Lisa Annese

Lisa Annese has been Chief Executive Officer for Diversity Council Australia since 2 June 2014.

In this role, she leads a team of professionals to:

• Lead debate on diversity in the public arena
• Develop and promote the latest diversity research, thinking and practice; and
• Deliver innovative diversity practice resources and services to enable our members to drive business improvement.

Lisa is a regular contributor to publications and regularly presents and speaks publicly in all areas of diversity.

Prior to this, Lisa was Programs & Member Services Director for DCA where she specialised in providing advice and education to DCA members to improve business capability in diversity management. She also developed DCA’s relationship with the UN Global Alliance and the UN Global Compact.

Other career highlights for Lisa include:

• Working as the first dedicated Diversity Manager at Corrs Chambers Westgarth who later won the Lawyers Weekly Firm Diversity Award.
• At the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (formerly EOWA), developing the first ever census of ‘Australian Women in Leadership’, the first ever ‘Business Achievement Awards’, the creation of the ‘Employer of Choice for Women’ citation and the development and implementation of the policy framework for the EOWA Act (1999) with Australian businesses. For her contribution at EOWA, she was awarded a Medal for Significant Contribution to the Australian Public Service.
• Co-authoring “Chief Executives Unplugged: CEO’s Get Real About Women in the Workplace” which was named a “must-read business book” by AFR/BOSS magazine.

Lisa has a business degree from UTS (Sydney) and a Graduate Diploma in Human Resources. She is raising three independent and broad minded daughters with her husband in Sydney and is heavily involved in local community activities with them.