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OpenAI's Australian lobbying machine takes shape with Kate Pounder hire

Former Tech Council of Australia CEO Kate Pounder has been tapped by OpenAI for local policy work as the AI giant looks to expand its presence in Australia.

Daniel Van Boom
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Kate Pounder was the founding CEO of the Tech Council of Australia, a body representing Australia's tech industry to government. AAP/Lukas Coch.

Addressing the crowd at an OpenAI event hosted by the University of Technology, Sydney on Tuesday, assistant minister for the digital economy Andrew Charlton pointed out his former colleague, Kate Pounder.

The pair built tech consulting firm AlphaBeta and sold it to Accenture — which Charlton said was now among the "lesser achievements" on Pounder's resume, behind her role as founding CEO of the Tech Council of Australia.

Now Pounder has added a new entry to that resume — as an Australian policy liaison for OpenAI, the USD300 billion ($456 billion) leader in generative artificial intelligence.

"I'm excited to do it because it’s such a momentous time for Australia," Pounder told Capital Brief. "It’s important that when you have a company like OpenAI, which has been so instrumental in ushering in generative AI… that they contribute to the policy reviews, and that Australian decision makers get to question them directly.”