Rate My Professor Rosemary Addis

Professor Rosemary Addis AM serves as Enterprise Professor in impact, sustainability and innovation in the Accounting discipline within the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne. She earned her law degree with first class honours from the University of Melbourne in 1990. Her professional career, spanning over three decades, commenced in law, where she advanced to equity partner at Allens-Linklaters, one of Melbourne’s top-tier firms. She was the first female lawyer sent overseas by the firm, spending several years in New York City in the 1990s, gaining admission to the New York bar and working at Kirkland & Ellis on transactions ranging from venture capital to mergers and acquisitions. Subsequently, she held a senior leadership position at The Smith Family, addressing barriers to educational equity. In policy roles, she worked in the Victorian Premier’s Department under the Honourable John Brumby AO, managing the National Reform Agenda into COAG for six years, and later as Social Innovation Strategist for the Australian Federal Government, spearheading new investment vehicles for social enterprise and public sector innovation.

Addis founded and chaired Impact Investing Australia for seven years as Executive Chair, earning recognition as Market Builder of the Year in 2018 and 2020, and led Australia’s engagement with the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment while contributing to the G8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce. She has advised SDG Impact at the United Nations Development Programme, the OECD Social Impact Investing Initiative, the World Economic Forum Ideas to Practice, and collaborated with Oxford University and Harvard Kennedy School. Currently, she is Founding Managing Partner of Mondiale Impact, Executive Director of Impact Strategist, Chair of Climate Ready Australia 2030 and the Sweef Capital Board of Advisors, Ambassador for the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment, Member of a World Bank Steering Group for Innovative Finance, and Non-Executive Director of Indigenous Business Australia. Her research interests encompass scaling impact ecosystems, governance and decision-making contributing to sustainable development, strategic asset allocation for impact, solutions-based innovation and investment, and innovative finance for impact. Her thought leadership appears widely, including Pursuit articles such as “It’s time for boards to get serious about impact” (2024), “By investing in women now, we will accelerate progress” (2024), and “People or planet? We must invest in both for a sustainable future.” Awards include Member of the Order of Australia (2020), recognition for lifetime contributions to impact (2020), top thought leader by Women in Finance (2017), Australia’s 100 Women of Influence (2015), and ranking among the world’s leading lawyers by Chambers Global (2002-2003). She also holds the position of Enterprise Fellow at the Melbourne Climate Change Law Centre, Melbourne Law School.