50 Influential Leaders in Adelaide, South Australia

Last updated: June 2026

The most influential people in Adelaide are not always the ones on the international conference circuit. Many of them are here, working from the city, building organisations and institutions that are genuinely changing what South Australia can do and be. Adelaide is home to Australia's space and defence capital at Lot Fourteen, a $3.8 billion health and medical research precinct at Adelaide BioMed City, a startup ecosystem Startup Genome ranked in the top five in Oceania in its 2024 Global Startup Ecosystem Report, and an arts and festival scene that draws audiences and performers from every continent. The leaders behind all of this belong on a list that takes South Australia seriously.

Each person on this list was selected on the basis of a documented, fact-checked contribution to Adelaide and South Australia, from senior roles in significant organisations to recognised bodies of work and sustained impact in their fields. As of June 2026, every person listed holds a current role, confirmed against primary sources.

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Why Adelaide Leadership Matters

South Australia now generates more than 70 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources, a transition that has been a decade in the making and that has reshaped the state's energy identity. Adelaide BioMed City, the $3.8 billion health and medical precinct on North Terrace, brings together approximately 2,000 researchers and 10,000 staff from hospitals, research institutes, and universities in a genuinely integrated bench-to-bedside environment that few cities of comparable size can match.

Lot Fourteen, built on the site of the former Royal Adelaide Hospital, has become a nationally recognised innovation precinct anchoring South Australia's growth in space, artificial intelligence, defence technology, and creative industries, with more than 60 startups resident in the Startup Hub. The state's defence industry, expanded under AUKUS commitments, is building naval vessels and supporting submarine sustainment at a scale that is redefining what industrial capacity means in South Australia. These are not projections. They are the operating conditions in which the leaders on this list work every day.

Organisations wanting to develop their leadership capability can engage Jonno White, whose Working Genius facilitation and Step Up or Step Out leadership workshops are trusted by schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

How This List Was Compiled

Each leader on this list was selected on the basis of a documented, fact-checked contribution to their field in Adelaide or South Australia, from published work and recognised credentials to senior roles in significant organisations and sustained recognition from independent sources. Incumbency in every current role was confirmed against primary sources dated within the past 12 months. The list deliberately moves across sectors and communities to reflect the genuine breadth of leadership that makes this city function.

1. Government and Civic Leadership

Adelaide's government and civic institutions set the conditions in which every other sector operates. These seven leaders are currently at the most senior levels of that system.

1. Peter Malinauskas

Peter Malinauskas is the Premier of South Australia, having led the Labor Party to a landslide election victory in March 2022 and secured a second landslide in March 2026. Adelaide-born and educated at the University of Adelaide, he worked in the union movement before entering parliament in 2015 and becoming Labor leader in 2018. His government has defined itself through ambition on renewable energy, defence industry expansion, innovation precinct development at Lot Fourteen, and infrastructure investment across greater Adelaide. His second-term cabinet reshaped South Australia's ministerial architecture to prioritise artificial intelligence, state development, and defence in ways that reflect where the state's economic future is being built. Among current Australian state premiers, he is one of the most active and credible voices on economic transition and the role of government in shaping where investment flows.

2. Kyam Maher

Kyam Maher is the Deputy Premier of South Australia and Attorney-General, having moved into the Deputy Premier role in September 2025. He is also Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Minister for the Arts and has been a member of the South Australian Legislative Council since October 2012. He is a Wirangu and Kokatha man from South Australia's Far West. His combination of legal portfolio, cultural authority, and the institutional weight of the Deputy Premiership gives him influence across the justice, arts, and Indigenous affairs landscape in South Australia that is difficult to overstate. His work in Aboriginal Affairs has been substantive throughout the Malinauskas government's first term, and his elevation to Deputy Premier signals the central importance of that work to the government's identity and agenda.

3. Lucy Hood

Lucy Hood is the Minister for Education, Training and Skills in the current South Australian Government, a portfolio she assumed in March 2026 alongside the newly established role of Minister for the City of Adelaide and Minister for Autism. She has represented the electorate of Adelaide since March 2022. Before entering parliament, she worked as a journalist and as Director of Policy to Peter Malinauskas during his time as Opposition Leader. Her education and training portfolio carries direct responsibility for the skills pipeline that the state's growing defence, space, and health sectors need. The question of how South Australian schools and training institutions prepare a workforce for the industries of the next decade is now hers to answer, making her one of the most consequential ministers for the long-term economic future of the state.

4. Tom Koutsantonis

Tom Koutsantonis is the Treasurer of South Australia and Minister for Energy and Mining, having returned to the Treasurer's role in September 2025. He has been a member of the South Australian House of Assembly since 1997 and is the Father of the Parliament, the longest continuously serving member. He previously held the Treasury in the Weatherill Government between 2014 and 2018. His current dual portfolio combines South Australia's fiscal management with oversight of the state's remarkable renewable energy leadership and its strategic position as home to 70 per cent of Australia's copper resources. The intersection of energy transition, critical minerals, and public finance in a single minister's hands is a governance arrangement that places an extraordinary range of consequential decisions in front of one person.

