Sean Innis
Sean Innis is Principal of Damala St Consulting. He is a Fellow of the Australian Studies Institute at The Australian National University and a Senior Fellow of the ADC Forum, an independent think tank.
Sean has more than 20 years of senior executive experience across the government and university sectors. He has worked in almost all areas of public policy and delivery from Indigenous affairs to the development of international agreements.
Before forming Damala St, Sean was Inaugural Director of the Public Policy and Societal Impact Hub at the ANU. He has been Special Adviser to Australia’s Productivity Commission and chaired a prime ministerial task force on welfare reform. As a senior public servant, Sean led development of an energy white paper and established the Policy Office in the Department of Social Services. He has represented Australia internationally and has worked extensively on Commonwealth-state-local issues. Sean began working life as a bank teller.
Sean’s passion is to bring deeper, future focussed thinking into the development and delivery of practical public policy. He is expert in building strategic and stewardship capability, facilitating future focussed policy understanding and development, and in building collaborative partnerships.
Sean writes regularly on public policy and administration issues. His writing has been published in the Australian Financial Review, The Australian, Canberra Times, The Mandarin and Pearls and Irritations. Sean is a regular contributor to Grattan Institute reports. He is an experienced advisory board member.