Lucinda Holdforth

Lucinda Holdforth is a speechwriter and author. After time spent in the Foreign Affairs Department and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, she worked for the Hawke–Keating Labor government up to 1996, including as speechwriter to deputy prime minister Kim Beazley. She has since worked with chairs and CEOs of top-twenty Australian companies, entrepreneurs and innovators, and not-for-profit organisations. She is the author of True Pleasures: A Memoir of Women in Paris (2004), Why Manners Matter (2008) and Leading Lines (2019). Holdforth regards the free play of speech and ideas as essential for democracy and shared progress.

Photo credit: Carly Earl