5. Jane Lomax-Smith

Jane Lomax-Smith is the Lord Mayor of Adelaide, elected to the position in November 2022. She previously served as Lord Mayor from 1997 to 2000 and as a South Australian Labor parliamentarian between 2002 and 2010, including six years as Minister for Education and eight years as Minister for Tourism. Her return to civic leadership came with decades of public life experience and a deep familiarity with how Adelaide's institutions work. The Lord Mayor of Adelaide oversees the economic, cultural, and environmental future of the city's central area, including decisions about streetscapes, public spaces, investment attraction, and the character of the CBD. Her advocacy for liveable, walkable, and economically dynamic city spaces reflects the long-term thinking of someone who has watched Adelaide transform over multiple decades and has her own views on what the city can become.

6. Frances Adamson

Frances Adamson is the Governor of South Australia, appointed in 2021 following more than three decades in Australia's diplomatic service, including as Australian Ambassador to China and Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She brings to the Governorship both formal institutional authority and a substantive understanding of South Australia's place in global economic and diplomatic networks. As Patron of the Committee for Adelaide's Emerging Leaders program and Chair of the South Australian Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee, she plays an active role in the civic and intellectual life of Adelaide beyond the formal duties of the Governor's office. Her foreign affairs background has enriched the way Adelaide engages with its international partners and diaspora communities.

7. Paul Martyn

Paul Martyn is the Chief Executive of the South Australian Department for Energy and Mining, the state government agency that administers the policy, regulatory, and developmental frameworks for South Australia's energy and resources sectors. He officially opened the Copper to the World 2025 conference at the Adelaide Convention Centre alongside Treasurer Koutsantonis, signalling the department's central role in positioning South Australia as a global copper producing hub. His role governs the regulatory environment for more than 70 per cent of Australia's copper resources, for South Australia's world-leading renewable energy transition, and for the emerging hydrogen and critical minerals industries that will shape the state's economic future.

2. Space, Defence, and Innovation

Adelaide has become Australia's space capital and one of its most important defence industry hubs. These six leaders are building that sector from senior positions inside it.

8. Flavia Tata Nardini

Flavia Tata Nardini is the co-founder and CEO of Fleet Space Technologies, the Adelaide-headquartered company she co-founded with the mission of using satellite technology to transform mineral exploration, connectivity, and earth observation. Fleet Space's ExoSphere platform combines nanosatellites, edge computing, and artificial intelligence to deliver a fundamentally new approach to mineral discovery, and the company was named Australia's fastest-growing company by the Australian Financial Review in 2023 with a compound annual growth rate of 582 per cent over three years. She chairs the Australian Space Agency's Space Industry Leaders Forum and is a director of Austmine, the peak body for Australia's mining equipment, technology, and services sector. Recognition includes the 2020 South Australian 40 Under 40 First Among Equals Award, the 2022 South Australian Pearcey Award for Entrepreneur of the Year, and multiple Australian Space Awards. She has put Adelaide on the global space technology map in ways that are now verifiable in revenue, headcount, and satellite launches.

9. Matt Opie

Matt Opie is the Chief Executive of Defence SA, the South Australian Government agency responsible for growing the state's defence industry and maximising South Australia's participation in Australia's defence investment. Appointed to the role in 2024, he was noted at appointment as someone already embedded in the Adelaide defence industry community. South Australia accounts for the majority of Australia's defence industry output, and Defence SA's work in connecting local companies to contracts, investment, and workforce development programs is directly consequential for the employment and economic growth of the greater Adelaide region. The expansion of defence investment under AUKUS has made the Chief Executive role one of the most strategically significant public sector positions in the state.

10. Jim McDowell

Jim McDowell became Chair of ASC Pty Ltd, the Commonwealth-owned naval shipbuilding and submarine sustainment company, on 1 January 2026. He is the former CEO of BAE Systems Australia, under whose leadership the company grew to become Australia's largest defence firm with more than 6,500 employees and annual revenue of approximately $1.7 billion. He subsequently served as Chief Executive of the South Australian Department of the Premier and Cabinet and as CEO of Nova Systems, before being appointed Deputy Secretary Naval Building and Sustainment at the Australian Department of Defence in 2023. His career trajectory from the private defence industry into government and back to governance of the sovereign naval builder at the centre of Australia's AUKUS commitments is the kind of track record that makes a chair credible to a board, a workforce, and a government simultaneously.

11. Stuart Whiley

Stuart Whiley is the CEO and Managing Director of ASC Pty Ltd, the company responsible for building and sustaining Australia's naval vessels and submarine fleet from its facilities in Osborne, South Australia. In 2025, ASC partnered with Port Adelaide Football Club, a connection that reflects both the company's deep roots in the western suburbs of Adelaide and the scale of its community presence. The ASC's work at the centre of Australia's AUKUS commitments and naval shipbuilding program makes the CEO role one of the most consequential operational leadership positions in Australian industry, managing a workforce engaged in some of the most technically demanding manufacturing in the country during a period of significant AUKUS-related expansion.

