Anna Booth commenced her 5-year appointment as Fair Work Ombudsman on 1 September 2023.
Anna has extensive and diverse experience in industrial relations spanning 45 years, working with unions, private, and public sectors. From 2012 to 2020 Anna served as the Deputy President in the Fair Work Commission (FWC); Australia’s workplace relations tribunal. She was instrumental in setting up the FWC’s Collaborative Approaches Program, formally known as the New Approaches Program.
Prior to taking up her role as Deputy President at the FWC, Anna was Chair and a non-executive member of the Slater and Gordon board. She held this role since the law firm’s listing on the ASX in 2007. Anna also sat on various boards, including the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and insurer NRMA, as well as industry superannuation owned financial services companies ME Bank and IFM. Anna has taught at the Australian Institute of Management and lectured at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management.
During the amalgamation of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union, Anna was the first female and youngest federal secretary of a union. She joined the Australian Council of Trade Unions as vice president in 1991. During her period in the union movement, Anna attracted national attention by exposing the exploitation of migrant women workers in sweatshop organisations.
Anna is an accredited mediator under the National Mediator Accreditation System