Empowering, consultative, uniter: Meet Sam Mostyn, the next governor-general

Everyone who has worked with Sam Mostyn across her varied business career mentioned one key characteristic that will aid her as governor-general: she can talk to everybody.

“She’ll be able to deal with people from all walks of life, I think, and she’ll do that with grace and humility. I think she will be a uniter in her role,” said Marc Purcell, the chief executive of the Australian Council for International Development.

He worked with Mostyn when she was the council’s president between 2013 and 2017, and said Mostyn had used her governance experience to gather all sorts of groups together to help drive policy change.

“She understands people have different styles, different views, different starting points, and she’s able to hold that, but she also keeps her eye on the bigger goal,” Purcell said.

Mark Vaile, a former deputy prime minister who has known Mostyn for two decades, said she was “one of the most appropriately experienced Australians to take on this job”.

“Sam’s had a significant level of experience in the business community. She also has a deep experience in and around politics in Australia, particularly on those specific issues of equity and diversity that she’s always pursued tirelessly,” said Vaile, who served on Virgin Australia’s board with Mostyn for almost a decade.

“Sam is someone who really does believe that of the broader Australian society, there are far more things that unite us than divide us.”

Mostyn is only the second woman to be appointed governor-general and the first businessperson of note to be picked for the role, but she is in familiar territory as a trailblazer.

In 2005, she was the first woman appointed to the AFL Commission, and was a commissioner for more than a decade. AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon said that during that time, Mostyn drove lasting change within the game.

“Mostyn was a driving force in the establishment of an elite pathway for women and girls in the game, leading to the creation of our AFLW competition, and powered the work for the AFL’s Respect and Responsibility Policy,” he said.

Mostyn then served as board director at her beloved Sydney Swans for six seasons from 2017.

Swans chair and investment banker Andrew Pridham said Mostyn’s long record in public and corporate life would help her in her new role.

“She’s obviously experienced in business and in more recent years at a governance level in for-profits and not-for-profits. She’s also got a huge network and that helps a real person in the real world. She’ll be really good as governor-general,” he said.

Pridham said she had also been a strong advocate for supporting Indigenous players and issues, and served as chair for Adam Goodes’ and Michael O’Loughlin’s GO Foundation, which supports Indigenous youth through education.

O’Loughlin, a Swans legend, said it didn’t take much convincing to get Mostyn’s help with the GO Foundation, and the organisation had gone from strength to strength because of her guidance.

“It’s an amazing choice for Australia, and I’m just so proud of her. I love her and I think she’s just one of the best people I’ve met in my life,” he said.

O’Loughlin said Mostyn had great compassion and empathy, and one of her best traits was her ability to work with people from all walks of life.

“Not many people can do that, can walk into a CEO’s office and talk business and strategy and planning, and all the things that you need to do to run a successful organisation, to talking to a 13-year-old young girl who might be struggling at school and might need some guidance,” he said.

Mostyn was also president of women’s advocacy group Chief Executive Women from 2021 to 2022, where she pushed the federal government for action to enable more women to get into work.

Chief Executive Women president Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz said Mostyn had transformed the agency at a critical time for Australian women.

“During her tenure, Sam was influential in government advocacy that saw the reinstatement of the single parenting payment, the expansion of Commonwealth paid parental leave and landmark investment in affordable early childhood,” Lloyd-Hurwitz said.

“As a highly empowering and consultative leader, Sam will no doubt excel in her new role as governor-general.”

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