Peter Shergold was a senior leader in the Australian Public Service (APS) for two decades. From 1991 he headed the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and from July 1994 he was Chief Executive Officer of Comcare. He was successively Australian Public Service Commissioner, Secretary of the Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, Secretary of the Department of Education, Science and Training, ending as Australia’s most senior public servant, Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister in Cabinet.

Since leaving the APS in 2008, he has been Chancellor of Western Sydney University, the Coordinator General for Refugee Resettlement in NSW, chair of the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation, CEO and now Chair of the Centre for Social Impact and serves on the board of Australia for UNHCR. He has undertaken a range of major reviews for the NSW, Western Australian, Victorian and Queensland state governments. Peter wrote a major report, Learning from Failure, which was handed to the Commonwealth government in 2015. He has also chaired reviews into Medicare Card security (2017); the implementation of the National Construction Code (2017–2018), Refugee Settlement (2019) and Senior Secondary Pathways for Students (2020).