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On 17 June 2009, the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd congratulated Adelaide Film Festival CEO, Katrina Sedgwick (pictured) and nine other Australians identified as emerging leaders. The event was the culmination of a 12-week initiative from The Weekend Australian Magazine and Microsoft called The Next 100.
The Weekend Australian Magazine Editor Helen Trinca said The Next 100 has true national significance. “The Next 100 has brought attention to Australians positively influencing and impacting all aspects of our national identity. It has connected with real leaders and future leaders within the Australian community,” she said.
Born in Sydney and raised in Adelaide, Katrina Sedgwick began her career as a performer at the tender age of 9, appearing in the classic Australian film, The Last Wave, directed by Peter Weir. After leaving school, Sedgwick joined a travelling clown company. Her love of unusual projects would eventually led to her big break in 1996, when she worked with Nigel Jamieson, producing the Adelaide Festival of Arts free outdoor program, Red Square.
As the current CEO of the Adelaide Film Festival, Katrina Sedgwick also oversees the festival’s investment fund, which has supported 32 local film projects, including Ten Canoes, Look Both Ways and Samson & Delilah.
“Good art is good art,” Katrina Sedgwick said. “No matter the medium, it’s just a matter of cherry picking the best and wrangling it into a program.”
The top ten emerging leaders are:
- Katrina Sedgwick, director of the Adelaide Film Festival.
- Joe Procter, an indigenous merchant banker and corporate adviser to Aboriginal traditional communities.
- Alissa Phillips, who has set up her own centre in Brisbane for disabled youth.
- Professor Tanya Monro , a physicist who heads a photonics centre at Adelaide University.
- Dr Paul Hodges, who heads a University of Queensland research centre into spinal pain, injury and health.
- Ralph Ashton, a former merchant banker who now runs the Terrrestrial Carbon Group in New York.
- Dannielle Miller, the co-founder of Enlighten Education which runs workshops for girls in western Sydney.
- Dr Roger Lumley, a CSIRO metallurgist researching the use of aluminium in car components.
- Jason Mifsud, the CEO of the AFL Foundation, who runs programs for young indigenous players.
- Professor Julian Savulescu, a philosopher who heads Oxford university’s Centre for Practical Ethics.
The emerging leaders were selected by a panel of judges including Minister for Climate Change and Water Penny Wong, demographer Bernard Salt, cancer researcher Professor Ian Frazer and Shadow Minister for Finance Joe Hockey.
The Next 100 celebrates ordinary Australians doing extraordinary work across 10 fields: Society, Wealth, Sport, Science, Thinking, Culture, Earth, Learning, Health and Innovation. One leader was selected in each category.
Microsoft Australia Director of Corporate Affairs & Citizenship, John Galligan said: “The Next 100 program is an inspiring initiative that will help encourage Australians to aspire to greatness and realise their full potential. Moreover, the initiative will help to expand our horizons on how leadership is typically viewed by the community and highlight that leaders can come from any walk of life.”
All ten of the category leaders will be featured in a special issue of The Weekend Australian Magazine published this weekend, June 20-21.
For more information visit The Australian website at www.theaustralian.news.com.au
Main photo: L to R – Tracey Fellows, Managing Director of Microsoft Australia, Katrina Sedgwick and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, presenting the awards at The Weekend Australian Magazine Next 100 event at the Mural Hall in Parliament House, Canberra. Photo by KYM SMITH.