Libby Lyons
Libby Lyons is a non-executive director. She is currently Chair of the Aged Care Workforce Industry Council and Chair of Science in Australia Gender Equity Ltd. In addition to these roles she is the Western Australia Chapter Chair for Chief Executive Women and a national board member of the same.
In April 2021 Libby Lyons completed her appointment as the Director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA, the Agency). A role she held for five and a half years. As Agency head, Libby led a transformational program through which the Agency is now recognised as a national powerhouse in promoting evidence-based change for gender equality in Australian workplaces. Over this period, WGEA has also become internationally recognised.
As Director, Libby, oversaw the statutory reporting process that gathers gender equality data from more than 10,000 employers, covering nearly four and a half million employees. Soon after her appointment, Libby initiated the development and implementation of a strategic plan focused on maximising the Agency’s world-leading dataset and expanding the reach and impact of gender reporting nationally and internationally.
Critical to the operations of the Agency was working closely with Australian employers to achieve gender equality and regularly took part in roundtable and speaking events with business to share their experiences, challenges and successes in creating workplaces where the skills and ambitions of employees are equally recognised and rewarded, regardless of gender.
In delivering the international outreach, part of the strategic vision, Libby was invited to speak to governments, private enterprise, industry bodies and unions in Singapore, Chile, Argentina, Mauritius, Indonesia, Vietnam, The Philippines, South Korea, the United States and Japan. In these settings she addressed the business case for gender equality, the Agency’s world leading dataset and the necessity for a data, evidence based approach for change. She also presented at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York in 2018 and 2019.
Libby was listed in Apolitical’s 100 Most Influential People Working in Gender Policy for both 2018 and 2019, she was featured in the book 200 Women and was awarded Woman of the Decade for Gender Policy by Women Economic Forum in 2019. She was a loud and proud Ambassador for Honour a Woman, a volunteer organisation that worked to achieve gender balance in the Australian honours system.
Prior to joining the Agency, Libby had a distinguished career in corporate affairs and government relations, including heading up BHP’s Olympic Dam corporate affairs division, as well as senior executive roles at Atlas Iron, CITIC Pacific Mining, Alcoa of Australia, the Western Power Corporation and Telstra.
Libby has a strong, personal and family commitment to public service. Her grandfather, Joe Lyons, was Prime Minister of Australia from 1932 until his death in office in 1939. Her grandmother, Dame Enid Lyons, was the first woman elected to the House of Representatives in 1943 and was the first women cabinet minister in the Menzies Government. Libby’s father also had a distinguished career spanning nearly 25 years in Tasmanian state politics.
?Libby started her career as a primary school teacher in the outer northern suburbs of Melbourne. She has also served on the boards of non-profit organisations SIDS and Kids WA, and was Executive Chairman of Kalparrin, a Western Australian charity that supports the families of children with special needs and disabilities.