Emma Bennison is a leader, consultant and advocate with a deep commitment to equity, disability rights and community transformation. She is Principal at Emma Bennison and Associates, providing strategic consulting services across Australia and internationally. Her work spans business transformation, leadership development, disability advocacy and the arts. Through her consultancy, Emma partners with governments, corporates and not-for-profit organisations to build inclusive cultures, develop lived experience leadership, and design innovative solutions to complex challenges.
Emma recently completed three years as Chief Advisor, Equity and Lived Experience at Life Without Barriers, one of Australia’s largest community service providers. In this national executive leadership role, she drove long-term systemic reform by embedding lived experience into policy, advocacy and service design.
She is well known in the blind and vision impaired community as a former President and CEO of Blind Citizens Australia, where she led a major revitalisation of the organisation, strengthening its influence as the national voice of Australians who are blind or vision impaired.
Emma serves as a Director of NV Access, developer of the globally used NVDA screen reader, and is a co-founder of United Blind Leaders, an international movement working to elevate blind leadership—particularly within blindness service providers.
Emma’s impact has been recognised with multiple honours, including the Lesley Hall Award for Lifetime Achievement in Disability Leadership in 2024 and the Aspire Award for Community Development and Advocacy in 2020. She also completed an MBA in 2023 on a full scholarship awarded to outstanding not-for-profit leaders.
A TEDx speaker and bold advocate for justice, Emma is known for challenging assumptions, building inclusive leadership pipelines, and mentoring the next generation of disabled leaders.