Who we are

Lyn Maddock graduated in Economics from Queensland University and has spent the first half of her career in the Prime Minister's Department in Canberra, specialising in micro economic and trade policy. A highlight was her deep involvement in advising on the major reforms to the Australian economy in the 1980s particularly with regard to transport, communications, industry and resources.

After a short stint in banking, Lyn returned to economic public policy, working primarily on issues of government administrative efficiency. She became executive Deputy Chair and then Acting Chair of the Australian Broadcasting Authority and led it into a merger with the telecommunications regulator. She chaired the new body (The Australian Communications and Media Authority) as a full time executive for its first 18 months until a long-term Chair was appointed.

Lyn later became the CEO of Australia's Antarctic program, which has responsibility for managing the logistics for, and operation of,Australia's four permanent stations in the Antarctic and sub Antarctic. Since retiring from executive positions in 2011, Lyn has served on not-for-profit boards in screen funding and land conservation and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Economics faculty of Queensland University. Lyn was appointed as a public member of the Press Council in August 2019.

Mohamed el Roubi is a senior corporate and commercial lawyer with more than 26 years’ international experience across multinational organisations and a range of industries. He has worked in senior in-house and private practice roles across the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia Pacific and the United States, in highly regulated, multi-jurisdictional environments.

Mohamed is currently Special Counsel at Moulis Legal in Canberra. His previous roles include senior governance, risk and compliance and data protection positions with multinational organisations in the energy, technology and resources sectors.

He has extensive experience in business crime investigations and complex regulatory matters, including matters involving international enforcement agencies such as the US Department of Justice, the UK Serious Fraud Office and other global regulators.

Mohamed has strong governance credentials. He is a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia and a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He serves as the Chair of the Conduct Committee of the Council of the Law Society of the ACT and is Vice Chair of the Australian Press Council.

He is admitted as a lawyer of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, is a registered practitioner of the High Court of Australia and is also an Attorney and Counsellor at Law in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. He holds an unrestricted private practising certificate in the ACT. In 2025 Mohamed served as a Councillor and as Treasurer of the Council of the Law Society of the ACT, as well as a member of the Law Society’s Executive Committee and the Governance Review Working Group.

Mohamed is based in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and is bilingual in English and Arabic.

Sally Basser is a consultant and board director with a deep interest in the creative industries, arts, social welfare, health, disability and not-for-profit sectors. Prior to 2018 Sally enjoyed a successful career as a senior Commonwealth public servant, holding senior executive positions in the Social Policy Division of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and as head of the Office for the Arts from 2007 to 2017. This is underpinned by over 25 years’ experience in the public and not-for-profit sectors across a range of specialties including human services, human resource management and as a social worker in a range of settings including child and family services and community health. Currently, Sally works as a consultant with a particular focus on working with NFP boards and CEOs on leadership, board effectiveness, governance, organisational change and strategic planning. She currently serves on the boards of the Art Gallery of Ballarat, Bell Shakespeare Company, the Australian National Academy of Music and the Australian Youth Orchestra. Sally has a Bachelor of Social Work (First Class Honours) a Master of Public Administration and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Kaaren Koomen AM is an executive leader with more than 35 years’ experience in the communication and IT law and policy environments. Kaaren is currently Executive Director of Tigrah Consulting Services Pty Limited, a strategic advisory business specialising in the media and communications sector.

She was the Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs at IBM Australia/New Zealand for over 20 years and was previously General Manager, Multimedia Regulation and Strategy, at Cable and Wireless Optus/Singtel Optus. During the 1990s, Kaaren was the Director of Internet Content Regulation at the Australian Broadcasting Authority (now ACMA) developing a co-regulatory framework based on industry codes of practice.

