Margot Cairnes

Margot Cairnes is a globally respected leadership strategist, board advisor and bestselling author with a career defined by transformational impact at scale. She has delivered and led large-scale change programs for multinationals and governments across Europe, Asia, the United States and Australia, contributing to revenue growth measured in the billions.

Margot has addressed leadership and change at the World Economic Forum and has shared international stages with leaders including Hillary Clinton and Queen Rania of Jordan. As a coach and advisor to boards and senior executive teams, she is known for her compelling approach to strategy development — helping leaders expand their perspective, deepen their thinking, enhance creativity and solve complex, systemic challenges while building stronger stakeholder relationships.

Her leadership experience includes heading multi-billion-dollar programs such as the mergers of BP and Mobil across Europe, BP and Amoco globally, the turnaround of Pasminco, the Zinifex and Nyrstar IPOs, and the merger of Zinifex and Umicore to create Oz Minerals and Nyrstar.

A university medallist in education, majoring in educational psychology and economics, Margot holds an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management and is AICD board-certified. She has taught in and authored a textbook for the AICD certification program. A bestselling author of five books on transformational leadership, her work has influenced Fortune 500 CEOs, global political leaders and organisations including BHP Billiton, the Reserve Bank of Australia, Alcoa, NAB and Levi Strauss. She is currently writing her sixth book, Surviving and Thriving in Times of Rapid Change.