Australian Community Managers

Venessa Paech is an internationally regarded online community expert and educator. She has been engaged by numerous organisations as a community principal, consultant and strategist, including Lonely Planet, REA Group (realestate.com.au), Envato and Australia Post. In 2009 Venessa founded the Australian Community Manager Roundtable which in 2011 became Swarm, Australia’s premiere conference for community practitioners. She co-founded Australian Community Managers (ACM), the national centre of excellence for online community management training and resources. ACM hosts a 6000+ online community, produces research into community management, facilitates the national Code of Ethics for community professionals and offers training for anyone working with online groups or communities (professional or volunteer). Venessa works in several international community management leadership collectives, and liaises with industry, government and researchers to grow community management practice in APAC. Venessa developed and teaches the first post-graduate online community management Unit for the University of Sydney and is the Community @ Work coach for the Future Work Skills Academy. She is a published academic, and a PhD Candidate (University of Sydney) studying AI and online communities.