12. Catherine Grace

Catherine Grace is the Director of the South Australian Space Industry Centre, the government agency whose mandate is to position South Australia as the undisputed centre of Australia's space industry. A physician and clinical researcher with expertise in defence, space, cyber, health, medicine, and disruptive technologies, the role at SASIC brings an unusual interdisciplinary perspective to an agency at the frontier of industrial development. Based at Lot Fourteen, the work of SASIC involves partnership with government, industry, and academia to build the innovation ecosystem, investment environment, and talent pipeline that sustains South Australia's space sector.

13. Mark Ledson

Mark Ledson is a Business Development Manager with the South Australian Office of the Chief Entrepreneur, part of the Department of State Development, and one of the most consistently active voices in Adelaide's innovation ecosystem. He has more than 25 years of experience in commercialisation roles within both industry and government, including more than 12 years as an industrial designer helping South Australian companies develop new products. His daily engagement with founders, investors, and government programs, combined with regular LinkedIn commentary on the state's startup landscape, manufacturing support, and innovation policy, makes him a practically useful connector in an ecosystem where the gap between a promising idea and a funded company is often bridged by exactly the kind of knowledge and network he holds.

3. Health, Wellbeing, and Social Services

The leaders sustaining and advancing the health and social services infrastructure that South Australians depend on.

14. Steve Wesselingh

Steve Wesselingh is the Executive Director of the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, a role he has held since SAHMRI's establishment in 2011. Under his leadership, SAHMRI has grown to house more than 800 researchers working across cancer biology, infection and immunity, heart health, Indigenous health, brain and mental health, and women's and children's health in a purpose-built facility on North Terrace. His 14-year sustained leadership of SAHMRI has been directly responsible for the institution's growth into one of Australia's most significant independent health and medical research organisations, the anchor of Adelaide BioMed City, and a major contributor to the state's international research reputation. The scale of investment, talent, and collaborative infrastructure assembled from Adelaide is an extraordinary achievement for a city of South Australia's size.

15. Maria Makrides

Maria Makrides is a Professor at Adelaide University and Theme Leader for SAHMRI's Women's and Children's health research, having spent her career at the intersection of nutritional science, clinical research, and health outcomes for women and infants. In 2019 she was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, one of Australia's most selective research distinctions. Her research on the role of omega-3 fatty acids in pregnancy and early childhood has influenced clinical practice and nutritional guidelines globally. Based in Adelaide for her entire research career, she represents the depth of genuinely world-class research talent that the combination of SAHMRI, the Women's and Children's Hospital, and Adelaide's university sector has cultivated over decades.

16. Mohammad Afzal Mahmood

Mohammad Afzal Mahmood is a public health expert based in Adelaide whose more than two decades of work spans local community health and international health system development. Working with local authorities in Timor Leste, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea, the work helped introduce lasting changes among healthcare practitioners that led to documented decreases in maternal and infant mortality, a contribution recognised by nomination as a South Australian 2026 Australian of the Year nominee. The combination of Adelaide-based community health engagement and international public health impact in developing countries reflects a career built on practical impact rather than institutional prestige.

17. Stephanie Clota

Stephanie Clota is the CEO of GPEx, the South Australian primary health network that supports general practitioners, allied health professionals, and practice teams across Adelaide and regional South Australia. Serving as a board director of the Committee for Adelaide connects the primary health sector to the cross-sector civic leadership conversation about Adelaide's future. Primary health networks sit at the interface between federal health funding and frontline clinical practice, and GPEx's work directly shapes the quality, sustainability, and innovation capacity of general practice in South Australia. Leadership of an organisation that supports the health workers providing the first point of contact for most of South Australia's population makes the GPEx CEO role one of the most practically consequential health system positions in the state.

18. Callum MacPherson

Callum MacPherson is the host and founder of Young Blood, an Adelaide podcast dedicated to men's mental health and wellbeing that has produced more than 250 episodes since its founding in 2019. He created it after losing a friend to suicide, finding that no accessible platform existed for young men to share their experiences. Young Blood won Best Wellbeing Podcast at the 2024 Australian Podcast Awards and has contributed to a genuine cultural shift in how mental health is discussed among its audience. A 2026 South Australian Australian of the Year nominee, his work is evidence that the most consequential health interventions are not always clinical. By creating a podcast that models honest conversation about mental health among men, he has helped change the conditions in which young men seek and receive support.

19. Jeremy Schulz

Jeremy Schulz became Chief Executive of Uniting Communities in June 2025, joining an organisation that serves more than 80,000 South Australians each year across programs addressing homelessness, child protection, youth employment, family support, settlement services, and disability support, with roots in South Australian community services extending back more than 120 years. He brings more than 20 years of experience in community, social, and for-purpose sector leadership to a role whose scale makes it one of the largest social services operations in the state. The decisions Uniting Communities makes about which communities it serves and how it advocates in the policy environment directly affect tens of thousands of South Australians living in conditions of vulnerability.

4. Education and Science

The researchers, educators, and institutional leaders building South Australia's knowledge economy.

