Matina Jewell

About Matina

Major Matina Jewell (Retired) CSP served in the Australian Army for 15 years, deploying on five overseas operational missions including peacekeeping operations in East Timor and Lebanon. In her early twenties she was appointed Officer in Command of the Army Department aboard HMAS Kanimbla, then Australia's largest Navy ship, and she was the first woman in the Australian Army to complete the Navy Ship's Diver course. She was decorated with multiple military service medals, and returned home to write a bestselling memoir — Caught in the Crossfire (Allen & Unwin) — with her life and experiences now being developed into a feature film. Her story has also been told in a two-part ABC Australian Story series, The Blue Beret. She was recognised in the AFR 100 Women of Influence in 2018 and named a CPA Australia Top-10 Smart Thinker in 2015.

Her speaking career is built on leadership lessons drawn from experiences that most leaders will never face and all leaders can learn from. What does it take to lead when there is no manual, no back-up and no margin for error? What does genuine resilience look like when lives — not just performance metrics — are on the line? Matina answers these questions from lived experience, translating the demands of military and peacekeeping leadership into frameworks that are directly applicable to any high-stakes environment.

For leadership development programs, executive conferences and any event where decision-making under pressure is on the agenda, Matina Jewell is a substantial choice. Her masterclasses on leadership and resilience draw directly on what she saw and did in the field, and her personal story — of courage, adversity, recovery and purpose — gives audiences a frame for thinking about their own leadership.