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2024 Keynote Speakers

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Professor Ronald Labonté

Professor Emeritus, University of Ottawa

Ronald Labonté is Professor Emeritus and former Distinguished Research Chair in Globalization and Health Equity in the School of Public Health and Epidemiology, University of Ottawa. He has enjoyed a 50-year career in public health spanning government positions, international consultancies, and universities. His earlier work focused on health promotion and social determinants of health. For the past 25 years his research has focused on the health equity impacts of diverse globalization processes, many of which form the content of his recent book, Health Equity in a Globalizing Era (Oxford University Press), awarded Book of the Year by the British Medical Association in 2021. He is co-Editor-in-Chief of the BMC journal, Globalization and Health, active with the People’s Health Movement (PHM), a frequent contributor to its flagship publication Global Health Watch, a co-editor of its 6th and 7th editions, and a member of the PHM Steering Council.

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Professor Sharon Friel

Professor of Health Equity, Director, Australian Research Centre for Health Equity (ARCHE), Australian National University

Sharon Friel is an ARC Laureate Fellow and Professor of Health Equity. She is Director of the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse, and the Australian Research Centre for Health Equity (ARCHE) at the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet), Australian National University. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia and the Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. Previously, she was Director of RegNet from 2014-2019, and Head of the Scientific Secretariat (University College London) of the World Health Organisation Commission on the Social Determinants of Health between 2005 and 2008. In 2014, her international peers voted her one of the world’s most influential female leaders in global health. Her interests are in the political economy of health equity; governance of the social, commercial and planetary determinants of health inequities; climate change, food systems, trade and investment. Her 2019 book “Climate Change and the People’s Health” highlights the importance of addressing the global consumptogenic system.

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Dr Benn McGrady

Directed the O’Neill Institute Initiative on Trade, Investment and Health | Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center

Benn’s research examines the intersection of public international law and health, with a particular focus on international trade and investment law and regulation of risk factors for non-communicable diseases. Benn has advised public health bodies, foreign governments and inter-governmental organizations on various aspects of public international law and has particular experience advising on the implications of international trade and investment agreements for domestic public health measures as well as on legal issues concerning the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Originally from Australia, Dr. McGrady holds a Bachelor of Arts, a Bachelor of Laws (hons) and a doctorate from Monash University in Melbourne, as well as a Master of Laws (dist) (Global Health Law) from the Georgetown University Law Center.

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Dr Bronwyn King AO

Founder, Director and CEO, Tobacco Free Portfolios

Dr. Bronwyn King AO began her medical career working as a doctor on the lung cancer ward at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. While doing her best to treat her patients (many of whom had started smoking in childhood) Dr King observed first-hand the truly devastating impact of tobacco - many deaths and much suffering. She was unaware that at the very same time she was investing in Big Tobacco via her compulsory superannuation (pension) fund. Tobacco Free Portfolios was set up in response to that uncomfortable discovery. Since then, Dr King has assembled an accomplished team that has been instrumental in advancing the switch to tobacco-free finance across the globe. Her 2017 TEDxSydney talk on tobacco-free finance has been viewed more than three million times.


A former elite swimmer who represented Australia and for ten years worked as Team Doctor for the Australian Swimming Team, Dr King is also an Australia Day Ambassador and an Ambassador for Big Brothers Big Sisters Australia. Dr King has received numerous awards in recognition of her unique contribution to local and global health, including being appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished service to community health and in 2019 was named the Melburnian of the Year, an award bestowed by the City of Melbourne.

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Ms Ana Novik

Head of investment, OECD

Ana Novik as Head of the Investment Division of the Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs, supports the Director in DAF’s contribution to the strategic orientations of the Secretary General, with a focus on improving the international investment climate, promoting good domestic policies to support investment and Responsible Business Conduct. She establishes strategies for the OECD to secure a leadership role in the international investment debate and to advance a more structured economic analysis of investment flows and impact. She also contributes to OECD-wide initiatives, including horizontal work streams on competitive neutrality, global value chains and OECD contributions to the G20. Prior to joining the OECD, Ms. Novik was the Ambassador Director of Multilateral Economic Affairs in the Economics Directorate of Chile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade from 2011 to 2014. 

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Dr Michelle Maloney

Co-Founder and Director, NENA

Dr Michelle Maloney (BA/LLB Hons ANU, PhD Griffith University) is the Co-founder and Director of the New Economy Network Australia (NENA) and Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA). She is an educator, writer and thought leader in the fields of ecocentrism, sustainability and Earth-centred governance. Michelle began her career 30 years ago as an environmental lawyer, then broadened her work to include multi-disciplinary approaches to creating ecocentric systems change. Today her work includes Earth laws, cross-cultural education, new economies, Earth-centred ethics, deep ecology and building local ecological custodianship programs. She is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Griffith Law Futures Centre and a Director of Future Dreaming, an Indigenous and non-Indigenous partnerships and education organisation.

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Professor L. Alan Winters

Emeritus Professor (Economics) University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex, U.K.

L Alan Winters CB is Professor of Economics. He is Principal Investigator and Co-Director of the ESRC-funded Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy and a Fellow and Founding Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory, both in the University of Sussex. He is a leading contributor to research and debate on Brexit and the UK's post-Brexit trade policy. From 2008 to 2011 he was Chief Economist at the British government’s Department for International Development (DFID), and from 2004 to 2007 Director of the Development Research Group of the World Bank. He was editor of The World Trade Review (2008-2020). He has also recently completed terms as Chairman of the Board of the Global Development Network, Membership of the Council of the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council and Chair of its Research Committee and Chief Executive Officer of the Migrating Out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium. He has advised, inter alia, various UK government departments, the OECD, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the European Commission, the European Parliament, UNCTAD, the WTO, and the Inter-American Development Bank. He was made a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 2012.