Kaaren has extensive board-level experience. She was a long-standing Director on the Board of IBM Australia Pty Limited, a Director of the Australian Services Roundtable and Member of Standards Australia AI Committee. She was Deputy Chair of the NSW Telecommunications Authority Advisory Board from 2017 – 2023, Chair of the Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka from 2014 – 2018 and has been an elected board member of the AIIA, the IIA and other industry associations over many years. Kaaren has also practiced as a solicitor, specialising in communications and media law, and held roles as Lecturer in Law at Charles Sturt University and Consultant to UNESCO.

Susan Nicholson is a senior executive with a strong focus on customer-centric and stakeholder management, demonstrated by her success in driving strategy and change initiatives across diverse sectors including high-growth technology environments. Currently serving as the General Manager of Digital Payments for Australia Post, Susan brings a wealth of experience to her role. Previously, she was Director of Product and Marketing at NYSE-listed payments processing and information management systems company WEX Inc.

Susan’s extensive strategic leadership experience includes direct reporting to subsidiary boards. She has also contributed to the advancement of gender parity, diversity, and inclusion as a Member of the Advisory Board of Women in Payments, a global organisation dedicated to supporting women in the payments and fintech industries. Susan has served on the Board of St Columba’s Primary School in Elwood, demonstrating her commitment to community and education.

Dave Braithwaite is the Head of Editorial Operations for Nine’s Metro Publishing, with extensive experience in newspaper, digital and cross-platform journalism. Previously, he held positions of Head of Video at Fairfax, Digital Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and Online News Editor of The Age.

Dave is a digital content and strategy specialist who has also worked as an Executive Producer for Digital News and Current Affairs at the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), and then Managing Editor, Online, overseeing digital content across the network.

Lachlan Heywood is executive editor of Daily Mail Australia, with more than 20 years of experience in newspaper and digital publishing. He is a former editor of Queensland’s The Courier-Mail and The Townsville Bulletin as well as a former deputy editor of The Sunday Mail.

As a young reporter, Lachlan spent several years at regional dailies and also worked as a political reporter for News Corp in the Canberra press gallery. During his tenure at The Courier Mail, Lachlan delivered rapid growth in digital subscribers and audience. Until recently, he was a member of the Queensland Premier’s Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence. Lachlan joined Daily Mail Australia in late 2017.

Peter Kennedy was appointed as representative for Country Press Australia.

Peter is the Executive Director of Country Press Australia, the industry association representing more than 230 independent regional, rural and local news publishers.  He is an experienced General Manager and Editor working in the media production industry (especially print and more recently digital media) and previously owned and operated his own boutique public relations firm in a media career spanning more than four decades.

Peter also serves as Executive Officer of the Victorian Country Press Association.

Sophie Black is Crikey's editor-in-chief and has extensive experience in senior editorial and management roles across cultural and media organisations, where she has conceived, launched, and overseen a wide range of publications, editorial projects, and programs. She currently leads a team of reporters and editors producing investigations and independent analysis for Crikey Daily, The Worm and Crikey's Cut Through podcast, and has written for publications including The Guardian and The Monthly.

Previously, Sophie was Head of Publishing for the Wheeler Centre, where she oversaw projects such as the Walkley Award-winning The Messenger podcast and the national writing program The Next Chaper. She sits on the board of the University of Melbourne's Centre for Advancing Journalism and was formerly co-chair of the human rights media outlet Right Now.

Kathy Lipari is an experienced media executive whose career has spanned three decades. She is currently the Head of Corporate and Editorial Communications at News Corp Australia.

Kathy has previously worked as a journalist, editor and in senior managment roles at publications and in omni channel roles at the Daily Telegraph, News Corp community titles, the National News Network and News360.

She has also previously managed crisis communications, supporting Government and Regulatory functions and media relations at Optus and also worked within the NSW Premier's office and government sector.

