Natasha Stott Despoja is the founding Chair of Our Watch, the national foundation to prevent violence against women and their children. She is the author of On Violence, published by Melbourne University Press (MUP).
Ms Stott Despoja is the former Ambassador for Women and Girls (2013- 2016). As the Ambassador, she travelled extensively throughout the Indo-Pacific region to promote women’s economic empowerment, leadership and an end to violence against women and girls internationally. Ms Stott Despoja was a World Bank Gender Advisory Council member (2015-2017) and served on the 2017 UN High Level Working Group on the Health and Human Rights of Women, Children and Adolescents. In 2001, she was made a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum.
In 2018, she was named one of the Top 100 Global Influencers on Gender Policy. Ms Stott Despoja is a former Senator for South Australia (1995-2008) and former Leader of the Australian Democrats, and is both the youngest woman ever to enter the Australian Federal Parliament and the longest-serving Democrat Senator in the party’s history.
In recognition of her service to the Australian Parliament, to education and as a role model for women, in 2011, Ms Stott Despoja was made a Member of the Order of Australia.
