Tanja is a writer, poet, feminist change agent and philanthropist.
Over a twenty year career spanning law, politics, community advocacy and social impact business, she has been at the forefront of shaping gender equality outcomes for Australian women.
Whether representing victim-survivors of gendered violence in court or creating new equality laws in government or electing pro-choice women to parliament or organising protests like the #March4Justice, Tanja has dedicated her life to feminism. And to writing about it.
She is a Founding Feminist and CEO of Gender Lens Australia, a social impact consultancy making equality easy for business, government and community, established with her good mate, Dr Maree Overall. Together, Tanja and Maree model collaborative business practice and women-centred leadership enabling them to lead busy professional lives, while caring for family and community.
GLA has helped apply a gender lens to organisations of all shapes and sizes - from global firms to small business; Local, State and Federal Governments to NGO's in the community sector.
Before establishing GLA, Tanja spent ten years as Director and National-Convenor of EMILY’s List Australia (where she met Maree), a gender-based political organisation helping elect feminist MP's to parliament. She was instrumental in establishing the Julia Gillard Next Generation Internship for young women leaders, as well as the Joan Kirner Gender Gap Research Project. Tanja is also the winner of an EMILY award for her dedicated work advocating for an affirmative action target for women in parliament - 50/50 by 2025 - which saw her taking on the boys club of the Australian Labor Party.
Tanja is a former CEO of peak body Gender Equity Victoria and served as Chief of Staff to the late Fiona Richardson MP, Australia’s first Family Violence Prevention Minister, where she was responsible for overseeing Victoria’s strategic family violence prevention and gender equality agenda, including creating the Victoria’s first Gender Equality Strategy.
A trained lawyer, Tanja commenced work as a solicitor, specialising in public interest & human rights litigation, where she assisted survivors of police misconduct & family violence, acted for Amnesty International in the case concerning refugees aboard the MV Tampa and victims of the Black Saturday Bushfires.
Tanja is a Board Director of the HerPlace Women's Museum and Burrinja Arts Centre, and previously held board positions at the Multicultural Centre for Women's Health.
Tanja co-authored Measure for Measure: Gender Equality in Australia, for think tank Per Capita, where she is a Senior Fellow, calling for a National Gender Equality Strategy aligned to rigorous reporting against targets and measures. In 2024 that vision came to reality with the Australian Government's adoption of Working for Women: A Strategy for Gender Equality and the introduction of National Gender Equality Scorecards.
Tanja's writing on gender equality and human rights has been published in The Age, Herald-Sun, MammaMia, Women's Agenda, Crikey and many more print and digital publications.
Her poetry has featured in Overland, Poetica Christi Press, Avant, Catchment and on public transport as part of the Moving Galleries Project.
Tanja is a frequent public speaker and event moderator. She has hosted book events for the Melbourne Writers Festival, been a regular radio commentator for ABC 774, starred in Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues for Baggage Productions and captains teams in gender based comedy debates.
You can check out Tanja's writing and poetry throughout this site.