Driving change to improve equality – Katie Noonan

Katie Noonan is the Chief of Staff at Forage, a company that provides virtual job simulations with the aim of enabling students, from any background, to gain the ability to upskill and land amazing careers. It seems like the perfect fit for someone who has helped create social change and had an amazing career herself.

Throughout Katie’s career, there’s been a common thread of facilitating equal access in all of her roles – be that access to justice, financial inclusion, or education.

Katie is originally from Melbourne and completed her Juris Doctor at the Australian National University in Canberra. She then clerked at Ashurst in Sydney in 2014 and started with the firm as a lawyer in the Dispute Resolution team in 2016, which included working on the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry – an experience Katie describes as “hectic” but one that also created many of her best memories at the firm. “We had such a good team working in the trenches together on that matter, it became like our own little community”.

During her time at Ashurst, Katie undertook a seven-month secondment with the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA). While there, she helped successfully resolve a case involving a grandmother who was seeking financial support to help raise her grandchildren following the death of her daughter in a hit-and-run accident. “After the insurer rejected her claim and decided that the children weren’t dependent on the grandmother, we were determined to challenge the definition of a dependent child despite our constrained resources. I found a barrister who took on the Supreme Court case pro bono. We were able to settle the matter two days before trial for a significant amount of money for their family,” Katie said. “While that case was incredibly rewarding, it did highlight just how much time and resources it can take to improve an individual situation. I think that’s why I became interested in finding ways to create positive change at a systemic level.”

Katie applied her legal skills to the increasing financial inclusion as a lawyer with Indigenous Business Australia, which is a Commonwealth Government entity that was created to assist and enhance the economic development opportunities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across Australia. In that role she gained a wide range of experience, including working as in-house legal counsel on matters ranging from governance to significant transactions and joint ventures with banks. During that period, Katie realised she wanted to take a more front-end role in finding equitable solutions.

In 2020, Katie stepped out of law and into entrepreneurship. She participated in a start-up program, Startmate, and shortly afterwards, connected with Forage and took on a role with the company during its 2020 Series A fundraising round.

Moving into startups and tech, Katie learned a lot about experimenting, failing fast, learning from those failures and iterating the process. “As a lawyer you’re trained to be a perfectionist, it was hard to get my head around experimentation and inevitably some of those failing. I think being willing to embrace failure has been the biggest challenge I have ever had to overcome,” said Katie.

“When I started out as a lawyer at Ashurst I never thought I would be where I am now. My journey into entrepreneurship and working in non-legal roles was unexpected. But everything I learned at Ashurst – including how to work hard, take ownership, maintain high standards, cherish teamwork, and think commercially – has been so beneficial. I feel like I’ve come full circle in some ways because Ashurst is one of Forage’s valued clients,” said Katie.

Creating educational equity at Forage

Forage is an Australian-founded, US-headquartered company that offers free, self-paced virtual job simulations to students from any background. According to the Forage website, this gives them “the chance to see behind the curtains of the best companies around the world and start careers there”. In just three years, Forage’s success has been phenomenal. The company now has over 4 million student enrolments, 100+ participating companies, 300+ partner universities, 200 +job simulations, and 60+ employees.

As the Chief of Staff, Katie works closely with Co-founder & CEO Tom Brunskill and is responsible for strategy implementation, corporate governance, investor relations, strategic partnerships, and other major projects.

“I’m really motivated by the work I do in helping drive equal access to education and hiring paths for everyone. Where there’s asymmetry, I want to make things more equitable, free and fair. It’s particularly gratifying when students share their positive experiences with Forage,” Katie said. “I’m also excited to see Forage continuing to grow, particularly now that I am located in the heart of its key US market. I remember working on an IPO during my rotation with the M&A team at Ashurst. I was invited to the listing ceremony and saw how excited and proud the company founders were when they rang the ASX bell. I keep thinking about that moment now that I’m part of a team that’s building an amazing business.”

Being surrounded by inspirational people

Katie has gained much of her professional inspiration from her parents, who both helped shape significant public policy in Australia during their careers. Among their many accomplishments, her father introduced reform and policy change in higher education in Australia and her mother helped establish Fair Work Australia (now the Fair Work Commission).

She’s also received some excellent career advice from a range of other people along the way, including a partner at Ashurst. When Katie was in her last few weeks at Ashurst, one of the partners in the dispute resolution team took her for lunch and they talked about the importance of investing in your network through your career. This is something Katie has prioritized being part of the start-up industry in Australia and now building a new network in New York.

Having helped influence change in so many areas, Katie now has her own advice to offer to budding change-makers. “Forage is a category-defining product, so I know how difficult it can be to move people away from the status quo,” said Katie. “To succeed in effecting change, you need to have a deep understanding of the problem you are trying to solve and a relentless belief in how you will do that. It also helps to be surrounded by a team of exceptionally talented, similarly motivated people. The other ingredient for success is to have a great band of ‘first followers’, like Ashurst is with Forage, because you can only achieve social change when you are not standing alone,” she added.

And when she’s not changing the world for the better?

Katie is living in New York, although she finds the winters hard and misses being able to surf regularly. She’s replaced surfing with running and recently completed the New York marathon.

Katie has also become a newly minted fan of Major League Cricket – which has a lot to do with her friend and former Ashurst colleague Sagar Sritharan. Sagar is now based in San Francisco and is the VP of Commercial Partnerships and Legal, with Major League Cricket. Katie recently organised a band of 25 friends to go along to one of the matches to support the teams (and – let’s be honest – Sagar).

You can read more about Sagar in 'America's new ballgame – Sagar Sritharan'.