Emma Dunch

Background

About Emma Dunch

Emma Dunch is an experienced senior executive with 25+ years of international business experience in the USA and Australia. She currently manages community engagement for TAFE NSW in Sydney and the Central Coast. Since 2022, she has worked as a senior leader for the Australian and NSW Governments, leading large teams to deliver impartial and trustworthy Federal, State and Local government elections. During 2025, she was engaged by the Australian Electoral Commission to deliver the Federal election on the NSW Central Coast, after earlier work on the 2023 Voice to Parliament Referendum. During 2024, she was Senior Election Talent Lead for the NSW Electoral Commission, training and managing the 70 returning officers across NSW for the 2024 Local Government elections. Earlier, she was a returning officer on the NSW Central Coast for the 2023 State government election. Prior to moving into the government sector, Emma spent 25 years as a CEO and senior executive in the global nonprofit performing arts sector, where she worked with more than 125 arts companies across the US, UK, and Australia. Emma lived in New York City, where the large arts management consulting firm she founded worked internationally and specialized in fundraising, strategic planning, and executive search for the cultural sector. During its final year, the firm ran teams and projects on three continents, and managed $245m in cultural fundraising campaigns. She was recruited to Australia in 2017 to serve as CEO of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra from 2017-2021. Under her leadership, the SSO delivered a successful 12-city tour to Europe, undertook a global artistic search to secure Simone Young AM as Chief Conductor, and commissioned 50 new orchestral works from Australian composers. Emma change-managed through multi-year venue displacement alongside the unanticipated financial impacts of COVID-19. During the pandemic, she and her team successfully restructured the business, renegotiated wages with multiple labour unions to preserve full employment and obtained emergency government funding while delivering a record 42% increase in philanthropy. She also launched Sydney Symphony on Demand, led a whole-of-company strategic planning process, commissioned a workplace culture review by Australia's former Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick AO, took strong actions to transform organisational culture and strengthen workplace protections for employees, and laid important groundwork for the Orchestra’s successful return to the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.