Professor Peter Greste is an Australian-born journalist, author, media freedom activist and academic. He is the Executive Director of the advocacy group, the Alliance for Journalists' Freedom, and UNESCO Chair in Journalism and Communication at the University of Queensland. Before joining the university in January 2018, he spent 25 years as a foreign correspondent, starting with the civil war in Yugoslavia and elections in South Africa as a freelance reporter in the early 90s, before joining the BBC as its Afghanistan correspondent in 1995. He went on to cover Latin America, the Middle East and Africa for the BBC.

He hit the headlines himself in December 2013, when he and two colleagues were arrested in Cairo on terrorism charges. They were convicted and sentenced to seven years in a case that drew international condemnation as attack on press freedom. Under pressure, Professor Greste was released, and he went on to become a champion of press freedom around the world. His stance has earned him numerous international awards, including the Australian Human rights Commission Medal, the RSL's 2016 ANZAC Peace Prize, and the Australian Press Council's 2018 Press Freedom award. Peter was appointed as an independent journalist member of the Press Council in August 2019.

Julie Flynn is a retired journalist and media executive. During the transition from analogue to digital television, Julie was CEO of Free TV Australia, the industry body representing Australia’s commercial television stations. Julie joined Free TV after a distinguished career as a journalist and media executive. She was a senior executive at Radio 2UE but is best known for her work as a reporter and commentator in the Canberra Press Gallery with the ABC, the National Times and 2UE.

Julie has won a Walkley Award for Radio News reporting and was President of the Canberra Press Gallery. She has served on a range of Boards and Committees including the Walkley Awards Advisory Panel, the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Advisory Board, the Public Service Medal Committee, the National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre Board and the Ronald McDonald Hospital Charity Board. Julie has undertaken some media consultancies in her retirement.

Alan Sunderland is an award-winning journalist with 40 years’ experience working for the ABC and SBS. Since retiring from full-time work in 2019, he has been writing and advising on editorial issues on a project basis. These projects have included editorial quality reviews for the ABC and The Conversation website and a report on potential media self-regulation models for Ukraine, prepared for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Alan is also the winner of two Walkley Awards for news reporting and is the author of "The Ten Rules of Reporting: Journalism for the Community" and writes children's fiction. Alan is also a Board Member of the Local and Independent News Association (LINA) and a member of the Walkley Public Fund Committee.

Ian Macintosh AM is a veteran international journalist and editorial manager with more than four decades of experience in the media and broadcast industry.

He held senior positions with CNN International, including Senior Vice President (Asia Pacific), based in Hong Kong, and Senior Consultant across several regions. He also served as Vice President of Turner International, CNN’s commercial arm.

Previously, Ian spent 27 years with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) as a radio and television journalist, news editor, and foreign correspondent, with overseas postings in Port Moresby, Singapore, Jakarta, Tokyo, New York, and London.

After 35 years in broadcast journalism, he founded and managed an international media consultancy.

Ian was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2025 Australia Day Honours for significant service to the media and broadcast industry. He remains a passionate supporter of high standards and ethical practices in journalism, regardless of platform, technology, or commercial influence.

Helen Dalley is an experienced broadcast journalist. She is currently the creator and host of the podcast Build It. They’ll Come, a Governor of the Cerebral Palsy Alliance Research Foundation, Patron of Healthy Bones Australia (formerly Osteoporosis Australia) and Non-Executive Director on the Board of not-for-profit Aurora Education Foundation.

Helen worked as a reporter at the Nine Network for almost 20 years. Her long and short-form reports ran on the well-respected Sunday program, where she was also a fill-in presenter for host Jim Waley. She hosted A Current Affair Summer Edition, and she was an interviewer/reporter covering several Federal election night coverages. She then spent 11 years at Sky News Australia as a host, anchor and interviewer. She co-anchored the coverage of four consecutive Federal election campaigns and hosted several national television programs for the Sky News Business channel, including Sunday Business, Business Agenda and News Now with Helen Dalley.

Helen has won a Walkley Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism and recently consulted to The Walkley Foundation over a number of years, providing integrity and fact-checking advice to the judges of The Walkley Awards.