To celebrate International Women’s Day, the UNSW Business School Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee invite you to join an online panel discussion featuring Professor Mary-Anne Williams and Manal Al-Sharif.

Professor Williams is the Michael Crouch Chair of Innovation in the School of Management and Governance at UNSW Business School and Manal al-Sharif was recently appointed (interim) Cyber Information Security Officer at UNSW Sydney.

Both women are leading figures in their respective fields. They will share their expertise and experience in a conversation moderated by Professor Nick Wailes, Director, AGSM and Deputy Dean UNSW Business School.

We’ll ask #WomenLead panel guests to share their experiences and discuss:

1. How they got to where they are now

2. What kinds of challenges they have overcome in their careers?

3. What suggestions and advice would they give to their younger selves?

4. How can organizations make their environment healthier and more inclusive of women?

Attendees will also be invited to ask the panellists questions during the live Q&A.

Event Details

When: Tuesday, 9 March 2021

Format: Online Zoom Panel Discussion

Panel Discussion: 12:00 pm – 12:45 pm (AEDT)

Q&A: 12:45 pm – 1:00 pm

Guest Speakers:

• Professor Mary-Anne Williams, Michael Crouch Chair of Innovation at UNSW
• Manal al-Sharif, Chief Information Security Officer at UNSW and Manager of the Cyber Security Strategy & Governance division

Moderator: Professor Nick Wailes, Director, AGSM and Deputy Dean at UNSW Business School

Hosted by: UNSW Business School’s Equity Diversity & Inclusion Committee

About Guest Speakers:

Professor Mary-Anne Williams is Michael Crouch Chair of Innovation at UNSW, where she collaborates with a broader innovation community to grow entrepreneurships and accelerate innovative thinking throughout Australia. Professor Williams is also a distinguished research professor and expert in innovation and enterprise.

Before taking up this appointment, Professor Williams spent 18 years as a founder and director of the Innovation and Enterprise Research Lab (The Magic Lab), Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute at University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

Professor Williams has worked with the United Nations on the risks and challenges of AI, and industry leaders, such as Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple Inc, to bring science fiction to reality through the design of intelligent autonomous technologies.

Manal al-Sharif is best known as the first Saudi woman to specialise in information security, with a career started back in 2002 with Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company in the world at the time.

As an author, public speaker and columnist Manal al-Sharif has been voted as one of the Top 50 Women in Tech (Forbes Magazine 2018), one of the 11 Powerful Women We Met Around the World (New York Times 2017) and is the recipient of the Woman of the Year Award (Glamour Magazine 2018). Al-Sharif is also a prominent voice advocating for women's rights and empowerment.

Over the last 18 years, al-Sharif has dedicated herself to information security achieving a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science in 2002. And in the same year, she joined the newly established Information Security department in the largest multinational oil producing company in the world, Saudi Aramco, making al-Sharif one of the founding members at a time when cybersecurity was in its infancy.