20. Nicola Phillips

Nicola Phillips is the Vice Chancellor and President of Adelaide University, commencing in the role in January 2026. Adelaide University was formed through the merger of the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia, entering operation in January 2026 as a new Group of Eight member. She has approximately 30 years of experience across Australian and British universities and held the Provost role at the University of Melbourne from 2021 to 2025 before her appointment to lead Adelaide University. A Professor of Political Economy with research interests in global economic development and labour standards, her leadership decisions in the formative years of Adelaide University will shape the intellectual and economic character of South Australia for decades.

21. Colin Stirling

Colin Stirling is the Vice-Chancellor and President of Flinders University, having overseen the university's continued rise in global rankings, including a jump from 380th to 336th in the QS World University Rankings between 2024 and 2025. Born and educated in Scotland, he leads a university whose main campus is in Bedford Park and whose strategic partnerships span defence, health, education, and technology. Flinders University became the oldest extant South Australian university following the creation of Adelaide University, and his leadership during the period of Adelaide's higher education sector restructuring has been directly relevant to the future of thousands of students, hundreds of researchers, and the many industry partnerships that sustain the state's innovation ecosystem.

22. Louka Parry

Louka Parry is the CEO and founder of The Learning Future, an Adelaide-based organisation working with schools, education systems, and organisations globally to prepare them to lead and learn in a rapidly changing world. Listed among Australia's Top 100 Innovators, named South Australian Inspirational Public Secondary Teacher of the Year after becoming a school principal at 27, and having worked with high-level policy audiences including the OECD, UNESCO, and the European Commission, he speaks five languages and holds two Masters degrees. His combination of deep roots in South Australian education and genuine global reach makes him one of the most distinctive Adelaide-based voices in the global conversation about how education must change to meet the conditions facing learners and workers in the decades ahead.

23. David Paton

David Paton is an Emeritus Professor at Adelaide University who has dedicated more than four decades to conservation science and environmental education in South Australia. Through roles as educator, researcher, and leader of environmental organisations, the work has motivated many South Australians to take a proactive role in conserving and restoring ecosystems. A 2026 South Australian Australian of the Year nominee, the contribution to biodiversity science and community environmental action extends well beyond the laboratory. Research on the ecology of honeyeaters, the functional importance of native plants in urban environments, and the conditions that allow threatened species to recover has been foundational to conservation practice in South Australia. The trust that community environmental groups, landholders, and government agencies place in this expertise reflects a research career built on both scientific rigour and sustained public engagement.

24. Tiahni Adamson

Tiahni Adamson is a conservation biologist and STEM advocate based in Adelaide, holding a Bachelor of Science from the University of Adelaide. Named the CSIRO Superstar of STEM for both 2023 and 2024, a recognition specifically awarded to scientists who build public engagement with and understanding of science, she is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman of Kaurareg descent born in Adelaide and one of the most visible advocates for both environmental science and Indigenous women in STEM in South Australia. A finalist for South Australian Woman of the Year 2023 and featured in InDaily's 40 Under 40, her work bridges conservation science, public communication, and community advocacy in ways that serve audiences well beyond the academic community.

25. Jasmine Vreugdenburg

Jasmine Vreugdenburg is the Director of the Innovation and Collaboration Centre at Adelaide University, the startup incubator that runs the Venture Catalyst and Venture Catalyst Space programs, supporting founders from early concept through to funded company. The ICC has graduated cohort after cohort of South Australian startups in fields including space, health technology, agrifood, and enterprise software. The ICC under Vreugdenburg's direction sits at the centre of the pipeline that turns research and founder talent from Adelaide's universities into investable companies. The programme's scale, its specific focus on deep tech and space, and its track record of companies that have gone on to raise significant capital make the Director role one of the most consequential positions in Adelaide's startup ecosystem.

26. Leanne Liddle

Leanne Liddle is the Deputy Chancellor of Flinders University, an Arrernte woman with deep connections to both South Australia and the Northern Territory, and one of the most senior Indigenous leaders in South Australian higher education governance. Her presence at the most senior level of governance for a major South Australian university is significant both institutionally and as a marker of changed expectations about who holds governance authority in Australian universities. Advocacy for Indigenous governance and representation across the higher education and broader public sectors reflects a sustained commitment that reaches well beyond the Flinders University role.

5. Arts, Culture, and Creative Industries

The leaders running the institutions that make Adelaide one of the world's great cultural cities.

27. Kate Gould

Kate Gould became CEO of Adelaide Festival Centre in July 2025, returning to the city where she previously served as CEO and Associate Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival and as Chair of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. She co-founded Dark Mofo, the Mona winter arts festival in Hobart, and led Brisbane Powerhouse before her Adelaide return. The Adelaide Festival Centre presents more than 1,000 events annually to more than one million audience members and contributed more than $164 million to the South Australian economy in its 50th year. Her return is a signal of intent, bringing international curatorial experience, a track record of growing festival attendance and revenue, and a deep understanding of Adelaide's arts ecosystem.

28. Julian Hobba

Julian Hobba became Executive Director of the Adelaide Festival in September 2025, joining from State Theatre Company South Australia where he spent five years supporting some of the company's most ambitious productions. A proud South Australian who began his career as a playwright in Melbourne's independent theatre sector, he has held leadership roles at The Blue Room Theatre in Perth and the Centenary of Canberra. The Adelaide Festival is one of Australia's most significant international arts events, drawing performers and audiences from across the world every March. Leadership alongside Artistic Director Matthew Lutton determines the character and ambition of the festival for the years ahead.

