Teresa Jane Harding

Ipswich City Council Website, Biography (2024)

Mayor Teresa Harding was officially sworn in as the 51st Mayor of Ipswich in April 2020 and is the first female Mayor in the city’s 163-year history.

 

She brings to Council more than 35 years of business, government and not-for-profit leadership, and more than 15 years’ experience in leading large teams and managing complex projects within the public sector. Mayor Harding held senior roles in the private sector in the fields of information technology and sales.

 

A career highlight for Mayor Harding was working in the Department of Defence where she spent seven years working on the F111 fighter jets at RAAF Base Amberley. She was promoted to Director Strike Reconnaissance Systems Program Office and led the maintenance, and later decommissioning, of the fleet of F111 fighter jets. Mayor Harding was privileged enough to have had a flight in the F111 in 2010.

 

A passionate lifelong volunteer, Mayor Harding is an active Rotarian with the Ipswich City Club, was the president of the Co-ordinating Organisation for the Disabled in Ipswich, has been on the P&C committee for her children’s schools and was the secretary and treasurer of a multicultural football club.

 

She holds a Master in Management, Post Graduate Diploma in Management, Post Graduate Certificate in Information Technology, Diploma in Small Business Enterprises, has completed the Australian Institute of Company Directors Course and is a graduate of the Australian Command and Staff course at the Australian War College.

 

Mayor Harding was awarded the 2021 McKinnon Prize for Emerging Political Leader of the Year for her leadership in introducing transformational transparency reforms to improve the accountability of officials elected to local government.