2024 International Women's Day Breakfast

Dr Niki Vincent commenced as Victoria’s first Public Sector Gender Equality Commissioner in 2020. She oversees the implementation of the Gender Equality Act 2020 and plays a key leadership role in promoting gender equality in the Victorian community and workplaces.

Niki has a wealth of experience in gender equality and organisational leadership. This includes serving as the South Australian Commissioner for Equal Opportunity from 2016-2020.

Prior to that, Niki held the position of CEO of the Leaders Institute of South Australia and was a member of the Remuneration Tribunal of South Australia. She has established two successful not-for-profit organisations, has led major programs of academic research, and holds an appointment as an Adjunct Associate Professor in UniSA’s Business School.

Niki sits on the boards of InTouch Multicultural Centre Against Family Violence and the Brave Foundation, which supports teenage parents (Niki was a teenage parent herself).

She has 4 adult children, a young adult foster daughter, 2 young adult stepchildren and 11 grandchildren. She spends her sparse free time with her partner, family, and friends, and enjoys hiking, films, Radio National podcasts, music, gardening, yoga and camping in remote places.

Leonie Valentine is a strategic advisor to CommandHub and Melbourne University's MATCH Project, a director of Save the Children Australia, and Board Chair of AOMedia (Tech) Pty Ltd.

She was previously Executive General Manager Customer Experience and Digital Technology at Australia Post from Jan 2022 to Feb 2023. Leonie held global leadership roles at Google from 2014 to 2022, including Managing Director Melbourne & Government, Managing Director Google Hong Kong, and APAC Director of Global Customer Experience. She has 30 years experience in general management, sales, marketing and operations, including 25 years in digital technology and telecommunications.

Previous board roles include non-executive director of Pro‐Pac Packaging Limited (ASX: PPG, 2018-22), Save The Children HK (2018‐20), American Chamber of Commerce HK Governor (2018‐20), Interactive Advertising Bureau HK (2017‐19), and HandsOn Hong Kong (2014‐16). Leonie also supported The Women’s Foundation Hong Kong as an advisor, serving on both the 30% Club Committee (Women on Boards Advisory) and the Girls Go Tech Committee from 2013‐19.

Janenie has significant experience specialising in human-centred design, innovation, change leadership and customer experience. A qualified geophysicist, she started her career in the mining industry before gaining a breadth of expertise across the banking, consulting and energy sectors. Janenie is also a Board Member of the Melbourne Mining Club, and was the founder of Young Mining Professionals Melbourne.

Her lived experience in typically male-dominated industries, as well as her innate propensity for disruption has harnessed her ability to lean into her strengths as an outlier. Janenie was previously with KPMG where she led large transformation and innovation projects. She is currently an Innovation Product Lead at ENGIE, where she channels her passion for disruption to design products that help consumers decarbonise.

When she’s not thinking (or dreaming) about innovative ways to change a business (or the world), she loves challenging herself by trekking high-altitude trails around Australia. She is also the podcast host and producer of Right the Future - a business podcast to influence progress through genuine and unscripted conversations with modern leaders.

Your MC for the event is Ashley Coleman-Bock. Ashley has been a Rotarian since 2019, with a long history of work supporting non-profits, as a non-profit founder, an advisory board member, and as a Rotaractor. She is a Board Director for both her local Rotary club and Operation Cleft Australia, a charity that provides free cleft repair surgery for underprivileged children in Bangladesh.

Outside of her non-profit work, Ashley is a career management consultant, with experience across a wide variety of industries, helping organisations with their organisational strategy, design, and operating models. 

An award-winning speaker, and a long-time Toastmaster, she brings a passion for engagement in her hosting, and enjoys asking panellists the tough questions (and not answering them!) 

A long-time resident of Whitehorse, in her spare time, Ashley is a salsa dancer, aunt, and dog parent.