With 30 years combined experience as a government minister, lawyer, banker and not-for-profit director, the Hon Gabrielle Upton is best known for leading teams to deliver results in complex environments. She is driven by the opportunity to achieve better practical outcomes for the community including, from 2011 to 2023, through senior NSW Government roles including as the first female NSW Attorney General, the First Liberal Minister for Sport & Recreation, Minister for the Environment, Local Government and Heritage, Minister for Family and Community Services, and as Parliamentary Secretary to two Premiers and for Tertiary Education and Skills.
Gabrielle held the position of Deputy Chancellor of the University of New South Wales from 2006 until 2009. From 2005 to 2011 she was Deputy Chair of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards Australia and a board member of Neuroscience Research Australia, NeuRA, one of Australia’s largest research centres on the brain and nervous system, from 2007 to 2011.
Gabrielle’s career began as a banking and finance lawyer with legal firms Herbert Smith Freehills and DLA Piper and as a banker with Deutsche Bank and Toronto-Dominion Bank in New York financing the energy sector. She served as a member of the Corporate Markets and Advisory Committee to the Federal Government and as Legal Counsel from 2000 to 2010 at the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Gabrielle has a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws from the University of New South Wales, a Master of Business Administration (Finance & Management) from New York University’s Leonard Stern School of Business and graduated from Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program 203. She is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
