Our team

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency is passionate about promoting gender equality in the workplace.

Our people lead the debate on gender equality, collaborate with organisations and industry to promote gender equality, and propose innovative solutions that result in lasting cultural and structural change.

Our leadership team

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency is managed by a CEO, supported by a team of executive managers with diverse experience leading research, education, operations, advice and reporting, and public affairs.

Hon Mary Wooldridge - CEO

Mary Wooldridge

As CEO of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), Mary Wooldridge leads the Agency in driving gender equality in workplaces ensuring that women and men are equally represented, valued and rewarded.

Mary brings to the role a wealth of experience from a distinguished career in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. Mary served from 2006 to 2020 in the Victorian Parliament, including a term as Minister for Mental Health, Community Services and Women’s Affairs.

As Minister, Mary worked to implement the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022 and was instrumental in establishing Our Watch, the national family violence prevention agency. Mary was the Minister responsible for signing Victoria up to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. She established the Victorian Commission for Children and Young People, including the nation’s first Aboriginal Commissioner, Parkville College – an award-winning Public School in Youth Justice Centres and Australia’s first Mental Health Complaints Commissioner and the Family Drug Treatment Court.

Prior to being elected to Parliament, Mary was the CEO of The Foundation for Young Australians and worked with McKinsey & Company and Consolidated Press Holdings.

Mary also serves as Chair of Global Citizen (Australia) and a Director of Carey Baptist Grammar School.

Janette Dines - Chief Operating Officer

Janette Dines

 supports the CEO to manage the Agency and effectively perform its statutory functions.

Janette’s career in the Australian Public Service spans 25 years and multiple portfolios. She has a record of leading people to achieve results in a variety of operating contexts and partnering with business, community and all levels of government.

A qualified lawyer, Janette has led the full suite of corporate and enabling services; regulated the public and private sectors; developed policy and delivered multibillion dollar government programmes. Janette also spent time in the private sector consulting to organisations on culture, wellbeing and leadership development.

Anne Beath - Operations Executive Manager

Anne Beath WGEA

Anne is Operations Executive Manager and leads the team responsible for delivery of the cross-agency support functions of IT, human resource management, finance, procurement, property management, records management, governance and compliance. An integral part of this role is to provide leadership in the optimisation of resource and business planning.

Anne has worked in the Agency since 2006 as HR Manager and has more than 20 years' experience working as a human resource professional for corporate and non-corporate commonwealth entities. Anne holds a Graduate Diploma in Management.

Lucy Bradlow – Communications and Campaigns Executive Manager

Lucy Bradlow WGEA

Lucy leads WGEA’s communications and campaigns team, working with our partners across business, government and policy makers to raise awareness of Australia’s gender pay gap and advocate for action to drive gender equality in the workplace.

Lucy brings to the role extensive global experience developing and executing communications campaigns for organisations across industries. Prior to joining WGEA, Lucy spent over a decade working in public affairs in Washington, D.C. and London. Most recently she was a vice president in strategic communications at FGS Global. In this role, she led social impact campaigns for a range of clients, including working with Bloomberg Philanthropies to launch its global healthy cities campaign, and the Emerson Collective to build and implement its Dial Fellowship program to strengthen the voices of some of the world’s most impactful social entrepreneurs. Prior to FGS Global, Lucy was the director of public relations for Bridge International Academies, a network of independent schools in Africa and Asia.

Lucy is a qualified lawyer with an Llb/Ba from Monash University and a Masters in African Studies from the University of Oxford. She is passionate about women's empowerment and is the founder of The Salon, an intimate networking space for women.

Penelope Cottrill - Education and Research Executive Manager

Penelope Cottril

Penelope is the Executive Manager, Education and Research at the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, translating research and evidence into guidance and resources that employers can use to understand and improve workplace gender equality in their organisation.

Penelope’s background is in consulting to organisations to execute change and improve performance through organisation design, leadership and capability. She has led award-winning programs across a range of sectors and held leadership roles in leading consulting organisations.