29. Matthew Lutton

Matthew Lutton is the Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival, named to the role for the 2026 to 2028 editions in March 2025. One of Australia's most respected theatre directors, with productions delivered for Melbourne Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, and international venues before the Adelaide appointment, he is responsible for the curatorial vision of the festival, deciding which artists and ideas enter into dialogue with Adelaide's audiences and which international conversations the city participates in through performance, installation, and interdisciplinary work. The artistic director of a major international festival holds one of the most symbolically significant creative positions in Australian cultural life.

30. Tara MacLeod

Tara MacLeod is the Acting CEO of Adelaide Fringe, leading the world's second-largest open-access arts festival through a transition period following the November 2025 departure of long-serving CEO Heather Croall. In 2025, Adelaide Fringe generated total expenditure of $197.7 million, with $144.2 million identified as new money to South Australia's economy, while ticket sales exceeded one million for the first time. Stewardship of the Fringe during the global search for a permanent successor, concluded with the announcement of incoming CEO Marc Carnes from July 2026, has been an exercise in exactly the kind of executive competence that large cultural organisations depend on during leadership transitions.

31. Paul Hamra

Paul Hamra is the founder and Managing Director of Solstice Media, the South Australian media company that publishes InDaily, SALIFE, CityMag, InReview, The New Daily, Premium Property, The Post, and The Weekend Edition. In March 2025 he was appointed Chair of the Adelaide Fringe, bringing governance and media experience to Australia's largest arts festival. He founded Solstice Media in 2004 and has served as deputy chair of the Australian Film Commission. InDaily's Corporate Ladder column, 40 Under 40 program, and political and cultural journalism have become the primary record of how South Australian professional life moves and changes. As Fringe Chair, he connects the arts sector's most significant event to the city's wider business and civic community.

6. Business, Property, and Professional Services

The leaders shaping Adelaide's commercial landscape, built environment, and professional sector.

32. Anna Wiley

Anna Wiley is the Asset President of BHP's Copper South Australia business, responsible for overseeing operations that sit at the centre of South Australia's resource wealth and global strategic importance. At the Copper to the World conference in Adelaide in August 2025, the BHP address outlined how the company is investing in emissions reduction, renewable energy integration, and long-term water solutions to support a sustainable copper industry at genuine scale. South Australia holds approximately 70 per cent of Australia's copper resources, and copper is one of the most strategically important metals in the global energy transition. Leadership of BHP's South Australian copper operations at this particular moment in global energy and resource history places the Asset President among the most consequential executives in the state by any measure of economic and strategic significance.

33. Trevor Cooke

Trevor Cooke is the CEO of Commercial and General, South Australia's largest private property developer, with a $6 billion track record in development and delivery including state-significant projects such as the Australian Bragg Centre for Proton Therapy and Research at Adelaide BioMed City, the South Australian Police headquarters, and the Victoria Tower residential development. Before leading Commercial and General, he was Managing Director and Global Head of Real Estate, Asia Pacific for UBS Global Asset Management. His combination of global capital markets experience and deep Adelaide market knowledge makes him one of the most connected property executives in the state. He sits on the boards of Junction Australia, the Asia Pacific Real Estate Association, and the Property Council of Australia.

34. Bruce Djite

Bruce Djite is the Executive Director of the Property Council of Australia's South Australian Division, having moved to the role in early 2023 after serving as CEO of the Committee for Adelaide. A former professional footballer who played for Adelaide United and represented the Australian Socceroos internationally, he has built a significant profile in South Australian business and advocacy since retiring from professional sport. Leadership of the Property Council SA has placed him at the centre of housing affordability, planning reform, and investment environment debates in South Australia at a moment when Adelaide is experiencing genuine population and construction growth. He is among the most visible business voices on LinkedIn in the state.

35. Natasha Malani

Natasha Malani is the CEO of South Australian Leaders, the organisation that connects and accelerates some of South Australia's most dynamic privately-held businesses through its Executive Leaders and Future Leaders programs. Up to 25 established companies join the Executive Leaders Series each year to access networks, investment opportunities, and growth support. Leadership of an organisation that operates at the heart of South Australia's entrepreneurial community provides a distinctive vantage point on the health, ambitions, and challenges of the state's privately-owned business sector. Regular events and programs build genuine peer communities among owners and executives who want to grow beyond the state's geographic boundaries.

36. Hendri Mentz

Hendri Mentz is the Managing Partner of Deloitte South Australia, leading the Adelaide practice of one of the world's largest professional services firms. With more than 26 years of experience in risk and control transformation, combined assurance, enterprise risk management, and business consulting for complex organisations, service on the Committee for Adelaide board connects professional services leadership to the cross-sector civic conversation about Adelaide's future. Deloitte SA serves clients across the state's government, corporate, and not-for-profit sectors, and the quality of advisory services available to Adelaide organisations directly influences the quality of their strategic decision-making.

