Meet Our board
Sally Branson Dalwood
Chair
Sally Branson Dalwood has over twenty-four years of Diplomatic, Military, Government, Not-for-profit and Corporate experience. As a public affairs specialist, Sally has advised the most senior Australian politicians and both Australian and American senior military officials – including members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (USA), The Australian Government Cabinet and Senior Press Secretary to an Australian Prime Minister.
Sally specialises in reputation management, leadership planning, crisis management and strategy. She has overseen and managed public affairs programmes of projects of significant scale, risk and geopolitical importance. She has managed significant crises for iconic Australian and International brands and high-profile individuals.
In addition to her advisory work, Sally is a regular contributor to national media, analysing news and current affairs.
Kathy Rhodes
Deputy Chair
Head hunted by ING. The face of The Cancer Council NSW. The strategist behind ANZ’s wealth division, HP, Mad Mex and more.
Kathy Rhodes’ purpose is to bring out the gold in ideas and people. She does this as the CEO of Thought Alchemists – a strategy consultancy dedicated to advancing women thought leaders and the businesses they run.
Her clients include incredible women such as Dr Emma Fulu, the Executive Director of The Equality Institute – a global feminist agency dedicated to eradicating violence towards women and girls.
As the former Strategy Director at Step Change, Kathy helped brands like Curash, HP, Mad Mex and Aussie Home Loans to solve their trickiest brand and marketing challenges.
Kathy spent over 10 years working in the financial services sector where she held, and was headhunted for, a number of senior leadership positions for ANZ, ING, OnePath and Zurich. Businesses she still consults to today.
Kathy is a keynote speaker, a published author, a graduate of the Women’s Business School and an AusMumpreneur Awards Judge and Mentor.
A cancer survivor, Kathy is also an Educator and Ambassador for The Cancer Council NSW.
amanda thompson
Secretary
Amanda Thompson is an award-winning financial planner, Ironwoman and the Founder and Director of Endurance Financial. Amanda specialises in offering strategic financial guidance for individuals and businesses with complex matters requiring more than textbook advice. Amanda draws on her 20 years of financial advising and life experiences to educate and mentor in a relaxed and relatable way to support women overcome their fear of finances and own their financial future.
She is particularly driven to help women overcome the gender biases that stand in the way of personal achievement; lessons learned after thriving in typically male dominated environments.
Amanda has a strong technical background, specialising in strategy advice to high net wealth businesses and individuals. Her experience has provided her exceptional knowledge and advisory skills in all aspects of financial planning. Her areas of expertise include investment strategy, wealth creation, self managed superannuation, personal insurance and retirement strategies.
Amanda renews personal and business confidence, teaching businesswomen the value of their services with the end goal of compensating themselves fairly. She provides the financial knowledge and confidence to have a great relationship with money.
Amanda is well respected and has a unique ability to develop professional relationships with her clients based on both financial reasoning and client emotional drivers to deliver successful outcomes and to provide solutions that surpass all expectations. Always advising with integrity and honesty, Amanda is self motivated and has a strong determination to become a leader in her industry.
Katy Garner
Board Director
Award winning entrepreneur and author Katy Garner is the co-founder of Women Changing The World Press, The Women’s Business School, AusMumpreneur & The Best and Brightest Podcast.
Katy’s purpose is to support, educate and inspire women to create businesses that work for them. With a background in publishing, events and community engagement, she’s passionate about being a voice for women and has been active in advocating for more recognition of the work of Australian women in business with local, State and Federal politicians, to encourage more funding and support for women in business. Katy has been on the board of the Queensland Small Business Advisory Council. Katy was awarded the QRRRWN Entrepreneurship Award in 2019.
For the past 12 years Katy has organised the AusMumpreneur Awards, a national awards program that celebrates mothers in business and recognises the amazing achievements and economic contributions that mumpreneurs make to the Australian economy.
Peace Mitchell
Board Director
Peace Mitchell is co-founder of The Women’s Business School, AusMumpreneur and Women Changing the World Press. She is the Australian Ambassador of Women in Tech and the Chair of global non profit – Tererai Trent International. Peace is also an international keynote speaker, TEDx speaker, best-selling author of Back Yourself, Courage and Confidence, The Women Changing the World, host of The Best & Brightest podcast and Forbes.com business expert.
Peace is passionate about supporting women to reach their full potential. She has helped thousands of women achieve their dream of running a successful and profitable business and believes that investing in women is the best way to change the world. Peace received the Thought Leadership Award at the Stevie Awards in 2022, Diversity in Tech Mentorship Award in 2021 and the PauseFest SuperConnector Award in 2020.
Peace Mitchell co-founded AusMumpreneur in 2009 creating Australia’s #1 community for mums in business and co-founded The Women’s Business School in 2016 to provide entrepreneurial education for women globally. Together with her business partner Katy Garner, she has brought together a community of over 150,000 women in business from around the world.
Today, her commitment is stronger than ever, to invest in the power of women to change the world.
Kylie Lee Bradford
Skydiving
Born in the small community of Patonga NT, Kylie-Lee is a proud Murrumburr woman from Kakadu National Park. Balancing both Western and Indigenous business models, Kylie-Lee is passionate about opening up opportunities for Indigenous women entrepreneurs and start-ups in rural areas, and providing access to ongoing mentoring and support.
Kylie-Lee is an award-winning entrepreneur and mentor, and founder of the 100% Indigenous-owned and woman-led brand Kakadu Tiny Tots
Robyn baker
Board Member
Robyn is the founder of Busy Connecting which specialises in business growth and development strategies. Robyn’s background is in multi-disciplinary marketing and communication areas specialising in key stakeholder and community engagement.
She has over 40 years’ experience in governance and compliance working on large strategic communication projects in both the corporate sector, government, and community within Australia and internationally. Her skills include writing legislative and government documentation, tenders, grants, government and corporate submissions, strategic communication documentation.
Her passion now is for delivering these services to much small organisations and assisting small businesses including start-ups to grow and reach their full potential at an affordable price.
She is driven to continue her personal mission to advocate for women and raise their voices to reach full gender equality.
Robyn is well known as being an advocate for funding for women.
Robyn has served on many Committees and Boards and is a passionate volunteer supporting domestic violence victims, homelessness, and the environment. Robyn is a proud Gold Award Winner for Outstanding Community Support, Ausmumpreneur Awards.
Robyn is a Mentor for the Australian Women’s Business School and the International Day of the Girl Child. She has been a Civic Leader and is an Advisor on the Business Panel for the University of Sunshine Coast. She is also a Judge for several Awards including the Ausmumpreneur Awards. Robyn is an investor and has been a small business investor for 40 years.
Karen McDermott
Board Member
Karen McDermott is the founder of Serenity Press, MMH Press, KMD Books, and the Everything Publishing Academy.
Karen is an award-winning entrepreneur, multi-genre author of over 40 books, mentor and Forbes writer/ She is 2x TEDx speaker and a proud mum of 6.
In 2020 Karen was the WA Ausmumpreneur of the Year Award winner and the 2020 Women will Change the World Award winner. In 2021 she was awarded the Think Network International Woman of Empowerment Award.
