Mrs Div Pillay

Mrs Div Pillay is a diversity and inclusion practitioner, leader, researcher and advocate with over 20 years of experience in gender, race and cultural inclusion.

Born, raised and educated in South Africa, Mrs Pillay carries with her, her lived experience of racial segregation. For the last 11 years, she has researched the covert nature of negative behaviours at work across the ANZ region, as experienced by women, migrants, refugees and asylum seeker professionals. Backed by her behavioural science and economics background, Mrs Pillay has worked with boards and executive teams in large private and public sector entities to realise long lasting change. She currently leads the award-winning diversity and inclusion consultancy MindTribes, and social enterprise Culturally Diverse Women. Both businesses were recognised by Westpac in their Top 200 Businesses of Tomorrow for social impact.

Prior to founding MindTribes in 2012, Mrs Pillay held senior human resource leader roles in public and private se ctors, working across Australia, Malaysia, India, the Philippines and South Africa.

Mrs Pillay is the immediate past Chair of the Diversity & Inclusion Committee at the American Chamber of Commerce, Australia and is a newly appointed Governor of Victoria representing AmCham. She is also a Board Director at VicHealth and Chair of the Workforce Committee. Mrs Pillay’s leadership is globally recognised and award winning: In 2018, Mrs Pillay was named as one of the 100 Women of Influence by the Australian Financial Review. In 2021, she was listed by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB); the world’s largest business-education alliance, as one of the 25 Global Influencers in Social Impact. In 2023, she was selected as a Top Linkedin Voice for Gender Equity in Australia and in 2024, she was listed as one of the 124 Impactful Asian Australians, by the Asian Australian Alliance.

She completed her Master of Human Resource Management from Monash University after undertaking undergraduate studies with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree from the University of South Africa and a Bachelor of Social Science from the University of Natal, South Africa. Mrs Pillay co-hosts the popular Business in Colour podcast and is regularly invited by the media to contribute as an industry expert on equity and inclusion and delivered the Graduation Address to the new Faculty of Business and Economics graduates in September 2023.