Our team
Executing our mission requires the expertise, authority, political nous and community outreach to catalyse transformative policy reform. Our team remains independent, avoids early judgment and stays open to multiple perspectives in highly contested, values-driven policy domains. We have a solid track record of project delivery and management.
Our team comprises skilled mediators, and knowledgeable and independent facilitators of policy change able to engage stakeholders and experts in the design of practical policy solutions. We engage our stakeholders in a clear and consistent way, and act with honesty, humility, optimism, impartiality and rigour.
Watertrust Australia is located at the Australian Academy of Science for an initial period of at least five years. This will help us engage with deep expertise from a wide range of disciplines. We are open to working with all of Australia’s learned academies.
Our staff
Karen Hutchinson
Chief Executive Officer
Karen is an experienced executive with a passion for leading change through people. A dynamic communicator with established government, water sector, First Nations and community networks, she has demonstrated experience working with diverse stakeholders to reach collaborative solutions on complex policy issues.
Kane Aldridge
Principal
Kane has extensive experience in facilitating partnerships between government, industry and academia for addressing complex water management challenges. Kane joined Watertrust Australia from the Goyder Institute for Water Research, where he was Director and successfully developed it as a leading collaborative water research partnership within Australia.
Kate Peake
Principal
Kate has over 20 years’ experience in regional development, project facilitation and building partnerships across diverse stakeholder groups. A proud Territorian and Northern Territory (NT) Rural Woman of the Year in 2017, Kate's strengths are in fostering relationships and having the resilience to tackle long-term goals.
Peter Horne
Principal
Peter has a background in environmental and agricultural sciences with experience in partnership brokering, often in complex contexts. Before joining Watertrust Australia, Peter spent 25 years working in the Indo-Pacific region on strengthening agricultural livelihood systems that are being challenged by major shifts in the natural resource base, climate and markets.
Kylie Clarke
Executive Officer
Kylie is a seasoned professional with over 15 years' experience in operations, people leadership, project management, and stakeholder engagement.
Our bespoke teams
We harness considerably more capacity and capability to meet the demands of the sector through expanded bespoke teams of partners for specific projects. A list of the contracts and consultancies since establishment is provided here twice a year.