37. Liam Golding

Liam Golding is the Chief Executive of the Urban Development Institute of Australia's South Australian Division, the peak body for South Australia's property development and construction sector. The UDIA SA's awards and advocacy programs, including the annual Awards for Excellence, shape the standards and recognition systems for an industry responsible for building the homes, offices, and community spaces of Adelaide's future. Leadership of an industry association whose members are building at a scale not seen in Adelaide for decades, against the backdrop of a state housing affordability challenge shared with every major Australian city, makes him one of the most visible voices on urban development policy in South Australia.

38. Annoushka Scharnberg

Annoushka Scharnberg is a Partner at Mills Oakley and the winner of the UDIA SA Women in Leadership Award for 2025, an honour that recognised significant contribution to addressing gender imbalance in the property development and legal sectors in South Australia and expertise and professionalism in the field. UDIA SA Chief Executive Liam Golding noted that leaders like Scharnberg elevate the urban development sector. The combination of legal depth in the property sector and commitment to building conditions for the next generation of women in development makes the contribution influential beyond any single practice.

39. Sam Dighton

Sam Dighton is the Chief Executive of the Committee for Adelaide, the non-partisan, independent membership organisation that brings together businesses, industry bodies, community organisations, and government to shape Adelaide's future. A South Australian who left the state, worked overseas, and returned, he leads an organisation whose members represent a significant cross-section of Adelaide's institutional leadership. The Committee for Adelaide plays a structurally distinctive role in the city's civic life, convening conversations across sector boundaries on topics including economic productivity, urban benchmarking, talent attraction, and the city's global positioning. The 2025 Benchmarking Adelaide Report, commissioned from leading urban intelligence firm The Business of Cities and comparing Adelaide against 20 similar international cities, represents exactly the kind of evidence-based civic advocacy that helps a city understand itself more honestly.

7. Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Research

Adelaide's founders, innovators, and researchers building the next generation of the state's economy.

40. Karen Nelson-Field

Karen Nelson-Field is the founder and CEO of Amplified Intelligence and a Professor of Media Innovation at Adelaide University, having spent a decade at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science before founding her company in 2016. Research on human attention in advertising has established attention measurement as a credible, empirically grounded alternative to impression-based metrics in the global advertising industry. Speaking regularly at Cannes and SXSW, work referenced in the New York Times, Bloomberg, Forbes, and the Australian Financial Review, Karen Nelson-Field is one of the very few Adelaide-based researchers to have established a genuinely global commercial operation built directly on their research.

41. Jason Dunstone

Jason Dunstone is the founder and CEO of Square Holes, an Adelaide-based qualitative research and insights company that has worked with arts organisations, tourism bodies, cultural institutions, and businesses across Australia to understand what people think and why. A trustee of the Adelaide branch of the Awesome Foundation, a global micro-philanthropy network, he is a consistent contributor to public conversation about urban experience, cultural economics, and what Adelaide residents want from their city. Square Holes' body of work at the intersection of market research and cultural and civic institutions gives a view of Adelaide's community and creative economy that is distinctive precisely because it is grounded in evidence rather than assertion.

42. Andy Lee

Andy Lee is the co-founder of The WOD Life, an Adelaide-founded functional fitness brand that has grown from a bedroom operation in 2013 to one of Australia's leading fitness apparel and equipment retailers. He won the Game Changer Award at InDaily's 40 Under 40 Gala Awards in 2025, where Associate Professor Sally Rao Hill from the University of Adelaide Business School described him as a visionary leader transforming a local startup into a global powerhouse. The company's growth from a gap identified in the CrossFit accessories market to a national presence with a mission to build the world's best training brand is one of the more compelling Adelaide startup stories of the past decade.

43. Johnny Tran

Johnny Tran is the founder and CEO of Comfresh Group, one of Australia's largest fresh vegetable suppliers, which he built from the wholesale produce business his mother, Oanh Nguyen, began some 25 years ago. By 37, Comfresh had more than 1,000 growers on its books from across the country and annual revenues that made it a genuine agricultural heavyweight. He appeared in InDaily's 40 Under 40 for 2025. His story is a particularly Adelaide one, a second-generation business builder who grew up in a family enterprise, separated the farming from the wholesaling side to build institutional scale, and has consistently reinvested in the South Australian supply chain that made the growth possible.

44. Josh Garratt

Josh Garratt is the co-founder of Eastend Ventures, South Australia's first and only unconditionally registered ESVCLP (Early Stage Venture Capital Limited Partnership), launched in June 2025 with an initial close toward a $50 million target. With co-founder JD Sheard, Eastend Ventures backs B2B technology founders in South Australia, Western Australia, and Queensland, specifically targeting companies that national venture capital firms might overlook. Significance to Adelaide's startup ecosystem is structural rather than reputational. The absence of local venture capital has been identified by founders as one of the most significant constraints on startup growth in South Australia, and the establishment of a professionally managed local fund addresses a gap that has existed for years.

