Mary-Anne Waldren has an unrelenting passion for Canberra, for business and for brokering partnerships to create original events that make a difference.
Her business skills have earned her a swag of prestigious awards and she is one of Canberra's best connected business leaders.
Her list of accomplishments is long: business prodigy, science-communication pioneer, event-management expert, sponsorship sharpshooter, lobbyist extraordinaire, marketing whiz. But what really drives her is the indomitable spirit of entrepreneurs. She loves mentoring them, advising them and, best of all, connecting them to people who can take them further along the path to commercial success.
Mary-Anne has created productions ranging from entire festivals with hundreds of events and tens of thousands of visitors to off-off exclusive receptions for VIPs such as former US President George W. Bush’s brother, Jeb Bush.
She is internationally renowned as the driving force behind three key festivals. She built the Australian Science Festival, National Science Week and Canberra’s first innovation festival, ICAN.
Mary-Anne has co-produced more than 70 Radio National forums over the past 18 years. She has sourced the sponsorship dollars for each event whilst enabling the ABC to maintain its editorial integrity.
Mary-Anne’s hugely popular Master Entrepreneur Program gives participants access to business veterans and the sort of knowledge you cannot get from standard business workshops, books or the internet.
Her innovative style of leadership is built on a solid foundation of business expertise and the instinctive talent she has for building partnerships, finding the right people for the job and inspiring staff, volunteers and sponsors to want to work towards a common goal.
She was born into Canberra's pioneering Cusack family and worked in the family's various retail, service-industry and primary-produce businesses every weekend and school holiday from the age of 12. Mary-Anne is a director of her family business with interests in motels, commercial and residential property and development.
Mary-Anne set up MAW Action in 2006, a fee-for-service organisation that capitalises on her extraordinary storehouse of knowledge, contacts and competence in building partnerships and in creating, designing and running events and managing staff.
Mary-Anne Waldren, a sought after keynote speaker, is most comfortable when tackling a challenge.