Tom Bentley, an Icon of Change Award in Australia

Icons of Change™

Icons of Change International Awards 2026  Tom Bentley  Vice President, Strategy and Community Impact, RMIT University Co-Founder, Melbourne Innovation District  Partner, Synthesis Capital Former Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Policy Adviser to Prime Minister Julia Gillard   SDG Focus: Goal 17 – Partnerships for the Goals Changemaker for Public Policy, Innovation Ecosystems, Institutional Transformation, Place-Based Development and Cross-Sector Collaboration (Australia)  Tom Bentley is an Australian public policy thinker, institutional strategist and innovation leader whose career has been defined by a consistent ambition: to help institutions work differently so that knowledge, policy, innovation and collaboration can produce better outcomes for people and communities.  Across more than two decades spanning government, higher education, public policy, think tanks and innovation ecosystems, Tom has worked at the intersection of strategy, institutional change and public impact. His experience includes senior roles in the Australian and Victorian governments, leadership of the London-based think tank Demos, senior policy advising to Julia Gillard, and strategic leadership at RMIT University.  Today, as Vice President, Strategy and Community Impact at RMIT University, Tom plays a central role in translating institutional strategy into practical action while strengthening the University's contribution to communities, industry and society. His work brings together education, innovation, government, business and communities around complex challenges that cannot be solved by any one institution acting alone.  At the heart of Tom's contribution is a belief that knowledge matters most when it is translated into action, institutions create greater impact when they collaborate, and lasting change requires systems capable of learning and adapting over time.  From Public Policy to Institutional Transformation  Tom's career has developed across some of the most influential environments in Australian and international public policy. His work has included government, political strategy, education policy, institutional leadership, social innovation and innovation ecosystems, providing him with a rare understanding of how ideas move from policy discussions into institutions and, ultimately, into people's everyday lives.  Before joining RMIT, Tom held senior policy and advisory positions in both Australia and the United Kingdom. His experience in government placed him close to major questions concerning education, employment, public services, democratic participation, economic development and institutional reform.  From 2007 to 2013, Tom served as Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Policy Adviser to Julia Gillard, including during her periods as Australia's Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister. This work placed him at the centre of national policy development and implementation during a period of significant economic, social and political change.

Transcript

00:01Hello everyone, thank you for honouring me with this recognition. My name is Tom

00:06Bentley and I live in Naarm, Melbourne, Australia. Throughout my career I've

00:12worked to try to uncover and build ways of including people to create positive

00:19change in our community and to bring together inclusion and sustainability

00:24as values that support each other. It's a big and complex world and as our

00:33environment has been disrupted by shocks and drivers of the last decades, it has

00:40only got more uncertain, especially for those people in our world, in our

00:46communities, who are perhaps most vulnerable and least listened to in the

00:52processes of change. That's why I so much appreciate and value the work of icons

00:59of change and why I've seen in every decade of my work the need for us to

01:08better understand and appreciate the diverse members of our community

01:13wherever we might be and then work to bring together their voices, their

01:18perspectives, their potential contributions with the development of our economy, our

01:24institutions and our environmental systems and infrastructure. Tackling those big

01:34challenges really requires us to make big investments, to learn at a large scale, to

01:42understand what institutions need to do. Now in this decade of my career I work for a

01:48very large urban university, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, but my

01:53journey has taken me from working for governments to independent institutes and

01:59think tanks to working with networks and for-purpose organisations and community

02:05associations that can help to capture the voices and harness the power of people

02:12working in a purpose-driven way in their own community settings. What we really have

02:18to do is to learn to put all of those things together and to grow institutions

02:22that are capable of hearing, learning from and adapting to what knowledge and wisdom

02:30can show us. And I'm excited, I'm grateful, I'm deeply appreciative of being able to

02:41participate in another networked global community such as this one. Thank you.

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