They come from all over the country and work in fields ranging from physician science to climate law and chocolate.
They are the nine winners of the 2022 Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards, named at a ceremony in Sydney on Friday with all winners able to take to the stage to receive the gong and share a few words.
The 2022 Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards were made possible thanks to the support of our headline partner, Commonwealth Bank’s Women in Focus, as well as our category partners including Charles Sturt University, MECCA M-Power, Ole Lynggaard and Organon.
This year’s program focuses on resilience, highlighting the work of female leaders in responding to some of the biggest challenges of our time, and preparing for the critical decade ahead.
The winners were selected from a group of 40 finalists, who were all interviewed by a judging panel chaired by Shirley Chowdhary.
We’ll be sharing more on this year’s winners in the coming weeks, but you can see all nine below.
Dr Morley Muse, Emerging Leader in STEM
Dr Morley Muse is an Engineer, a Scientist, an established speaker, entrepreneur and a passionate advocate for women in STEMM. She is a director on the board for Women in STEMM Australia, one of the leading global STEMM organisations. Dr Muse is also the co-founder of iSTEM Co., a research, consulting and talent sourcing business aimed to enable employment of women, particularly women of colour and women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, into Australia’s STEM organisations.
Fiona Harrison, Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year
Fiona Harrison is the CEO and founder of Australia’s first Indigenous chocolate company, Chocolate On Purpose™. A disruptor in the artisan specialty chocolate market, Fiona is delivering real industry impact by empowering Indigenous Australian native botanical producers, and World Cacao Farmers, to greater participation in supply chains, disrupting the harm to our climate & endangered species by not using palm-oil in her chocolate, and contributing to Reconciliation in Australia through storytelling with her chocolate.
Dr Manasi Murthy Mittinty, Emerging Leader in Health
Dr Manasi Murthy Mittinty is a physician scientist at the University of Sydney, currently undergoing an advanced clinical research fellowship with Harvard Medical School. Manasi is passionate about empowering patients and families to thrive and live a meaningful life despite experiencing pain. Her novel translational work has started powerful conversations around sex, gender, religion and racial inclusivity for enhancing patient care. Her vision is to achieve mental health equity for all Australians by developing individualised patient care programs.
Hollie Kerwin, Emerging Leader on Climate Action
Hollie Kerwin is the Principal Lawyer and Climate lead at Environmental Justice Australia where she leads a team of climate action litigators and legal advocates. Her team is focused on curbing the drivers of dangerous climate change while embedding climate justice and inclusion throughout their work. She previously worked at the Human Rights Law Centre and Victoria Legal Aid on strategic litigation and campaigns for legal change, including in response to Robodebt.
Isabelle Reinecke, Emerging Leader in the NFP
Isabelle Reinecke is the Founder and Executive Director of Grata Fund, Australia’s first NFP strategic litigation funder and incubator, which supports social movements and communities to use the law to fight injustice. She has facilitated distribution of more than $1.5M in innovative funding and had a transformative impact on the use of law for social change in Australia. Her influence spans human rights, democratic accountability and climate action. She is a Churchill Fellow and a Women’s Leadership Institute of Australia Fellow.
Gloria Yuen, Emerging Leader in the Private Sector
Gloria Yuen is a risk management evangelist, inclusion leader and culture maker. She is passionate about amplifying the voice of people of all ethnic backgrounds and removing systemic barriers for underrepresented communities. In the past year, she has spearheaded strategic initiatives in creating deliberate platform, accessibility and opportunity for diverse groups through her advisory and committee roles including as Chair of Cultural Inclusion Employee Resource Group at NAB.
Tasnim Hossain, Emerging Leader in Arts & Entertainment
Tasnim Hossain is the current Resident Director of Melbourne Theatre Company, and works independently as a director, playwright, dramaturg and screenwriter. She has directed work for the Victorian College of the Arts and NIDA, and has a focus on supporting young and emerging artists. She won the 2022 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Direction of an Independent Production for Yellow Face (Dinosaurs Productions/KXT) and was shortlisted for the 2022 Griffin Award for her script Bombay Takeaway.
Sarah Agboola, Small Business Leader of the Year
Sarah Agboola is the Founder and CEO of mtime, a business dedicated to giving busy families their time back by matching them with family assistants. As a for purpose business, mtime also helps women new or returning to the workforce gain meaningful employment through their assistant roles. In the past year, Sarah raised a seed round of $1m to scale mtime’s impact, and expanded the service to Sydney and Geelong – with more cities to come.
Kristal Kinsela, Agenda Setter of the Year
Kristal Kinsela is a proud Jawoyn and Wiradjuri woman, a leading supplier diversity expert and recognised Indigenous business leader. In her own consultancy, Kristal is the trusted adviser to corporate and government clients, working closely with leaders to articulate their supplier diversity vision, change organisational culture, develop procurement policies, and connect them with talented Indigenous businesses. Driven to break through unconscious bias and stereotypes, she created her ‘Meet the Mob’ YouTube series to showcase ‘Blak Excellence in Indigenous business.