Recently, Penelope has researched the gendered effects of flexible work and she applies behavioural science in her work. Penelope is also a Director of Safe Steps, a Victorian family violence response service.  

Steven Douek – Information Systems Executive Manager

Steven Douek WGEA

Steven leads the Data and Technology team. He is responsible for transforming the organisation’s technology and transformation capabilities and managing and supporting WGEA’s major campaigns and programs. Steven brings with him a wealth of experience in cloud-enabled transformation with a focus on organisational strategy, operational innovation, technical delivery and service efficiency. Over the past 27 years, he has worked across the private, not-for-profit and NSW public sectors as an advocate of technology automation and strategic change.

Steven holds a Masters of Business Computing, MBA, along with industry certifications in Cloud Computing, IT Governance, Enterprise Architecture, Project Management and certificates in Training & Assessment and Electrotechnology.

Tori Gooding - Gender Equality Programs Executive Manager

Tori Gooding WGEA

Tori is the Executive Manager for Gender Equality Programs and is responsible for leading private and public sector reporting, as well as the WGEA Employer of Choice for Gender Equality citation.

Tori brings more than 15 years' APS experience in a variety of portfolios and has led high-performing teams responsible for service delivery, legislative implementation, and compliance and enforcement in fast-paced regulatory environments.

Tori is skilled in privacy law and practice and has strong stakeholder engagement experience including on interdepartmental committees, with state and territory government officials and the private sector.

Dr Samone McCurdy – Capacity Building Executive Manager

Sam McCurdy WGEA

Samone is an experienced gender equality strategist, researcher and change management professional with expertise in gender equality programming, strategy and gender attuned leadership capability development.

She has post graduate qualifications in psychology and social work and holds a certificate in Gender Mainstreaming from the Civil Service College (London) where she studied under the Hon. Meg Munn - former Minister for Women in the Blair Government (2005-2007).

Samone has published research and analysis on a range of gendered workplace drivers including paid parental leave, flexible work practices and gendered workplace harm such as sexual harassment and workplace incivility.

She comes to WGEA with a depth of experience working in public and private sector enterprise, training and consulting to Government, NGO’s and small business on Gender Impact Assessment, gender metrics and designing people systems and processes that drive gender equal outcomes and experiences for employees and the community.

Samone joins us from her most recent position as the inaugural Gender Equality Adviser for Victoria Police, where she developed their first gender equality strategy and action plan in response to the Victorian Gender Equality Act (2020) and developed a gender attuned leadership capability framework and change methodology for gender segregated policing operations.

Kevin Yap - Data and Analytics Executive Manager

Kevin Yap WGEA

Kevin leads Data & Analytics, the team responsible for the transformation journey to provide better accessibility, usability, and quality data and insights for the organisation.

He brings a wealth of experience from more than 20 years leading data and analytics transformation programs across multiple platforms in industries including Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Oil and Gas, Arts and Media, and Utilities.  His international business experience includes Malaysia, the Netherlands and Australia.

Kevin holds a Bachelor of Information Technology from the University of Southern Queensland, as well as a Master of Science in Business Analysis from George Washington University.

 

Diversity at WGEA

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) recognises that diversity in the workplace promotes improved decision making, creativity and innovation and leads to better overall performance.

We are committed to providing an inclusive work environment where diversity is valued. Diversity includes, but is not limited to, differences in gender, age, language, cultural background, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, abilities, thinking and behavioural styles, educational level, professional skills, work and life experiences, socio-economic background, job function, and whether or not one has family responsibilities.

The Agency’s Workplace Diversity and Inclusion Action plan has been designed to include all of these factors and to focus on a number of key areas that have been identified for action. In our Annual Report, we report on our diversity outcomes in areas such as people with disability, people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and our gender diversity.

The Agency will achieve its commitments by linking objectives to five focus areas: recruitment, working arrangements, workplace culture, communication and leadership. Our priorities are in the areas of gender equality, people with disability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, cultural diversity, LGBTIQ and mature age employees.

For an Agency of less than 30 people, it can be challenging to find ways to move the metrics. Our plan details the actions we are taking to improve our diversity. This includes setting targets where appropriate.