DisrupTV Episode 440

Malcolm Turnbull was the 29th Prime Minister of Australia. Prior to entering politics he enjoyed successful careers as a lawyer, investment banker and journalist.

Malcolm was born in 1954 and grew up in Sydney. For much of his childhood he lived alone with his father Bruce. While studying law at Sydney University, Malcolm worked as a journalist and continued doing so when he studied at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. It was during his time at Oxford that Malcolm met and was hired by Harold Evans, the editor of London’s Sunday Times newspaper. After his time at Oxford, where he married his wife Lucy, Malcolm returned to Australia and practised law where he quickly established a reputation as an effective advocate, most notably when he successfully defended former MI5 agent Peter Wright against the British Government, in the “Spycatcher” trial.

Malcolm established an investment banking firm in 1987 and during that time specialised in the media and technology sectors. He worked with some of the leading media moguls of the time including Rupert Murdoch, Kerry Packer, Conrad Black and Bob Maxwell and at the same time established a number of new businesses of his own.

He co-founded the first big Australian Internet company, OzEmail Ltd, listing it on the NASDAQ in 1996 and selling it to Worldcom three years later. Malcolm joined Goldman Sachs in 1997 becoming a partner of the firm the following year and headed their Australian business for four years until he retired to pursue a political career. He entered the Australian Parliament in 2004 and during that time served as Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Minister for Communications and as Prime Minister from 2015-18.

During his time as Prime Minister, Malcolm delivered an economic growth agenda that lead to record job creation on the back of cutting personal and company taxes. His government legalised same-sex marriage and reformed the school funding model to ensure a consistent, needs based approach across all school sectors. His government embarked on the largest peace-time expansion and modernisation of Australian defence forces and defence industry, including commissioning 54 new Naval vessels. Malcolm has a deep interest in energy issues and renewable energy. He recognised the urgent need for large scale storage to make intermittent renewables reliable and started the construction of the Snowy Hydro 2.0 pumped hydro scheme, which will be the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. He also identified the opportunity for similar pumped storage systems in Tasmania.

He successfully negotiated a deal with President Trump to maintain a refugee resettlement deal he had agreed to with President Obama. When Trump pulled out of the Trans Pacific Partnership, Malcolm refused to allow that 12 nation free trade deal to fall by the wayside, rallying the remaining eleven countries to commit to a continuing TPP-11. He radically reformed the way the Australian federal Government deals with states and cities, establishing a series of City Deals where the three levels of Government agree on common goals and then work together to realize them. As part of the Western Sydney City Deal, he commenced the construction of a new Airport for Sydney. At a time of growing nationalist sentiment across the world, he opposed racism and division at every turn, ensuring that Australia remains the most successful multicultural society in the world. Since leaving politics, Malcolm has resumed his business career and regularly speaks at global conferences. Malcolm is married to Lucy, the former Lord Mayor of Sydney and former Chief Commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission. He has two children, Alex and Daisy, and four grandchildren – Jack, Isla, Alice and Ronan.

Lucy Hughes Turnbull AO is an urbanist, businesswoman and philanthropist with a longstanding interest in cities, and technological and social innovation.

From 2015-20 she was the inaugural Chief Commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission, tasked by the NSW state government to assist in delivering strong and effective strategic planning for the whole of metropolitan Sydney. The GSC’s Plan ‘A Metropolis of Three Cities - rebalancing the Metropolis’ reimagines Sydney’s spatial, social and economic structure for the next 40 years.

Ms Turnbull was the first female Lord Mayor of the City of Sydney from 2003-4 and in 2011 she became an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the community, local government and business. She has served as a board member of multiple not for profit cultural and not for profit institutions.

She was Deputy Chair and later Chair of the Committee for Sydney (2005-15) which significantly increased its membership base and policy scope during her time there, and led the recruitment of Tim Williams as the CEO, due to his extensive urban policy experience, particularly in housing in the UK.

She has also sat on private and public company boards including WebCentral Limited(2004-6) a Brisbane based internet services company and led the merger of that company with Melbourne IT (2006-10).

Prior to her time in local government, she worked for several years as a solicitor, investment banker and in the family investment office.

In 2012 Ms Turnbull was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Business by the University of NSW, and in 2016 was appointed Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Built Environment, University of NSW. In 2017 she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Western Sydney University which she received for her substantial and sustained service and contribution to the University and the Greater Western Sydney region.

She and her husband Malcolm Turnbull have over many decades been involved in supporting many medical, research, social and cultural institutions. She is a trustee of the Art Gallery of NSW.

