Kara Bombell
Non-executive director candidate  ·  Sydney, NSW

Kara Bombell

Boards are now accountable for AI systems that few of them can meaningfully interrogate, under a duty of care that makes no allowance for technical complexity. I bring that capability into the room, with sixteen years of executive responsibility for operations, workforce and technology change underneath it.

16 yrs
Leadership across Isobar, Digitas and EthicAI, 2010 to present
NED
Current director, Tom Ashmor Foundation
Expert Panel
AI Expert Panel, Governance Institute of Australia
2026
Australian Government delegate, Global AI Impact Summit, New Delhi
The gap I fill

Every board has a technology risk it is signing off without being able to test.

AI has moved from an operational matter to a directors' duties matter. Management brings the board an assurance, and the board has no independent basis on which to challenge it. That is not a skills shortage in the abstract. It is a live exposure sitting in the risk register of most Australian organisations right now, and it is widening faster than board composition is changing.

My contribution sits on two axes. The first is specialist: informed challenge on AI adoption, data governance, technology risk and the regulatory environment forming around them, including the ability to test what management puts in front of the board rather than receive it. The second is generalist: national profit and loss accountability, enterprise systems implementation and workforce transformation, which is the lens through which a strategy either survives contact with an organisation or quietly does not.

I am most useful to boards where mission carries real accountability to the people served. Not-for-profit, public sector and purpose-driven organisations are making irreversible technology decisions with less resourcing and more scrutiny than the private sector, and with far less margin for getting it wrong.

Board skills matrix

Assessed against the instrument your nominations committee already uses.

Self-rated, with the evidence attached rather than asserted. Select any domain to see what sits behind the rating. Where the evidence is thin I have said so, because a candidate who rates themselves deep on everything is not telling you anything.

Governance appointments

Current roles carrying oversight or advisory responsibility.

September 2025 to present

Board Director

Tom Ashmor Foundation

Not-for-profit board. The Foundation was established in memory of Tom Ashmor, carrying forward his curiosity, generosity, and belief in the power of education to change lives. It invests in school infrastructure and gives schools the opportunity to embed AI and technology skills. Key organiser of the Foundation's launch and its fundraising campaign.

August 2025 to present

AI Governance Expert

Governance Institute of Australia

Appointed expert to the peak body for governance and risk professionals in Australia. Developed and facilitates the AI Controls and Assurance and AI Essentials for Governance Professionals courses, contributed to the Institute's agentic AI white paper, and works on AI policy recommendations for members.

January 2025 to present

Co-Founder and Director

EthicAI Pty Ltd

Statutory director duties including financial oversight, solvency, risk and compliance. Scaled to a team of four and approximately $500,000 revenue in the first year.

2025 to present

Member

Tech Council of Australia

Industry peak body membership, with visibility of policy positioning across the Australian technology sector.

Executive career

Where the operating judgement comes from.

January 2025 to present

Co-Founder

EthicAI, Sydney

Founded an AI ethics, governance and organisational change consultancy serving public sector agencies, not-for-profits and mid-sized mission-driven organisations. Accountable for strategy, commercial performance, regulatory relationships and delivery. Engagements include the Fogarty Foundation and the Governance Institute of Australia. Scaled to a team of four and approximately $500,000 revenue in the first year.

January 2022 to January 2025 · 3 years

Chief Operating Officer

Digitas Australia (Publicis Groupe)

Member of the executive leadership team, with ten or more direct reports across client service, new business and delivery, and primary client escalation for McDonald's, Toyota, Miele and Wella. Held the national profit and loss, accountable for staff budgeting and cost management, and advised the regional commercial finance, people and culture, and technology functions. Led the workforce strategy including offshore capability in India, Thailand and New Zealand, and the enterprise resource planning implementation that integrated two acquisitions into the Digitas portfolio. Operated within organisations of up to $60 million revenue and 450 or more staff.

November 2010 to September 2021 · 11 years

Executive Director of Operations

Isobar (Dentsu)

Progressive roles from senior project manager to national Executive Director of Operations, 2018 to 2021. Held the national profit and loss, accountable for staff budgeting, cost management and financial forecasting, and sat on the executive leadership team. Led the custom enterprise resource planning implementation across three Dentsu brands, spanning resource management, timesheeting, contract and financial compliance, revenue recognition and reporting, as principal contact between the brands and technical partners at local and regional C-suite level.

Standing and evidence

The work behind the claim.

Delivery and frameworks

  • Selma. Sovereign, on-premises AI built for organisations that cannot send sensitive data to the cloud, developed and brought to market through EthicAI. selma.au
  • VALID. Governance framework for AI risk exposure and control maturity.
  • Error and Innovation Tolerance Framework. Defines where an organisation can accept machine error and where it cannot.
  • Defensible Decisions. Applied ethics frameworks for AI decision making.
  • FutureFit. Organisational readiness and uplift diagnostic.

Research and publication

  • Governance Institute of Australia. Contributor, Governance in the Age of Agentic AI, produced through the Institute's AI Expert Panel with the Centre for AI and Digital Ethics at the University of Melbourne.
  • MIT Sloan. Operationalisation of the EPOCH human capability framework for applied use in client organisations.

Policy and regulatory

  • eSafety Commissioner. Engagement with the Industry Insights and Safety by Design teams on age assurance and online safety obligations.
  • Austrade and DFAT. Australian Government delegate, Global AI Impact Summit, New Delhi.

Education

  • Artificial Intelligence Strategy. MIT Sloan School of Management, 2025. Executive education.
  • Ethics of AI. London School of Economics. Certificate course.
  • Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy. Certificate course.
  • Leading Organizations and Change. Certificate course.
  • Graduate Diploma, Creative Media. University of Technology Sydney, 2010.
  • Bachelor of Arts, Communications (Media Arts and Production). University of Technology Sydney, 2006.

Keynote and panel

  • Keynote speaker and panel expert on AI governance, workforce transformation and digital identity.
  • Recognition. Top 10 AI Problem Solvers in Australia. Women's Agenda AI Leaders to Watch. Top 10 Australian Tech Strategists for Long Term Innovation.
  • Social Impact Summit. Speaker 2025. Session speaker and session sponsor 2026.
  • Governance Institute of Australia. AI in Governance facilitator.
  • Parliamentary Innovation Showcase, Canberra.

Public audience

  • TikTok. @ethicai_au  ·  24K followers, 365K likes, over seven million views. A like-to-view ratio above five per cent, which is high for a governance and policy subject rather than an entertainment one.
  • LinkedIn. /in/kara-bombell  ·  4,000+ followers.
  • The bAIbes. Podcast co-host. thebaibes.com

Referees

  • Governance Institute of Australia.
  • The Tom Ashmor Foundation.
  • Names and contact details on request.

A board that cannot interrogate its own AI systems is not exercising oversight. It is receiving assurance.

Contact

Open to not-for-profit, public sector and purpose-driven board appointments.

Happy to have an exploratory conversation with a chair or nominations committee. A formal board CV and referee contact details are available on request.

Items shown in dashed purple are placeholders awaiting confirmation and should be resolved before this page is shared. A conventional two-page board CV is available as a separate document for formal applications and search firm submissions.