L Alan Winters is a leading specialist on the empirical and policy analysis of international trade, including that of Europe and of developing countries. He has published over two hundred and fifty articles and chapters and thirty books in areas such as regional trading arrangements, trade and poverty, non-tariff barriers, European integration, transition economies’ trade, international migration, agricultural protection and the world trading system. He has also published on small economies, global warming, pricing behavior and econometrics. His current work is substantially devoted to research and policy analysis on UK post-Brexit trade policy.

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Professor Kelley Lee

Professor, Canada Research Chair Tier I in Global Health Governance, Simon Fraser University

Dr. Lee is trained in International Relations and Public Administration with a focus on international political economy. She spent over twenty years at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She was a core member of donor-led studies of WHO reform during the 1990s. She co-established the WHO Collaborating Centre on Global Change and Health, and chaired the WHO Resource Group on Globalization, Trade and Health. Dr Lee also co-led the Guildford Archiving Project to secure public access to internal tobacco industry documents, and then the Global Tobacco Control Research Programme to analyze their contents in relation to the globalization of the tobacco industry. Her research has been funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Cancer Research UK, European Research Council, Health Canada, New Frontiers in Research Fund, Nuffield Trust, Rockefeller Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, UK Economic and Social Research Council, UN Population Fund, US National Institutes of Health, Wellcome Trust, World Health Organization and several governments.

She has authored 140+ peer-reviewed papers, 60+ book chapters and 15 books including The World Health Organization (Routledge, 2009), Researching Corporations and Global Health Governance (Rowman and Littlefield International with Ben Hawkins, 2016) and the Oxford Handbook of Global Health Politics (OUP with Colin McInnes and Jeremy Youde, 2020). She joined the Faculty of Health Sciences in 2011 as Associate Dean, Research and Director of Global Health. She is a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health, Royal College of Physicians, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

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Dr Jennifer Lacy-Nichols

Commercial Determinants of Health Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne

Dr Jenn Lacy-Nichols is a Victorian Health Promotion Foundation research fellow at the University of Melbourne in the Centre for Health Policy. Her research advances our understanding of how powerful businesses influence health and politics. Her current program of work explores opportunities for monitoring corporate political activities such as lobbying and political donations. She is a member of Transparency International Australia, the Governance, Ethics and Conflicts of Interest in Public Health network, the WHO’s expert group on Commercial Determinants of Health, the Public Health Association of Australia and Healthy and Sustainable Food Systems Australia. She was one of the lead authors on the seminal 2023 Lancet series on Commercial Determinants of Health. Her most recent exciting feat was being asked to provide evidence into the Federal Senate Inquiry into lobbying transparency in Canberra.

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Professor Fran Baum AO

Director, Stretton Health Equity/NHMRC Investigator Fellow, Stretton Institute/School of Social Science, University of Adelaide

Professor Fran Baum is a public health social scientist researching and advocating for healthy, equitable and sustainable societies. She is Director of Stretton Health Equity, Stretton Institute, University of Adelaide and an NHMRC Investigator Fellow Leadership 3 She received an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for her public health service. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and of the Australian Health Promotion Association.  She is a past National President and Life Member of the Public Health Association of Australia. She is the immediate past co-Chair of the Global Steering Council, People’s Health Movement  and a member of the PHM Advisory Council. She is the author of over 400 publications including: The New Public Health (2016, OUP) and Governing for Health (2019 OUP), co-editor of the Oxford Textbook of Global Public Health (2021).

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Mr Jason Mifsud

Mifsud Consulting

Jason Mifsud is a proud and active member of the Kirrae, Peek and Tjab Whurrong people of the Gunditjmara nation in south-west Victoria.
He is an experienced Non-Executive Director and is known as a forward thinker and visionary, having led significant cultural and organisational change through a number of high-profile positions over the past 20 years.
Jason is currently the Head of First Nations Affairs & Enterprise at Wesfarmers and also sits on numerous boards.
His career has been underpinned by fearless leadership and tireless advocacy and negotiation of social justice outcomes, Indigenous rights, and reconciliation.

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Dr Fabio Gomes

Advisor, Nutrition and Physical Activity, Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation

Dr Fabio Gomes is a Nutritionist, with a Masters in Population Studies and Social Research and a PhD in Public Health. He worked as a Ministry of Health Senior Officer in Brazil, for ten years, developing strategies to promote healthy eating practices in multiple settings; mobilising regulatory measures to reduce the demand for unhealthy products; and protecting health, food and nutrition public policies from interference of opposing commercial actors. As visiting scholar at the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health of New York University he studied corporations and related organizations’ products, practices and policies and their impact on food systems. He has worked advising and supporting UN agencies, governments, social movements, and professional, scientific and civil society organizations worldwide to promote food and nutrition security, regulate non-recommended products, and prevent conflicts of interest. Fabio is now the Regional Advisor on Nutrition and Physical Activity for the Americas at the Pan-American Health Organization/ World Health Organization supporting countries to design and implement food and nutrition public policies as well as to protect such policies from opposing interests.

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Dr Beau Cubillo

First Nations Senior Research Fellow, Menzies School of Health Research

Dr Beau Jayde Cubillo is a Larrakia and Wadjigan Aboriginal Early Carer Researcher based in Darwin and currently holds the position of First Nations Senior Research Fellow with Menzies School of Health Research. Beau’s portfolio is largely focused on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nutrition, health and wellbeing with particular focus on supporting Aboriginal-led and governed food related enterprises. Beau believes the rise of commercial influence must not come at the expense of health and wellbeing outcomes and the cultural integrity of Australis First Nations Peoples and is a matter of national interest.

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