International Women’s Day Gala Dinner 2024

Danielle Wood commenced a 5-year term as Chair of the Productivity Commission on 13 November 2023.

Prior to joining the Commission, she was CEO of the Grattan Institute and Head of its Budgets and Government Program. During her time at Grattan, Danielle also held roles as member of the Australian Government’s Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce, the Parliamentary Budget Office Expert Advisory Committee, the Jobs and Skills Australia Consultative Forum and the Australia and New Zealand School of Government Research Committee.

Danielle previously worked in senior roles at the ACCC and at NERA Economic Consulting. She started her career as a graduate at the Productivity Commission.

Danielle holds an Honours degree in Economics from the University of Adelaide and two Masters degrees, one in Economics and one in Competition Law, from the University of Melbourne.

Danielle is an Honorary Fellow and former President of the Economic Society of Australia and a Research Fellow of the Women’s Leadership Institute. She was the co-founder and first Chair of the Women in Economics Network.

She is currently an ex-officio member of the Australian Government’s Competition Review Expert Advisory Panel.

Among her various work and accolades are: being a board director with Women in STEMM Australia, being a previous ambassador for CSIRO’s Innovation Catalyst Global, and being an Advisory Group Member of the Elevate: Boosting Women in STEM Program with the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering. Dr Muse is a member of the RISE Expert panel with Diversity Council Australia (DCA), Settlement Services International (SSI) and Chief Executive Women (CEW). Dr Muse is also part of the Executive Committee with Science, Technology Australia (STA) and a mentor for senior and executive women in STEM with STA on their Superstars of STEM Program. In addition, Dr Muse is a member of the Energy Reference Group with Jemena Energy, providing expert advise on the energy transition, tariffs, and electricity price reset for Jemena Energy and its customers’.

Dr Muse has received awards for her work in advancing women in STEM, which is highly male-dominated. She is the winner of the 2022 Women’s Agenda awards for the Emerging Leader in STEM category. She was also named a finalist for the 2022 Victoria University Alumni Awards under the ’Rising Star category’. Her most recent recognition is being a finalist for the CEO/Board Executive category in the 2023 Recalibrate Gender Equity Awards.

As the co-founder of iSTEM Co, a research, consulting, and talent-sourcing business that enables employment for women in STEM, Morley continues to encourage women, including diverse women to further their careers in STEM. iSTEM Co. was nominated as a finalist for the 2022 Women in Digital awards , a Merit award winner at the 2023 Tech Diversity awards for business category and a finalist for the 2023 Recalibrate Gender Equity Awards. In 2023, the iSTEM Group launched DEIR, a recruit-tech platform that eliminates recruitment bias for women in STEM. DEIR has also received recognition in STEM and won the Lift women social impact award and the 2023 Equity in Innovation Award at the Start-up Burning Hereos Competition.

As a Victorian Honour Roll of Women Inductee, Manasi is a passionate educator and advocate, with over 13 years’ experience working with various population groups. Manasi works as Manager of Economic Equality at Women’s Health in The North and as a Bilingual Health Educator at the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health.  Manasi holds a Masters in Counselling from Monash University. 

Her ability to take an intersectional, strength-based approach has created measurable social change in health education, family violence prevention and financial capability sectors. 

 Her passion for the empowerment of marginalized population groups has led her to establish FinCap Connect a consultancy firm providing end-to-end solutions for financial capability program design. She is a serial entrepreneur and has delighted Australian taste buds with her delicious chai at her The Brew Story company.