Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has been appointed a "professor of practice" at the University of Sydney, where she will give masterclasses and mentor on empathetic leadership, social cohesion and civic trust.
The appointment, announced by the university, helps answer long-running questions about what Ardern has been doing in Australia since she bought a home on Sydney's northern beaches. She will join the university's faculty of medicine and health from this month, engaging with students, researchers and the wider community through guest lectures, masterclasses and mentoring.
Ardern will also work closely with the Sydney Policy Lab and the office of the vice chancellor to develop new approaches to global and values-based leadership, as well as exploring new ways to address global health challenges centred on equity, inclusion and wellbeing. The position is not a full-time teaching role.
"I've found myself especially focused on the question of leadership since leaving office – and how we can better support and encourage the kind of leadership needed to tackle our many global challenges," Ardern said in a statement.
Vice Chancellor Professor Mark Scott said in a statement he had long admired Ardern's "courage and humility" and said she would enrich the university's work in public health and public policy. "Dame Jacinda led New Zealand through events of profound consequence and her leadership demonstrated that empathy and resolve do not compete with one another; each can strengthen the other," Scott said. "The opportunity to learn from Dame Jacinda is exceptional. They will meet not only a former prime minister, but a thoughtful teacher with a great deal to share about public leadership and service."
Ardern became prime minister in 2017, aged 37, and led New Zealand through the Christchurch terrorist attacks, the Whakaari volcanic eruption and the COVID-19 pandemic. Internationally recognised as a progressive leader who emphasised empathy and kindness, and once described as "the world's anti-Trump", she stepped down in 2023.
Since leaving office she has held dual fellowship roles at Harvard University and the University of Oxford, lecturing on the dangers of treating politics as a binary choice. She continues to work on eliminating violent extremism and terrorism online and on the development of safe, people-centred AI.
She is not the first former politician to move into academia in the region. Julia Gillard was appointed honorary professor at the University of Adelaide in 2013, and New Zealand's former deputy prime minister Grant Robertson became vice chancellor of the University of Otago.