Advancing Equity Through Systems Leadership

Abby Kempe is a Workforce Equity, Governance, and Psychosocial Safety Leader dedicated to advancing human rights and wellbeing through evidence-based, system-level reform. She brings 18 years of experience across heavy industry, defence, government, community sectors, and international consulting across Australia, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the United Kingdom.

As Chair of the Board at HerSpace, Abby leads governance and national strategy for Australia’s only organisation supporting women recovering from exploitation and modern slavery—ensuring ethical leadership is matched with measurable social impact.

In her national portfolio at Tradeswomen Australia, Abby shapes research pilots, equity frameworks, and psychosocial safety initiatives that support employers, unions and government partners to build safer, more inclusive workforce systems. She is the originator of several applied workforce equity frameworks and models, including an organisational needs hierarchy for the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union and the “Psychosocial Safety, Retention & ROI” model embedded across MAS National.

Guided by a psychoanalytic lens, Abby integrates depth-oriented insight with systems thinking, enabling organisations to understand the unseen drivers of behaviour, culture, power and resistance. Her approach translates analytical rigour into practical structures and evidence-based interventions that strengthen trust, leadership capability, and cultural evolution.

Abby also brings deep expertise in narrative curation for social impact, having authored speeches and materials aligned to United Nations priorities for notable public figures. Her work supports organisations to use language, story and evidence to shift discourse, mobilise communities, and build consensus around equity, safety and human rights.

Portfolio includes:
• Advising boards and executive teams on psychosocial safety, DEI, governance and culture reform
• Designing equity frameworks now used across construction, defence, manufacturing and trade sectors
• Leading national and international forums uniting industry, policymakers and unions around systemic reform
• Developing trauma-informed tools and training that position psychological safety as a performance driver
• Originating IP for causes, campaigns and applied practice models that scale social impact
• Delivering high-impact public speaking, keynote addresses, and large-scale workshops on equity, psychosocial safety, leadership and human rights
• Supporting clients across Australia, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the UK to integrate narrative strategy with organisation-wide reform

Abby’s qualifications span Psychology, Justice and Business:
• MBA (Distinction) — Sydney Business School, University of Wollongong
• Bachelor of Psychological Science — Deakin University
• Diploma of Justice — Swinburne University of Technology
• ACWA-accredited counselling qualification
She is also a member of the Institute of Community Directors Australia (MICDA).

Across her Australian and global portfolio, Abby is committed to shaping fair, safe, strategic and future-ready systems that honour human dignity and enable sustainable performance.