Donna retired in August 2023 as the Deputy Director of Financial Management, Division of Management and Administration, UN Women.

She joined UN Women as its first Chief of Accounts in April 2012 successfully implementing IPSAS and leading consecutive unqualified audits on UN Women’s financial statements since its inception. Donna has combined this role with appointments as Director, Division of Management and Administration officer-in-charge; Deputy Director, ad interim; and Chief of Budget ad interim delivering 2018-2019 Integrated Budget. She was appointed to the Senior Management Team in November 2016 and has presented at numerous ACABQ and Fifth Committee sessions and UN Women’s Executive Board’s formal and informal sessions. She represented UN Women at the UN system Inter-Agency Finance and Budget Network and was Vice Chair of the Inter-Agency Taskforce on Accounting Standards (2021 – 2023) liaising with the External Panel of Auditors and the IPSAS Board on behalf of the UN System.

Since 2014 Donna has had a long engagement with gender mainstreaming through her work in the Finance and Budget Network, chairing the Gender Marker working group; and during the Secretary General’s High-level Task Force on Financing for Gender Equality, she co-chaired the Taskforce on Gender Equality Markers. This work culminated in the 7th UN Data Standard on Gender Equality Markers in early 2023 requiring annual reporting across the UN System.

Donna’s career spans: public accounting firms KPMG and PWC in audit, tax and business services; in private sector not-for-profit and national civil aviation; and two periods of service in the UN system including UN Secretariat Accounts Division and Peace-keeping Division, where she was awarded the UN Peacekeeping medal for services to peacekeeping. She has spent eight years living and working in Papua New Guinea, 16 years in New York and the remainder in Australia. She is an avid supporter of young talent and has been mentoring women and men throughout her career and was a UN Women mentor.

Donna is a chartered accountant holding a Bachelor of Business – Accountancy from the Queensland University of Technology and is member of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.