Stephanie Cousins

Stephanie Cousins is the Global Co-CEO at Talent Beyond Boundaries, which specialises in unlocking skilled migration pathways for refugees. She has over 15 years of professional experience in non-profit leadership, with a focus on human rights, humanitarian and development issues. Stephanie has assisted in the creation of several non-profit startups, most recently the organisation where she currently works. Talent Beyond Boundaries is building a labour mobility solution to enable refugees and other displaced people to migrate on the basis of their skills for secure futures. It is working in Australia, Jordan, Lebanon, New Zealand, the UK and the USA to achieve its vision of a world where displaced people have equal access to skilled migration. Between 2018-2019 the team she led developed a successful pilot to bring a diverse group of employer-sponsored skilled refugees to Australia. This resulted in the Australian government committing a new program to bring 100 skilled refugees and their families to Australia on skilled visas. Stephanie has worked with Oxfam, where she managed advocacy work on sustainable food, climate change and humanitarian crises, and was part of a team that developed the concept for a blockchain-based emergency cash transfer mechanism to enable faster, better and more cost-efficient delivery of disaster relief to communities. The program has been subsequently funded by the Australian government and is being rolled out by Oxfam in disaster-prone locations in the Pacific. She has also worked as Amnesty International Australia’s Advocacy and External Affairs Manager. Stephanie completed a comprehensive evaluation of the Pacific Small Arms Action Group's two-year project aimed at advancing the Arms Trade Treaty and other arms control instruments in the Pacific region. The project was funded by the UN Trust Facility Supporting Cooperation on Arms Regulation. The evaluation involved a desk-based review, interviews with project stakeholders including civil society and government officials, and an analysis of project framework. Stephanie Cousins holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Public Policy, and a Masters degree (First Class Honours) in Public and International Law from The University of Melbourne.