45. Shu Guo

Shu Guo is the founder and director of AUTA Group, the Adelaide property developer responsible for some of the city's tallest residential towers, including Victoria Tower, completed in September 2025 three months ahead of schedule, with 289 residences in the Adelaide CBD. Arriving in Australia as an international student and launching AUTA Group 14 years ago, the path from a single house in Torrensville to developer of signature high-rise projects in the city centre is a story that resonates with the multicultural, entrepreneurial character of contemporary Adelaide. The company's capacity to deliver complex construction projects on time and to quality is the kind of operational track record that matters far more than public profile in the built environment sector.

8. Community, Advocacy, and Built Environment

Leaders working to make Adelaide a more equitable, connected, and well-designed city and community.

46. Ayesha Fariha Safdar

Ayesha Fariha Safdar is the founder and president of the Adelaide Pakistani Women's Association, established in 2010 to create a safe, inclusive space for Pakistani women adjusting to life in Australia. Over 15 years, the Association has expanded to serve women from all cultural backgrounds, running cultural events, promoting women-owned small businesses, and creating education pathways into childcare, nursing, and community services. A 2026 South Australian Australian of the Year nominee, the contribution is to have built a community institution from scratch in a city where the needs of newly arrived migrant and refugee women had not previously been met in a culturally specific, practically useful way.

47. Kerrynne Liddle

Kerrynne Liddle is a Senator for South Australia, sworn in as a federal senator in July 2022 and recognised as the first Indigenous federal member of parliament from South Australia. An Arrernte woman, she studied at both the University of South Australia and the University of Adelaide and worked as a journalist before entering federal politics as a member of the Liberal Party. Significance as a South Australian leader operates at multiple levels: as a historic first for Indigenous representation in South Australian federal politics, as a trained communicator who has brought media skills to political advocacy, and as someone whose background bridges remote central Australia and Adelaide's professional and political institutions.

48. Gianna Murphy

Gianna Murphy is the CEO of Renew Adelaide, the not-for-profit that activates vacant city spaces by connecting emerging businesses and creative entrepreneurs with property owners through a rent-free, short-term leasing model. She has been with Renew Adelaide since 2016, moving through property and operations roles before becoming CEO. In August 2025 alone, the organisation announced five new tenancies in the Gawler Place Edments Building and seven more creative businesses at North Adelaide Railway Station. In the last financial year, Renew Adelaide generated 131 jobs for small businesses, received 1,348 expressions of interest from entrepreneurs, an increase of 34 per cent on the previous year, and secured three years of AEDA funding worth more than $969,000. Leadership of an organisation that makes it possible for first-time business owners to test their ideas in physical spaces is a practical contribution to the vitality of Adelaide's commercial and creative streetscape.

49. Madeleine Steele

Madeleine Steele is an Associate Director and Studio Leader at Hames Sharley, where she leads a team of 40 multidisciplinary designers and professionals and won the UDIA SA Stuart Main Young Leader Award for 2025, with UDIA SA Chief Executive Liam Golding describing her leadership as grounded in empathy and collaboration. She knew she would be an architect, she has said, as early as she can remember understanding that she would one day need a job. Leadership of a large multidisciplinary design studio at one of South Australia's significant architecture firms, combined with recognition as the state's leading young professional in the urban development sector, makes her one of the most interesting figures watching in South Australian design and built environment leadership.

50. Caillin Howard

Caillin Howard is the Managing Director of Hames Sharley, the Adelaide-headquartered architecture, interior design, and urban planning firm that has helped shape many of South Australia's most significant public and commercial buildings. Service on the Committee for Adelaide board brings a high-level understanding of urban design, architecture, and the commercial and institutional sectors that most directly define the physical character of Adelaide. Leadership of one of the most established architecture and design practices in South Australia gives both the depth of sector knowledge and the breadth of built-environment relationships that make this a credible voice in conversations about how Adelaide should grow, what its new buildings should do for the city, and what design standards should be expected of a place that takes civic quality seriously.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

South Australia has leadership depth that goes well beyond 50 people. A number of figures came close and deserve acknowledgement. Heather Croall, who stepped down as CEO of Adelaide Fringe in November 2025 after a decade that took ticket sales from 450,000 to more than one million, has reshaped what the Fringe is. Douglas Gautier, who retired as CEO of Adelaide Festival Centre in June 2025 after nearly 19 years, oversaw the growth of annual audiences to one million. Susan Close, who served as Deputy Premier of South Australia from 2022 to 2025 before her departure from state politics, was one of the most substantive figures in the Malinauskas government's first term. Their departures from their roles happened within the past 12 months and are the only reason they are not among the 50 listed above.

Common Mistakes Adelaide Leaders Make

The most common leadership error in Adelaide is the assumption that the city's culture of collaboration and relationship is a substitute for structural rigour. Adelaide's networks are genuinely strong, and the close connections between government, industry, and community that characterise the city are often its most important asset. But the same closeness can create blind spots about strategic direction, performance accountability, and the hard conversations that well-functioning organisations need to have.

A second pattern is the reluctance to bring conflict into the open early. Adelaide is a city where people often know each other across sector boundaries, which creates social pressure to manage disagreements quietly rather than surface them as productive tensions. The leaders on this list have generally found ways to navigate that pressure without either sacrificing the collaboration that Adelaide's scale enables or avoiding the difficult conversations that genuine accountability requires.

