Ms Tabitha Lovett
Ms Tabitha Lovett is the Chief Executive Officer of the Besen Family Foundation and has been involved in the philanthropy sector for over 15 years.
During that time, she has been manager and trustee representative for some of Australia’s most established charitable trusts including the William Buckland Foundation, Alfred Felton Bequest, Viertel Charitable Trust, and the R.M. Ansett Trust, as well as the grant manager for the Victoria Law Foundation and, a solicitor at King & Wood Mallesons.
Ms Lovett is passionate about the role that philanthropy plays in the community in tackling social issues that require innovative, compassionate, and sustainable solutions. Before moving into the philanthropy sector in 2008, she worked as a social justice lawyer at Justice Connect and that experience and exposure to the causes and contributors to inequality, hardship and disadvantage underpins her approach to the practice of philanthropy.
Before being appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Besen Family Foundation, she was the General Manager of Philanthropy Services at Equity Trustees from 2009 to 2017, where she oversaw a portfolio of more than 450 charitable trusts with combined funds under management of $1.8 billion, distributing over $70 million annually.
Her skills and experience cover the full spectrum of the philanthropic sector: including the relevant law, governance and regulatory framework and taxation issues; investment oversight, discretionary grant-making, reporting and evaluation.
In 2007, Ms Lovett was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to research free legal services for charities and not-for-profits in the United States which informed the establishment of Not-for-Profit Law at Justice Connect.
Ms Lovett is a current Director of Philanthropy Australia, the peak body for the philanthropic sector, Co-Chair of the Family Foundations’ Network; a trustee of the Harris Family Foundation, and a Director of the Eastern Community Legal Service.
Ms Lovett graduated from Monash University with a Bachelor of Arts, a Bachelor of Laws and a Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice, Skills and Ethics. She is currently undertaking the Master of Social Investment and Philanthropy at Swinburne University and is the proud mother of two magnificent daughters, Cleo and Emmanuelle.