The awards run by The Australian Financial Review and Westpac and chosen by a nine-member judging panel, recognises and showcases influential women across Australia. Lizzie Brown said she is incredibly honoured to be chosen in the social enterprise/not-for-profit category for her role at EWB.
‘EWB partners with communities in Australia and internationally to facilitate meaningful and lasting change through volunteerism,’ Ms Brown explained. ‘We use our engineering knowledge and resources and work with local organisations, engineers and the wider community to address a lack of access to basic human needs such as clean water, sanitation and waste systems. ‘I became involved with EWB as a volunteer during its early days in as I believed in our vision in ensuring everyone has access to engineering knowledge and resources required to lead a life of opportunity and free from poverty. ‘We aim to connect, educate and empower people through humanitarian engineering.’
Prior to joining EWB, Ms Brown worked for multi-national companies in the water sector in Australia and overseas. However, her passion in making a difference in the community through humanitarian engineering and being awarded the Chief Executive Women Leadership Scholarship and a Churchill Fellowship led her to become CEO of EWB in .
Today, Ms Brown leads a movement of , people and engineering companies working together to improve the quality of life in developing communites through humanitarian engineering. Within years, EWB will shift to a movement of , humanitarian engineers and designers across Australia and the Indo-Pacific region. EWB has come a long way since when a group of engineering graduates became inspired to make a difference and improve the living conditions of disadvantaged communities with their engineering skills.
In , for the second consecutive year, EWB has been chosen as the official sole charity partner of the Sydney New Years’ Eve celebration. Visit here for more information
The winners have been selected across categories – board/management, innovation, public policy, business entrepreneur, diversity, young leader, global, social enterprise or not-for-profit, philanthropy and local/regional. Find out more information about Women of Influence and to see the full list of winners. Ten category winners and an overall winner will be announced at a gala event in Sydney Town Hall on Wednesday October.