Jenni Harding

Jenni is passionate about helping individuals, teams and organisations achieve their optimal potential and making positive social impacts in the world.

She is the founder and Managing Director of Harbridge Optimal Performance and the primary contact for clients and potential clients. She is an experienced director, C-suite executive, entrepreneur, activator, presenter, consultant, coach and board advisor with more than 35 year’s investment industry experience, focussed on implementing strategy, compliance, governance and investment grade infrastructure, as well as conducting due diligence assessments on investment managers.

She has a broad range of experience spanning strategic thinking and business acumen applicable to many industries, including strategy, investments, governance, legal, compliance, risk management, due diligence, accounting, tax, audit and significant project/change management experience. Jenni also has substantial experience in business/product integrations following takeovers/mergers. She also built, mentored and developed teams during these periods of growth and on-going change.

Her experience also includes 23 years working for investment managers including being a C-suite executive, co-founder and founding employee of various investment companies and more than 14 years as a consultant providing strategic, operational, compliance and due diligence services to the investment industry. She has a strong knowledge of investment and superannuation markets and products. Jenni is the creator of investment manager back-office outsourcing in Australia (now a multi-billion dollar industry). She is a speaker and panel member at investment and compliance industry conferences/seminars, a presenter/workshop facilitator on various positive psychology, neuroscience and emotional intelligence topics, and a certified strengths assessor and coach. Jenni is also an expert mentor on the federal government’s Boosting Female Founders initiative.

Her continuous improvement focus and wide range of interests have seen her obtain a range of educational qualifications and volunteer experiences. She holds a Bachelor of Business (Business Administration), a Graduate Certificate in Change Management, a Masters of Business Administration (Executive) and a Master of Applied Positive Psychology. She is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and has PS 146 qualifications (now RG 146).

Jenni has also spent 30+ years volunteering and providing pro-bono/low-bono advice and consulting to the for-purpose industry. She is the founder of Greatest Good – a social enterprise connecting conscious consumers with for-purpose organisations to make positive social, economic and environmental impacts. She mentors and coaches a number of social enterprises and purpose-led starts.

She was previously a non-executive director of the Dolphin Research Institute and the co-chair of the Heart of Wellbeing Advisory Board, a start-up social enterprise providing wellbeing education and courses via digital platforms. From 2009-2014, she was a long-term volunteer for good company (a non-profit initiative designed to promote corporate volunteering and make volunteering more engaging, empowering and impactful). In 2010, Jenni established the Australian Hedge Fund Education Forums (aimed at increasing the operational efficiency and understanding of investment grade infrastructure by hedge fund managers and the hedge fund industry) which ran free hedge fund events in Sydney and Melbourne for more than three years. She served as the Chair of the inaugural AIMA Australia (Alternative Investment Managers Association) Education Committee from mid 2013 until the end of 2014. She was awarded the Contribution to the Hedge Fund Industry award in 2014.