Lisa Witter

Summit Emcee
CEO
Apolitical Foundation

Lisa Witter is an eternal optimist, award-winning executive, entrepreneur, writer, and public speaker. As a longtime and passionate gender advocate, this will be the 2nd Gender Smart Investing Summit she's emceed (she prefers the term 'DJ'). She is the CEO of the Apolitical Foundation, a not-for-profit set up by Apolitical.co to advance the revitalisation of democracy through effective and transformational public and political leadership. Its flagship program is the Apolitical Academy Global. She is co-founder and board member of Apolitical, the global learning network used by public servants in 170+ countries. The tech company’s mission is to accelerate the transformation of government. Apolitical was named one of Fast Company’s most innovative companies in 2018. She’s a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, serves on and has co-chaired the Forum’s Council on Agile Governance, and served for six years on the Brain and Behavior Council. She is a former public servant with deep experience in gender and behavioural science. As a policy geek and lover of politics, she’s co-founded several political training institutes over the last 25 years. She was recently awarded, along with her co-founder Robyn Scott, the 2020 Creative Bureaucracy Award. She loves wearing dresses (not so much during COVID), her childhood nickname was 'Animal' because of her tenacity in playing sports, and she dreams of being a stand-up comedian using no schadenfreude or political cynicism.