Travers McLeod

Travers McLeod is BSL's Executive Director, responsible for the day-to-day management of the organisation. He has led BSL through the development of Strategy 2030 and our commitment to advance an ambitious national agenda on poverty reduction.

Prior to joining BSL, Travers was the CEO of the Centre for Policy Development, an independent Australian policy institute he led for eight years and remains connected with as a Senior Fellow. Travers began his career in public law, working for the State Solicitor’s Office in Western Australia and for Justice Michael Kirby in the High Court of Australia. He holds a DPhil and MPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes scholar and was a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations.

Travers worked as a Policy Adviser for the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations, playing a lead role in their 2013 report Now for the Long Term. He is the author of Rule of Law in War, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2015 and is based on his postgraduate research on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Travers has been appointed as a member of the Federal Government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee and the National Leadership Group for the Stronger Places, Stronger People Initiative. He is a Board member of the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture, an Honorary Enterprise Professor at the University of Melbourne, and an occasional moderator for the Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership. Travers grew up in Exmouth and Perth in Western Australia and is married to a Kiwi. They and their two young daughters now call Melbourne home.