About the speaker: 

Prof Tim Flannery is one of the world's most influential environmentalists. An author of best-selling books, presenter for numerous television documentary series, and founder of several highly influential not for profit organisations, his skills are in high demand with corporate and non-corporate entities.

Tim's work in Melanesia is legendary. Over 2 decades he led 25 expeditions into Melanesia, contacting some indigenous people for the first time, and discovering and describing 28 species of living mammals, feats described in his best-selling book Throwim Way Leg. Sir David Attenborough has described Flannery as being in the league of the all-time great explorers, such as Sir David Livingstone. He has published over 140 scientific publications and is noted as one of Australia's most renowned authors having published over 30 books.

Best known for his work in climate change, Tim established the Copenhagen Climate Council (2007), the Climate Council of Australia (2013), and served as Australia's Climate Commissioner (2011-2013). His network is extensive, having served on the Sustainability Advisory Boards of Siemens and Tata Power, and advising Sir Richard Branson on the Virgin Earth Challenge.

Tim is a former director of the South Australian Museum, and is currently a professor at Melbourne University. He spent a year as professor of Australian studies at Harvard, and currently teaches a month-long course on climate change at the Graduate Institute in Geneva each year. In 2002, he became the first environmentalist to deliver The Australia Day address to the nation.
In 2005 he was honoured as Australian Humanist of the Year and, in 2007, he was named Australian of the Year.

Tim has helped establish organisations that are the foundation of species conservation in Australasia today. In 2001 he and Martin Copley founded the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. In 2008 he joined the board of the Tenkile Conservation Alliance, which is devoted to conserving two species of tree-kangaroo that he discovered in PNG, In 2017 he established the Kainake and Kwaio conservation initiatives, the only ongoing, large-scale terrestrial conservation initiatives in the Solomon Islands. Between them, these organisations conserve and maintain over 5,400 hectares of old growth forest on the islands of Malaita and Bougainville.

In 2021 ahead of the Biden Climate Summit, Prof Flannery was awarded the prestigious Geddes Environment Medal by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, for his work on climate change.

In his new film, "Climate Changers" released in October 2023, Tim Flannery searches for the missing ingredient in our fight against climate change that is leadership. He asks, "Where are the leaders who will drive change? Are they strong enough to triumph where others have failed? ", Tim poses these questions as he meets leaders past and present in the hope of finding answers.