Invitation to a Special Dinner of Thanksgiving
An Evening of Gratitude, Conversation and Harvard Connection
Join fellow members and friends of Harvard for a festive Thanksgiving Dinner - complete with turkey and all the trimmings - followed by
a thought-provoking evening of inspiration and ideas from distinguished Harvard faculty and alumni.
Speakers and Highlights
George Q. Daley, AB’82, MD ’91, PhD, Dean of Harvard Medical School will discuss the challenges
currently facing Harvard, as well as pressing issues shaping global health and medical research.
He will be joined by Amy C. Edmondson, AB ’81, AM ’95, PhD ’96, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management
at Harvard Business School, renowned expert on leadership and organisational learning, for a dynamic discussion and audience Q&A.
Christopher Smith MBA ’77, Chairman of HCA Philanthropy and Board member of Harvard Club of Australia,
will reflect on the Club's rich history of contribution to both Harvard and Australia, celebrating the enduring spirit of collaboration and giving.
Alice Hill, MBA ‘87 & PhD ‘91, Past President & Executive Cmte member of Harvard Alumni Association
plus Past President and Council member of Harvard Club of Victoria, will propose a vote of thanks connecting the speakers' themes to Australian context.
Friday 21st November at 6pm
Heritage Ballroom, Fullerton Hotel, 1 Martin Place, Sydney
Dress Code: Business Casual
Ticket Price: $160 members, $185 non-members
Book a table of 10: $1,600
CLICK HERE TO BOOK by 14th November 2025
Please provide guest names and any dietary restrictions
Bios of visiting Harvard faculty follows
George Q. Daley, AB ’82, MD ‘91, PhD, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Harvard UniversityGeorge Q. Daley, Dean of Harvard Medical School and the Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Medicine, is a physician-scientist and an authority on cancer biology and stem cell science. Daley earned his AB, magna cum laude, from Harvard, his PhD in biology from MIT, working with Nobel laureate David Baltimore, and his MD, summa cum laude, from HMS. Daley trained in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and hematology/oncology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital. After serving as chief resident in medicine at MGH (94-95), Daley joined the HMS faculty as assistant professor and staff physician in hematology/oncology at MGH while running a laboratory as a Whitehead Fellow at the MIT-affiliated Whitehead Institute. In 2003 he moved to Boston Children’s, where he attended in hematology and directed the Pediatric Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's (2009-2016). Daley has been professor of biological chemistry at HMS since 2010 and was Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator from 2007-2017, resigning upon his deanship.
Daley’s early cancer studies demonstrated the central role of BCR/ABL in human chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), work that stimulated development of imatinib (Gleevec). His studies of imatinib resistance guided the design of next-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Daley’s lab implicated the LIN28/let-7 pathway in cancer, tissue metabolism, regeneration, and aging. His contributions in stem cell science include generation of disease-specific pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) and derivation of hematopoietic stem, progenitor, and differentiated blood lineages from PSCs. Daley has authored international guidelines for stem cell research and its clinical translation, and spoken in forums worldwide on the scientific and ethical dimensions of stem cell research and genome editing. Daley is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Amy C. Edmonson, AB ‘81, AM ‘95, PhD ’96, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School
Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society.
Edmondson has been recognized by the biannual Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers since 2011, and most recently was ranked #1 in 2021 and 2023; she also received that organization’s Breakthrough Idea Award in 2019, and Talent Award in 2017. She studies teaming, psychological safety, and organizational learning, and her articles have been published in numerous academic and management outlets, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review and California Management Review. Her 2019 book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth (Wiley), has been translated into 15 languages. Edmondson’s latest book, Right Kind of Wrong (Atria), builds on her prior work on psychological safety and teaming to provide a framework for thinking about, discussing, and practicing the science of failing well. First published in the US and in the UK (Penguin) in September, 2023, the book is due to be translated into 24 additional languages, and was selected for the Financial Times and Schroders Best Business Book of the Year award.