Carolyn Lidgerwood
Carolyn Lidgerwood was appointed to the Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA) as a full-time Authority Member in September 2023. At the ACMA, Carolyn is the Authority Lead for Gambling, and also the Authority Lead for Compliance and Enforcement.
Carolyn joined the ACMA after working with leading global and Australian organisations for more than 30 years, where she specialised in data privacy and broadcasting law and compliance.
Immediately prior to being appointed as an ACMA Authority Member, Carolyn was for 12 years the Head of Privacy at Rio Tinto in Melbourne. Rio Tinto is the world’s second largest mining and metals group. At Rio Tinto, Carolyn managed Rio Tinto’s data privacy compliance program and advised on data privacy legal and compliance issues across its global operations (which included 57,000 employees across 6 continents and 35 countries).
Prior to Rio Tinto, Carolyn was General Counsel and Company Secretary at Southern Cross Media (then Australia’s largest regional broadcaster), and Special Counsel at Gilbert + Tobin Lawyers in Sydney for more than a decade, after working in both private and public sector roles in the early years of her career.
Carolyn holds honours degrees in Arts and Law from the University of Melbourne and was a board member of iappANZ, and also a founding member of the Law Council of Australia's Privacy Law Working Party (now the Privacy Law Committee). She has been included in the Legal 500 'GC Powerlist' for Australia and in the ‘Best Lawyers' listing (for broadcasting law). Carolyn grew up on a wheat, sheep and clover farm at Tungamah in north-east Victoria, Australia.