Diane Smith-Gander

Diane Lee Smith-Gander (born November 1957) is an Australian business executive. She holds and has held a number of governance positions on various boards, and is known for her championing of gender equity. She was appointed chancellor of the University of Western Australia (UWA) for a three-year term beginning in 2025, where she is also an adjunct professor of corporate governance and previously chaired the advisory board of the university's Business School. Other roles include as chair of the inaugural Nominations Committee for the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Early life and education Diane Lee Smith-Gander was born in November 1957 and grew up in Alfred Cove, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia. She attended Melville Senior High School.

She began studying science at UWA, but after her second year changed to economics. She also holds an MBA from the University of Sydney. as a junior and senior, and played in the leagues that preceded the Women's National Basketball League. She was first involved in her local basketball association, and later as a member of the WA Basketball Association tribunal.

Smith-Gander left Perth around 1994. becoming a partner in that firm.

Smith-Gander is on the advisory board of Whiteoak, as well as chair of Zip Co Limited (non-executive, since 2021 (Committee for Economic Development of Australia) since 2020. In October 2024, the UWA Student Guild voted to express no confidence in Smith-Gander “for her personal links to apartheid Israel and her opposition to the anti-genocide Palestine solidarity movement.” She was sworn into the role in February 2025, making her the first female chancellor in the university's history. Other roles and activities Smith-Gander is an advocate for gender equity and has written several articles in the Australian Financial Review.

She chaired the Australian Sports Drug Agency in the lead-up to the Sydney Olympics in 2000, and was then on the steering committee aiming at the unification of basketball during turbulent times in 2008. She become a member of the board of Basketball Australia, and was later appointed chair.

She also serves pro bono as deputy chair of the council for Methodist Ladies' College (MLC).

She additionally compared the 'open door policy' of Israel creating a 'vibrant start-up nation' with Australia's reduction in international students. Commending 'the role that the Israeli Defense Forces play in talent identification and by the way they nurture lifelong networks'.