Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Tuesday 11 August
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM
What biases and barriers do women in power face? How does this affect their leadership performance? And how can we bring about true gender equality when it comes to politics and power? A new book by Julia Gillard and renowned development economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala asks these questions and more.
The two women first met in 2011, when Gillard was Australia’s Prime Minister and Okonjo-Iweala was Nigeria's Finance Minister. They became friends and collaborators, and in the years since their first encounter, their conversations have continually returned to the unique challenges facing women in power – so they wrote a book about it.
Drawing on their very different perspectives and experiences, Women in Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons is rich in both anecdote and research, and features in-depth interviews with Jacinda Ardern, Joyce Banda, Michelle Bachelet, Hillary Clinton and others.
In conversation with Patricia Karvelas, Gillard will discuss her own leadership trajectory and what her collaboration with Okonjo-Iweala has taught her about gender bias, politics and the long road to equality.
Presented in partnership with Melbourne Writers Festival.
Featuring
Julia Gillard
Julia Gillard was sworn in as the 27th Prime Minister of Australia on 24 June 2010 and served in that office until June 2013. She is the first woman to ever serve as Australia’s Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister.
Her memoirs, My Story, were published by Random House in September 2014.
As Prime Minister and in her previous role as Deputy Prime Minister, Gillard delivered nation-changing policies including reforming Australian education at every level from early childhood to university education, creating an emissions trading scheme to combat climate change, improving health care, commencing the nation’s first ever national scheme to care for people with disabilities, addressing the gender pay gap for social and community sector workers and delivering an apology to all those who had suffered through the practice of forced adoptions.
In October 2012, she received worldwide attention for her speech in Parliament on the treatment of women in professional and public life. She currently serves as the inaugural Chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at Kings College in London, which through research, practice and advocacy, is addressing women’s under-representation in leadership.
Julia Gillard is the Chair of Beyond Blue, one of Australia’s leading mental health awareness bodies; is Chair of global funding body for education in developing countries, the Global Partnership for Education; and is Patron of the Campaign for Female Education.
Patricia Karvelas
Patricia Karvelas is a prominent Australian journalist, beginning her professional career at the ABC and SBS 20 years ago. She currently presents Radio National’s flagship radio current affairs programme RN Breakfast ...