Mark Watson Email & Phone Number

Following a period in legal practice with Moray & Agnew, my career as a diplomat included postings in Port Moresby, Hong Kong, Singapore, London and, most recently, as Minister at the Australian Embassy in Washington DC. In that role, I was responsible for developing a range of key partnerships with US agencies, and worked with US companies looking for opportunities to engage with the Australian national security and defence communities. I have extensive experience leading cross-agency innovation, business process restructuring and change management programs, as well as providing ‘hands on’ leadership in high risk, high tempo environments. My effectiveness as a risk manager, negotiator and thought leader have been recognized by awards from both the US and Australian governments. Along the way, I picked up Mandarin Chinese at the RAAF School of languages and the National University of Singapore, and post-graduate degrees in public policy (UNE) and the Economic and Civil Law of the PRC at the University of Hong Kong. I also completed the Senior Executives Leadership program at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.Following a thirty year career in public service, I established Sydney Avenue Consultants as a strategic advisory firm providing business-to-government advice to a range of corporate clients, and joined Bondi Partners as a Strategic Adviser specialising in the impact of national security considerations on investment decisions.I’m 2021 I took on an exciting new role as the inaugural Director of the first overseas office of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). ASPI is Australia’s leading strategic ‘think tank’ and the new ASPI office in Washington DC aims to ensure that policy makers in the US will have the opportunity to hear unique, independent Australian policy perspectives and analysis.After successfully establishing the new office in DC, I returned to Australia and commenced in a new role with DFAT as Special Adviser (Intelligence Integration). My goal is to help DFAT with an enterprise-wide reform program that will substantially increase DFAT’s capacity to leverage the outstanding work done by Australia’s national security agencies to maximise policy outcomes in Australia’s international statecraft.

Listed skills include Leadership, Business Strategy, Writing, Law, and 1 others.