KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Kemi Nekvapil
Keynote Speaker - Day 1 - Thriving Women Conference 2026
Kemi Nekvapil is one of the world’s leading credentialed coaches for female executives and entrepreneurs. She has authored four books; Raw Beauty, The Gift of Asking and best seller POWER - A woman's guide to living and leading without apology, along with the Audible Original podcast, POWER Talks with Kemi Nekvapil. Her latest book, ‘Grounded Success’, invites us to redefine success on our own terms.
Kemi is passionate about supporting leaders and teams to unlock obstacles that prevent values-based leadership. Having studied leadership and purpose at The Gross National Happiness Centre in Bhutan, trained as a yoga teacher in India with a 30-year yoga and meditation practice, Kemi understands there is a process for meaningful connection to ourselves, our work, our families and our communities.
Her clients have included Zoom, Atlassian, Commonwealth Bank, Audible, AFLW, and NBC Universal and Telstra. Invited to Richard Branson’s Necker Island Kemi sat on a panel discussing ‘humanity at work’ and is a Virgin Unite alumni of 100% Human At Work. Training with Dr Brenè Brown in Texas in 2019, Kemi facilitated the Dare to Lead™ program for five years. She is also mother of young adults, a wife, and an early-stage flower farmer.
Cathy McGowan
Keynote Speaker - Day 1 - Thriving Women Conference 2026
Cathy came to national attention when she won the seat of Indi as an independent in 2013. The community backed her again in 2016. In 2019 Indi made Australian political history when Dr Helen Haines was elected as Indi's second, independent woman. During her time as a politician Cathy actively worked in Parliament to develop policy around regional development, constitutional change for first nations people and a solution to the indefinite detention of asylum seekers. In 2019 she was awarded The Accountability Round Table award for political integrity.
Leaving Politics, Cathy was appointed Chair of the AgriFutures Australia, a leading agricultural research and development corporation. 2023-2026; She has taken a particular interest in the impact on rural and regional communities of the transition to renewable energy. She is an Officer in the Order of Australia, a Churchill fellow and lives very happily on her farm in the Indigo Valley in NE Victoria.
Olympia Yarger
Keynote Speaker - Day 2 - Thriving Women Conference 2026
Olympia Yarger is the kind of founder who sees a global problem and builds the solution from scratch — literally. In 2014, working from Canberra with a background in sustainability and an instinct for hard problems, she began rearing black soldier fly larvae on food waste and asking whether insects could do what industrial agriculture couldn't: close the loop between waste and nutrition. That experiment became Goterra.
A founding Director of the Insect Protein Association of Australia and a leading voice in the global insect bioconversion industry, Olympia's scientific contributions were recognised when the CSIRO named a newly discovered soldier fly species after her — Hermetia Olympiae. She has been named KPMG's Australian Tech Innovator of the Year and ACT Australian of the Year. What sets her apart as a leader is the rare combination she brings to every room: deep scientific curiosity, operational discipline, and an unshakeable belief that the hardest problems are the most rewarding to solve.
Tanya Lehmann
MC - Thriving Women Conference 2026
Raised on a sheep farm in Western Australia and now living in South Australia’s Riverland, Tanya Lehmann brings the grounded perspective and can-do spirit of rural Australia to everything she does.
Over more than three decades, her career has spanned healthcare leadership, national policy and board governance, including serving as Chair of the National Rural Health Alliance. Today, through her consultancy Aurora Meliora, Tanya works with communities, leaders and Boards to strengthen leadership, collaboration and collective impact.
Known for her warmth, humour and ability to navigate complexity with clarity, Tanya is passionate about amplifying the ingenuity and resourcefulness already present in rural communities and helping people connect, collaborate and unlock their collective potential.
When she’s not working with leaders and communities, you might find her with a wooden spoon, power tool, paintbrush or clay in her hands, indulging her love of creative mess.
Kimberley Furness
On The Couch Session - Thriving Women Conference 2026
Bendigo entrepreneur Kimberley Furness is an award-winning magazine publisher and chart-topping podcast host who spends her time sharing stories that centre on regional and rural women. As founder of OAK Magazine, she has built a career around amplifying the voices of female changemakers, business owners and leaders.
Kimberley is known for her warmth, curiosity and ability to uncover the story beneath the surface, helping women find the language for their work, impact and next chapter. In 2022, Kimberley was named AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award National Runner Up for her innovative work connecting regional and rural women.
Minnie Green
On The Couch Session - Thriving Women Conference 2026
When Minnie Green began her career as a commercial lawyer in Melbourne, she never imagined she would one day run a mixed farming enterprise in Victoria's Grampians region. Today, she and her husband jointly own and operate Mokepilly Pastoral Co, a mixed farming business that includes a growing free-range egg enterprise, while raising their two young daughters.
Having experienced agriculture as both a daughter-in-law entering a farming family and a professional working off-farm, Minnie brings a unique perspective to the conversation. As a lawyer, she worked with farming families navigating business structures and succession planning, as well as assisting clients through succession-related disputes; experiences that reinforced her belief that women need to be active participants in their homes, businesses and discussions that influence their future.
Minnie is passionate about championing the often-unseen contribution of women in agriculture - whether they are leading businesses, working on-farm, pursuing off-farm careers that often support the farm, carrying the invisible load at home, or raising the next generation.
Drawing on both her legal background and lived experience, Minnie hopes to encourage women to seek information, ask the questions that can feel uncomfortable and have the confidence to step into unfamiliar conversations, besides none of us should be spectators in decisions that shape our own future.
