The Australia – Israel Chamber of Commerce was delighted to host over 250 business executives at a business briefing with the Hon. Gladys Berejiklian MP, NSW Premier. This lunch was proudly sponsored by Optus Business and Gilbert+Tobin.

NSW today has the strongest economy in Australia – an economy growing faster than every other state and most countries in the OECD. Premier Berejiklian discussed the transformation of NSW over the past six years and the Government’s plans to sustain success with one of the world’s biggest infrastructure programs, a wide-ranging innovation and jobs agenda, and record investment in education and health.

The Premier also spoke about numerous areas of collaboration between Australia and Israel including the recent opening of the Garvan-Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics, which was a direct outcome of an AICC Trade Mission to Israel led by then Premier Mike Baird, as well as last week’s NSW Government Landing Pad delegation to Israel, accompanied by NSW Minister for Innovation and Better regulation Matt Kean MP, which took a second cohort of 10 of NSW’s best fintech and cyber security startups to the Tel Aviv Landing Pad to meet and learn from leading Israeli founders, accelerators, incubators and entrepreneurs; to perfect and develop their product pitches; and to network with potential partners and advisors. The Premier spoke extensively about the opportunities for NSW to partner with and learn from the Israeli innovation ecosystem.

Gladys Berejiklian was first elected to the NSW Parliament as Member for Willoughby on 22 March 2003.

She was elected Leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party on 23 January 2017 and sworn in as the 45th Premier of New South Wales. She had previously served as Treasurer and Minister for Industrial Relations in the Baird Government since April 2015. Prior to that, she was appointed Minister for Transport following the election of the O’Farrell Government in March 2011 and served in that role for four years.

She is a Master of Commerce graduate from UNSW and prior to entering Parliament worked as a General Manager for one of Australia’s largest financial institutions. She has also completed studies in Government and Public Administration (B.A., Uni. Syd).