Telling Tales

Join us for a Tuesday night of fun and storytelling!

Walkley-winning producer Belinda Hawkins is our MC for the night, with five fabulous women set to share a story about some aspect of their working life – whether it's light-bulb revelation, a sliding doors moment, good times that they miss, or a period they're glad is over. 

The only rule is it has to be true.

There'll be plenty of time to catch up with old colleagues or meet new contacts before and after the talks. 

Our speakers are:

Beverley Wang – the ABC’s National Culture correspondent. She hosts the pop culture show Stop Everything! and Life Matters on Fridays on ABC RN, is a regular contributor to ABC News Breakfast and has appeared as a moderator and speaker at festivals and cultural events across Australia. Before moving to Australia, she worked as a print journalist in the United States. At the ABC, she has also produced radio programs for Radio Australia, served as executive producer of RN Drive and created and hosted the podcast, It’s Not a Race.
Originally from Vancouver, Canada, Beverley has been based in Naarm/Melbourne since 2009.

Renece Brewster – ex CEO and co-founder of Visual Domain, Australia’s largest in-house video production agency. After successfully leading the company to an acquisition by News Corp in 2021, she exited Visual Domain in March of this year. Renece is also the Co-Managing Director of Girls in Tech Australia, a volunteer-led, global non-profit organization dedicated to empowering women in tech, boasting a community of 17,000 members across the country.

Karen Percy – freelance journalist, board director and media advocate. She has championed diversity in the media industry. She sits on the board of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance as the union's Media President. She also is Deputy Chair of the Walkley Foundation, which supports excellence in journalism. A former ABC journalist and foreign correspondent, Karen is passionate about ethical journalism that is in the public interest and comes from a trauma-informed position. From 2020-2022 she was Chair of the Dart Centre Asia-Pacific which focuses on trauma education in the media sector.

Susan Horsburgh – has been a journalist for 30 years, starting out as a cadet at The Australian newspaper in Sydney. Since then, she has worked for leading Australian and international publications, including TIME magazine in London and People in New York, writing about everything from arts, entertainment and travel to business, health and social affairs. Now a freelancer, Susan writes mostly for Good Weekend magazine (in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age), The Australian Women’s Weekly and Qantas magazine, as well as for corporate clients.

Najma Sambul - city reporter with The Age, based in Melbourne. Before that she was a freelance journalist, writing for a range of publications, and working with Guardian Australia as an audio producer on the podcast Full Story. In 2021 she was the recipient of the Wheeler Centre Signal Boost grant that supports early career podcasters. She has also been a co-host of weekly news show ‘Spin Cycle’ on Triple R. In her spare time she volunteers with the East African Women's Foundation, a non-profit organisation that supports Somali-speaking women and young people through advocacy and arts programs. In 2022, Najma co-curated a Somali art show AQAL that was featured on ABC's Artworks.