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  • Co-founder and Non-Executive Director, Left Right Think-Tank
  • Chair of the Board of Directors, Youth Tree
  • Board Member, Australian Youth Affairs Coalition
  • WA Young Citizen of the Year 2011

Rick Newnham CitWA, 22, is the co-founder of the Left Right Think-Tank, Australia’s first inde­pend­ent and non-partisan think-tank of young minds.

Founded in early 2008, Left Right’s mission is to involve young people in public policy. Its vision is for a society that seeks and embraces the ideas of young people.

In 2011 Rick was recog­nised as the Young Western Australian Citizen of the Year for his work in estab­lish­ing the Left Right Think-Tank.

Serving as found­ing CEO for three years Rick has guided Left Right Think-Tank through expan­sion into 5 Australian cities, build­ing a team of more than 70 young Australians enga­ging their peers in public policy. As CEO Rick instig­ated the estab­lish­ment of the Australian Youth Led Convention, the pree­m­in­ent con­ven­tion for leaders of Australian youth-led organ­isa­tions, which is a part­ner­ship project between the Left Right Think-Tank and the Australian Government.

Rick is the Chair of the Board of Directors for Youth Tree which exists to per­man­ently embed ‘doing good’ into youth culture. In 2010 Rick was a Steering Committee Member for the Australian Youth Forum and is a current Board Member of the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition. Throughout 2007 – 2008 Rick was Australia’s most senior Defence Force Cadet while he served as the National Cadet Under Officer of the Australian Army Cadets based in Canberra, rep­res­ent­ing the 16,500 Army Cadets nationwide.

Rick is a gradu­ate of the University of Western Australia where he studied stra­tegic man­age­ment and cor­por­ate finance. Having pre­vi­ously worked as a man­age­ment con­sult­ant for KPMG Rick has exper­i­ence in both gov­ern­ment and com­mer­cial pro­jects. Rick’s pre­vi­ous project part­ners through the Left Right Think-Tank and KPMG involve ABC, Chevron, Shell Australia, the US Consulate and the WA Department of Treasury and Finance.

In 2011 Rick was announced by the Australia Day Council as a WA final­ist for Young Australian of the Year and is listed as one of Triple J’s ’25 Under 25 + Smashin’ It’. Rick reg­u­larly com­ment­ates on current affairs as a fre­quent guest on Triple J’s Hack.

In 2009 Rick met Her Majesty the Queen of England as part of offi­cial duties when he trav­elled to London as Australia’s Youth Representative for Commonwealth Day.

Rick is a Commercial Analyst for Royal Dutch Shell where he works to ensure the com­mer­ci­al­ity of Shell’s upstream Australian projects.

Read more about Rick at his Triple J 25 under 25 profile or his 2011 Young Australian of the Year Finalist profile.