Elizabeth Knight is the preeminent corporate governance journalist at The Sydney Morning Herald, where she has shaped national conversations about executive accountability since 2018. Her work sits at the intersection of finance, law, and regulatory policy, offering unparalleled insight into Australia’s corporate power structures.
“The true test of corporate leadership isn’t annual profit statements—it’s whether executives build institutions that outlast their egos.”
With multiple Walkley and Kennedy Award nominations to her name, Knight remains essential reading for investors, policymakers, and corporate advisors seeking to understand Australia’s evolving business landscape.
Knight’s journey began in the early 2000s, covering local business developments before transitioning to national finance reporting. By the late 2010s, her bylines increasingly focused on high-stakes corporate scandals, such as the Crown Resorts money laundering inquiry. This period solidified her reputation as a journalist unafraid to challenge powerful institutions.
Knight’s 2025 analysis of WiseTech’s controversial leadership shakeup exposed the tension between founder-led companies and modern governance standards. Through interviews with institutional investors and board members, she revealed how White’s promotion to executive chairman contradicted the Australian Institute of Company Directors’ guidelines on board independence. The piece sparked debates about whether Australia’s corporate governance code needs stricter enforcement mechanisms for ASX-listed entities.
What distinguishes this work is Knight’s ability to contextualize technical governance arguments within broader economic trends. She draws parallels between WiseTech’s decision and similar moves at Afterpay and Atlassian, questioning whether Australia’s tech sector risks developing its own “founder worship” culture. Her sourcing—including rare on-the-record comments from proxy advisors—showcases her deep network in institutional investment circles.
This 2021 investigative piece became a turning point in public understanding of Crown’s regulatory crises. Knight obtained leaked audit documents showing systemic anti-money laundering control failures at Crown’s Sydney casino. Her analysis went beyond the immediate scandal, tracing how lax oversight enabled problematic relationships with junket operators over nearly a decade.
The article’s lasting impact lies in its detailed breakdown of regulatory capture mechanisms. Knight demonstrated how Crown exploited gaps between state and federal financial crime frameworks, a theme that later informed policy recommendations from the Australian Law Reform Commission. Her follow-up interviews with whistleblowers set new standards for financial journalism’s role in corporate oversight.
In this 2024 deep dive, Knight dissected the financial and political realities preventing NBN Co’s privatization. Combining Freedom of Information requests with interviews from former communications ministers, she revealed how successive governments prioritized short-term budget optics over long-term infrastructure planning. The piece remains essential reading for understanding Australia’s broadband policy quagmire.
Knight’s analysis stood out for its nuanced treatment of public-private partnership models. She contrasted NBN’s trajectory with successful infrastructure privatizations like Transurban, identifying specific debt restructuring and service-level agreement failures. Telecommunications experts later cited this work during parliamentary inquiries into digital infrastructure funding.
Knight consistently prioritizes stories where corporate behavior meets legal oversight. A successful pitch might examine how proposed changes to the Corporations Act could impact merger activity in renewable energy. For example, her 2023 coverage of AGL’s demerger battle demonstrated particular interest in how corporate restructuring interacts with climate policy frameworks.
Sources from regulatory bodies, proxy advisors, and institutional investors receive prominent placement in Knight’s work. A pitch centered on APRA’s new banking liquidity rules would gain traction if accompanied by access to superannuation fund analysts or corporate governance consultants. Her recent WiseTech article derived its authority from interviews with multiple top-20 shareholders.
While Knight occasionally touches on consumer impacts, these are always framed through systemic policy lenses. Pitches about mortgage rate changes or retail investing trends should emphasize structural factors (e.g., ACCC enforcement priorities) rather than individual financial strategies. Her 2022 series on buy-now-pay-later regulation exemplifies this approach.
Knight’s deepest dives often coincide with annual report seasons (February–March) and shareholder meeting periods (October–November). A pitch about executive pay reforms would resonate strongest when tied to upcoming AGM voting items or ASX corporate governance guideline updates.
Abstract arguments about governance best practices won’t suffice—Knight’s work thrives on specific datasets. A successful pitch might include analysis of ASIC enforcement actions by industry sector over the past decade or comparative statistics on board diversity in ASX 200 vs. S&P 500 companies.
Billionaire Richard White’s elevation from sin-binned human headline to executive chairman of WiseTech sets governance clock back
Crown’s growing dirty laundry list a blow to early Barangaroo opening
NBN is the government's $60 billion investment that will never be sold
At PressContact, we aim to help you discover the most relevant journalists for your PR efforts. If you're looking to pitch to more journalists who write on Finance, here are some other real estate journalist profiles you may find relevant:
