Speeches
Thursday, 27 November 2025
2025 Governor’s Leadership Foundation Graduation Ceremony
I’m pleased to join you this evening for the graduation ceremony of the 2025 Governor's Leadership Foundation Program, this year in The Star Room, which sounds like the right place to be for this group.
As your patron, I’m delighted to be attending my fifth GLF graduation.
At the first, in 2021, only a few weeks after I was sworn in, I was struck by the strong emotional response of the graduates – a wide range of adults from diverse backgrounds, brought together through their shared leadership journey.
No doubt many of you are feeling a similar way today.
What sets the GLF program apart is how deeply participants engage with each other, sharing not just ideas but parts of themselves, forging bonds that I see reflected year after year in these ceremonies and among graduates who completed the program decades ago.
Commissioned last year to mark the 25th anniversary, the GLF Impact Report indicates that 92 percent of alumni surveyed felt more prepared to meet challenges in a world of escalating complexity and ambiguity as a result of their participation.
90 percent also said they didn't feel nervous when faced with work challenges because of the skills they learnt from the program.
Id hazard a guess that you all have achieved a similar level of confidence.
This evening you officially join the alumni body. You are now part of an accomplished network of more than 800 graduates, whose training has equipped them to bolster South Australia's future.
As Governor, fostering leadership is one of my six priorities, and as patron of the Leaders Institute, I am proud to support a program that develops leaders who strengthen our community.
As I have said at previous graduations, good leadership is vital as our world grapples with geopolitical tensions, climate change and other environmental challenges, and other global problems, and maybe the odd local problem too.
We need leaders with vision, humanity, integrity and initiative – inclusive leaders who listen and are generous.
But leadership is not confined to boardrooms or high offices; it is essential at every level of our community, in our personal and professional lives, in the choices we make each day about how we engage with others and contribute to our shared future.
The Governor's Leadership Foundation is contributing to a culture of leadership, and you, as alumni, become ambassadors of that culture, spreading it through your workplaces, your networks, your communities.
I particularly thank you for your participation in the Community Action Projects, working with organisations including Village Co., St John's Youth Services, Play It On, Tjindu Foundation, MOSAIC, Wyatt Trust and Kaurna Warra Karrpanthi.
These projects demonstrate that leadership is not about what you can do for yourself, but what you can do for the good of society.
Along with the program's content, you have learnt something equally vital - how to sustain yourselves and each other as leaders through networks.
I encourage you to maintain these connections, not just as specialists in your fields but as a community of leaders who can support and challenge each other in the years ahead.
A community which will help you sustain and grow the networks you have built.
A community which will share generously of its wisdom and strength.
I also acknowledge families and friends here tonight who have supported graduands throughout this program.
Thank you for sharing your loved ones with the GLF over these months and for understanding that their commitment to this journey meant time away from you.
To the Leaders Institute, I thank you for continuing to help people fulfil their potential as leaders, with profound benefits for them and for our state.
And to our graduands: congratulations!
I wish you all the best as you implement what you have learnt about yourselves, about leadership, and about the contribution you can make to South Australia.