Diane Lee Smith-Gander was born in November 1957[1] and grew up in Alfred Cove, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia.
[7] Since September 2019 she has chaired the inaugural Nominations Committee for the World Anti-Doping Agency,[6] which was created in order to ensure that the right people are recruited to serve in senior governance roles within the organisation.
[10] As of 2024[update] she is also a professor of corporate governance at UWA, and on her appointment in 2019, became the first woman to chair the advisory board of the university's Business School.
[13] 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.
[6] In November 2023, during the Israel–Hamas war, she wrote an opinion piece explaining why she signed a petition, along with 600 other business and community leaders, "Say no to antisemitism".
[15] She additionally compared the 'open door policy' of Israel creating a 'vibrant start-up nation' with Australia's reduction in international students.