive Certificate in Public Leadership from Harvard Kennedy School, a Graduate Diploma in Perioperative Nursing, a Bachelor of Nursing, and a Diploma in Business. She is also a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
A Member of the Order of Australia for her significant service to young people, communities, and local governments, Bernadette’s impact has been recognized with accolades such as the Australian Tasmanian of the Year, Telstra Tasmanian Businesswoman of the Year, and inclusion in the Australian Financial Review’s Top 100 Women of Influence. She is also a Winston Churchill Fellow, studying international models of primary preventative funding to address long-term social issues.
Bernadette is married to Steven, a mother of three, and a proud young grandmother of two.
Lee Cooper
Lee was jolted into action by the preventable death of his younger sister from a heroin overdose, beginning his career in youth addiction. His career has developed across youth, cancer, disability, Indigenous, development, homelessness, addiction, program design and evaluation, marketing and fundraising, research, social enterprise, innovation and impact, from the frontline to executive.
Lee is currently Executive Design Manager at ThinkPlace and teaches at the Centre for Social Impact at the University of New South Wales.
Lee is the founder of Radicalbox, a project that addressed homelessness and inequality through the COVID-19 pandemic, a founding board member of the Social Enterprise Council NSW and ACT, and an advisor to Generations Australia and Sydney Food Lab.
Lee completed his Master of Management at the University of Technology Sydney, specialising in the non-profit sector.
Fred Dust
Fred Dust is the founder of Dust & Company and works at the intersection of business, society and creativity. As a designer, author, educator, consultant, trustee and advisor to social and business leaders, he is one of the world’s most original thinkers, applying the craft and optimism of human-centered design to the intractable challenges we face today. Dust & Company uses a combination of catalytic convenings, difficult games and micro curriculum to enable large scale change in institutions and across cultural, governmental, philanthropic, non-profit and for-profit organisations and strives to do so for the world at large.
Using the methodology from his book Making Conversation, he also works as the Senior Dialogue Designer with The Rockefeller Foundation to explore the future of pressing global needs as well as with The School for Advanced Research, The New Museum, The Einhorn Collaborative and other foundations to host constructive dialogue with leaders like David Brooks, Reverend Jenn Bailey and Vivek Murthy to rebuild human connection in a climate of widespread polarisation, cynicism and disruption. He is proud to be faculty at the Esalen Institute.
As a former Global Managing Partner at the acclaimed international design firm IDEO, Fred works with leaders and change agents to unlock the creative potential of business, government, education, and philanthropic organisations.
Dr Frances Foster-Thorpe
Dr Frances Foster-Thorpe has a government and research background and has focused on how to progress large-scale national reforms within Australia’s federal system and with community partners.
Since 2019, Frances has been the Executive Director of Shaping Futures and Chief Data Officer in the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet. During this time Frances has established a NSW foresight team, which supports foresight capability nationally through the NSW Trend Atlas. She also led the National Disability Data Asset pilot, working with the disability community to design a new way of co-governing national data and digital assets with the affected community and secure agreement to this approximately $100 million initiative.
Frances is now working in partnership with the NSW Coalition of Peak Organisations and NSW agencies to reform how Aboriginal communities can access NSW Government held data, be involved in decisions about that data, and progress towards Aboriginal Data Governance and Sovereignty.
Frances has a DPhil & MSc from Oxford, where she was a Commonwealth scholar, and degrees in Arts (Hons) and Law from UNSW.
Professor Jaky Troy
Professor Jakelin Troy is Director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research at the University of Sydney. A Ngarigu woman of the Snowy Mountains in southeastern Australia, her interests are focused on documenting, describing, and reviving Indigenous languages.
She is currently undertaking two Australian Research Council Discovery Projects; one on the history of Aboriginal missions and reserves in eastern Australia, and the history of Aboriginal people who were not institutionalised, and the other on the practice of 'corroboree' by Aboriginal people in the 'assimilation period' of the mid-20th century in Australia.
Professor Troy's research interests also tie in with the use of Indigenous research methodologies and community engaged research practices.