After politics, Brogden served as the chairman and CEO of various organisations in the financial services and property sectors.

After a suicide attempt in August 2005 immediately after his resignation as opposition leader, Brogden would join the board of the crisis support charity Lifeline in 2009, and subsequently became its chairman from 2011 to 2021.

[citation needed] His mother, Judith Anne (née Bourne) (1941 – 2021) was born in Balmain and worked as a School Secretary.

[1] His wife, Lucy Brogden AM, is an organisational psychologist and national mental health and suicide prevention advocate, a carer, a Patron of Partners in Depression, Patron of the Sydney Women's Fund and Lifeline Northern Beaches, Chair of the Diabetes Australia Research Trust, a, Director of the National Film and Sound Archives and of Be Kind Australia.

[citation needed] In the leadup to the 2003 New South Wales state election, Opposition Leader Kerry Chikarovski was struggling in the polls against Premier Bob Carr.

Three days later on 28 March 2002,[6] his 33rd birthday, he succeeded in a 15–14 vote, becoming the youngest ever leader of a state or federal Liberal Party.

[citation needed] He aggressively pursued the Carr government over its involvement in the Orange Grove affair, in which a shopping centre was shut down, allegedly for zoning reasons, amidst claims of political pressure from The Westfield Group, which ran a neighbouring shopping centre.

[11] The next day however, 30 August, police attended Brogden's electorate office at around 10.30 pm, after concerns were raised by members of his family.

[14][15] Brogden was taken to Royal North Shore Hospital that night, and discharged the following day into respite care at the Northside Clinic.

[citation needed] In November 2009, Brogden joined the board of Australian suicide prevention charity Lifeline, and was promoted to chairman in 2011.