Lucinda Holdforth

Lucinda Holdforth is a speechwriter and author. After time spent in the Foreign Affairs Department and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, she worked for the Hawke-Keating Labor government up to 1996, including as speechwriter to deputy prime minister Kim Beazley. She has since worked with chairs and CEOs of top-twenty Australian companies, entrepreneurs and innovators, and not-for-profit organisations. She is the author of True Pleasures: A Memoir of Women in Paris (2004), Why Manners Matter (2008) and Leading Lines (2019). Holdforth regards the free play of speech and ideas as essential for democracy and shared progress.