Anna Bligh AC

About Anna

Anna Bligh was Premier of Queensland during the 2010–11 floods and Cyclone Yasi, and led the reconstruction program that followed — including a legislated Reconstruction Authority administering a $6 billion rebuilding budget. She became Queensland's first female Premier in 2007, succeeding Peter Beattie mid-term, and in 2009 became the first woman in Australia to lead her party to victory at a state election. She holds the National Emergency Medal and was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2017 for eminent service to the Parliament of Queensland, to infrastructure development and to education reform.

After politics she spent eight years as chief executive of the Australian Banking Association, the peak body that represents the country's major and regional banks, from 2017 until she retired from the role in 2025. In that time she drove cultural change across the sector and delivered the Royal Commission reform agenda. The combination — elected leader of a state in crisis, then reform leader of a contentious industry — is unusual, and gives her a perspective most corporate speakers do not have.

Anna speaks on crisis leadership, resilience and accountable decision making, and on change management and women in leadership. She is a strong choice for financial services, government and women-in-leadership audiences who want a speaker who has actually held the pen during the kind of decisions everyone else just reads about.