Dr. David A. Bray is a Distinguished Fellow and Chair of the Accelerator with the Alfred Lee Loomis Innovation Council at the non-partisan Henry L. Stimson Center. He is also a non-resident Distinguished Fellow with the Business Executives for National Security, and a CEO and transformation leader for different “under the radar” tech and data ventures seeking to get started in novel situations. He is Principal at LeadDoAdapt Ventures and has served in a variety of leadership roles in turbulent environments, including bioterrorism preparedness and response from 2000-2005. Dr. Bray previously was the Executive Director for a bipartisan National Commission on R&D, provided non-partisan leadership as a federal agency Senior Executive, worked with the U.S. Navy and Marines on improving organizational adaptability, and aided U.S. Special Operation Command’s J5 Directorate on the challenges of countering disinformation online. He has received both the Joint Civilian Service Commendation Award and the National Intelligence Exceptional Achievement Medal. David accepted a leadership role in December 2019 to direct the successful bipartisan Commission on the Geopolitical Impacts of New Technologies and Data that included Senator Mark Warner, Senator Rob Portman, Rep. Suzan DelBene, and Rep. Michael McCaul. From 2017 to the start of 2020, David also served as Executive Director for the People-Centered Internet coalition Chaired by Internet co-originator Vint Cerf and was named a Senior Fellow with the Institute for Human-Machine Cognition starting in 2018. Business Insider named him one of the top “24 Americans Who Are Changing the World” under 40 and he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. For twelve different startups, he has served as President, CEO, Chief Strategy Officer, and Strategic Advisor roles.

David’s passions include complicated, near-impossible missions involving humans and technology in challenging circumstances. Through the efforts of a team of “positive change agents”, he led the transformation of the Federal Communication Commission’s legacy IT with more than 207 different systems to award-winning tech. This included rolling out new cloud-based IT that achieved results in 1/2 the time at 1/6 the cost. He was the recipient of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronic Association’s Outstanding Achievement Award for Civilian Government. He also received the global CIO 100 Award twice, which usually is awarded to private sector Fortune 500 companies, both in 2015 and 2017, for his transformational leadership in change-adverse settings. From 2017-2021, he both worked with multiple services associated with the U.S. Department of Defense on improving organizational adaptability and countering disinformation online – including personally surviving a disinformation attack that occurred in 2018. In 2019, he was invited to give the AI World Society Distinguished Lecture to the United Nations on UN Charter Day. In 2025, he was invited to be an expert witness before a public Congressional hearing on AI, specifically to provide both verbal and written testimony as well as answers to questions from members of the U.S. Congress to help inform AI policies.

As Principal at LeadDoAdapt Ventures, Dr. Bray’s passions include providing Board-level and CEO-level leadership to different “under the radar” tech and data ventures seeking to get started in novel situations to include activities that shape the Future of Data, Bio, and Space. He provides strategic direction, advice, and leadership to organizations confronting turbulent environments on multiple topics ranging from quantum computing to commercial space endeavors; synthetic biology to data cooperatives paired with AI. He accepted a role of Co-Chair for 2016-2017 with an IEEE Committee focused on Artificial Intelligence, automated systems, and innovative policies globally and has been serving as a Visiting Executive In-Residence at Harvard University since 2015 and as a Faculty Member giving talks on Impact and Disruption at Singularity University since 2017. In 2021 and 2022, he was named a Distinguished Fellow with the Atlantic Council. In 2023, he was named a distinguished Academy Fellow with the National Academy of Public Administration focused on the role of transformative technologies, like AI, on public service. In 2022, the Business Executives for National Security welcomed him as a Distinguished Fellow focused on the intersection of transformative technologies, global collaborations, and over-the-horizon challenges for the future ahead. David has been an invited keynote speaker to CEOs, world leaders, and crowds of more than 3,000 participants at events in India, Vietnam, Australia, Taiwan, Dubai, South Africa, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Canada, Belgium, Sweden, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Sheri Jacobs is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, and innovation strategist who helps organizations unlock their creative potential by rethinking boundaries, risk, and leadership. As the founder of Avenue M Group, she has partnered with over 300 organizations and surveyed over half a million people to uncover what drives real transformation and growth.

She is the author of Pivot Point: Reshaping Your Business When It Matters Most and The Art of Membership, two bestselling books filled with practical, no-nonsense strategies for building smarter, more resilient organizations. Known for blending big ideas with humor and heart, Sheri’s talks and writing leave people inspired and ready to act.

When she’s not working with teams or speaking on stage, you’ll find her running, playing tennis, photographing wildlife in remote corners of the world, or at home in Denver, Colorado, with her husband, Jon, and their dogs.