Who we are
Elizabeth Broderick AO – Principal
Elizabeth is Principal of EB&Co., a specialist consultancy focusing on high-level strategic consulting and transformation, particularly in the areas of gender equality, diversity, inclusion and cultural renewal, particularly in male dominated environments.
She was Australia’s longest serving Sex Discrimination Commissioner (2007-2015). One of her major achievements was the development and implementation of a gender equality blueprint for the nation, based on listening to the voices of Australians. She played a significant role in the introduction of Australia’s national paid parental leave scheme and progressed major law reform including in the area of sex discrimination and sexual harassment. She established the nation’s data set on the prevalence of sexual harassment data, and built trend data which continues to inform evidence based policy today. Her review into the treatment of women in the Australian Defence Force led to sweeping cultural reforms.
In 2017 Elizabeth was appointed by the United Nations in Geneva as a Special Rapporteur and Independent Expert of the UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls. In this role, she carried out UN country missions and had a global mandate to issue official UN communications to nation states drawing their attention to human rights violations, particularly against women and girls. Elizabeth’s 6 year term concluded on 31 October 2023.
She is the Founder and Convenor of the Champions of Change Coalition (formerly the Male Champions of Change), a globally recognised, disruptive strategy for achieving gender equality, advancing more and diverse women in leadership, and building respectful and inclusive workplaces. Comprising seventeen groups of over 270 national and international CEOs covering every major sector of the economy.
Elizabeth is Chair of Gender and Disaster Australia Expert Advisory Committee and a member of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership Advisory Council, Kings College London.
In 2016, Elizabeth was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia and was named 2016 NSW Australian of the Year.