Bring Jonno White in to facilitate your team's next strategic offsite or performance conversation. He is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator and author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold), with experience working with teams across Australia and internationally. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

A third mistake is underestimating Adelaide's actual capability and overestimating how much of the best talent, capital, or opportunity lies elsewhere. Adelaide has produced internationally competitive organisations in space technology, medical research, arts, food production, and defence, and the leaders who have built those organisations have done so from here, not despite being here but in many ways because of the particular combination of institutional support, affordable operations, collaborative culture, and research infrastructure the city provides.

Implementation Guide: Engaging Adelaide's Leadership Community

Adelaide's leadership community is more connected and more accessible than in larger Australian cities. The first step is to follow the people on this list on LinkedIn, where those active on the platform are posting regularly and the quality of their content is genuinely high. The second step is to attend the events that bring Adelaide leaders together: the Committee for Adelaide forums, the South Australian Leaders events, the InDaily 40 Under 40 program, and the sector-specific conferences from UDIA SA, the Property Council, SOUTHSTART, and the Australian Space Forum.

The third step is to support Adelaide's arts institutions. The Adelaide Festival, Adelaide Fringe, Adelaide Festival Centre, and State Theatre Company South Australia are all accessible to audiences and donors at a variety of levels, and the leaders who run them are genuinely interested in the community that surrounds them. This is not peripheral to leadership development. Cultural engagement is how Adelaide's leaders talk to each other outside their professional contexts, and it matters.

For organisations that want to accelerate team development, build leadership alignment, or run a genuinely challenging executive offsite, hire Jonno White. He works with leadership teams in Adelaide and across South Australia and regularly travels to deliver Working Genius workshops, team facilitation, and Step Up or Step Out keynotes. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the most influential leaders in Adelaide right now?

Adelaide's most influential leaders in June 2026 span government, space and defence, health and medical research, education, arts and culture, property and business, and community advocacy. At the most senior level, Premier Peter Malinauskas and Deputy Premier Kyam Maher set the policy direction for the state, while Vice Chancellors Nicola Phillips and Colin Stirling shape the intellectual and research infrastructure of South Australia's universities. In space and defence, Flavia Tata Nardini at Fleet Space Technologies, Matt Opie at Defence SA, and the leadership of ASC represent an industry at a moment of historical expansion.

What makes Adelaide's leadership different from other Australian cities?

Adelaide's leadership community is smaller and more connected than in Sydney or Melbourne, which creates both advantages and constraints. The advantages are genuine collaboration across sector boundaries, a willingness to try things that larger cities would committee to death, and a culture of civic engagement that means leaders in business, arts, and government frequently know each other personally. The constraints are a smaller pool of capital, less competition for talent within the city, and occasional insularity in the organisations that most need external challenge.

How do I connect with Adelaide's leadership community?

The most accessible entry points are LinkedIn, the Committee for Adelaide's member events, South Australian Leaders' monthly gatherings, and the Adelaide arts festivals, which bring together leaders from across the city's sectors in informal settings that larger cities find difficult to replicate. InDaily's Corporate Ladder column is the primary public record of executive movement in South Australia and is worth following for anyone who wants to understand who is moving where.

Final Thoughts

Adelaide is at a genuinely interesting moment. The space and defence industry expansion is real and funded, not speculative. The renewable energy transition has already happened, not is still happening. The medical research precinct is internationally recognised, not merely aspirational. The festival infrastructure is globally significant, not merely regionally competitive. The startup ecosystem is producing companies that raise national and international capital, not just local grants.

The leaders on this list are operating in conditions of genuine opportunity, against the backdrop of a city that has historically undersold itself and is only now beginning to understand its own competitive position. Whether in government, industry, the arts, or the community sector, they share a willingness to build from Adelaide rather than building somewhere else and connecting back. That is, in the end, what makes a city's leadership community.

To strengthen your own leadership team's dynamics, communication, and performance in Adelaide or anywhere in South Australia, engage Jonno White for a Working Genius workshop, executive offsite facilitation, or Step Up or Step Out keynote. Email jonno@consultclarity.org. International travel is often far more affordable than clients expect, and many organisations find that flying Jonno in costs considerably less than they expect.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, author of Step Up or Step Out, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and The Leadership Conversations podcast has featured 230+ episodes reaching listeners in more than 150 countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000+ participating leaders and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements. Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected.

Email: jonno@consultclarity.org

Book: Step Up or Step Out on Amazon AU

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Sources

Statistics and data in this blog were sourced from Startup Genome's 2024 Global Startup Ecosystem Report (startup ecosystem rankings), Study Adelaide (Adelaide BioMed City precinct data), the South Australian Government's Department for Energy and Mining (renewable energy and copper resources statistics), Austmine and the Australian Mining publication (Copper to the World 2025 conference), InDaily South Australia (Adelaide Fringe 2025 expenditure, 40 Under 40 data), Australasian Leisure Management (Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Festival Centre economic data), Wikipedia (official role and tenure data for public figures), and primary websites of organisations and individuals listed.