Peter Baines

Peter Baines OAM, one of Australia’s foremost leadership experts, has road-tested leadership the hard way. In his 22 years with the NSW Police he led teams responding to acts of terrorism and natural disasters on a scale not previously experienced by Australian police.

Baines was part of the leadership team that travelled to Bali in the aftermath of the bombings in 2002, and in early 2005 he was called to lead international teams in response to the Boxing Day tsunami in South-East Asia. He headed up multiple rotations into Thailand tasked with identifying those who had died. His leadership theories were fully tested in this harrowing environment.

After witnessing the devastating effects of the tsunami, creating sustainable leadership became a passion. Having been especially deeply touched by the number of children left without parents by the disaster, he was inspired to set up an organisation that could make a real difference in the lives of these children. In late 2005 he founded Hands Across the Water to raise funds for, and awareness about, the orphaned children of Thailand.

Hands has raised more than $30 million to date. They have built several children’s homes across Thailand, purchased a rubber plantation to create a sustainable and regular income, constructed a community centre in the Khao Lak region of Thailand and a Digital Learning Centre in the northeast. The charity now has operations in seven different locations in Thailand and provides a home for several hundred children every night, but its main focus is on the long-term future of the children and the communities in which they live. They have also supported more than 30 children through university, all of whom have graduated and look forward to a life of choice rather than chance. His final years with the NSW Police were spent on secondment to the National Institute of Forensic Science, where he worked on national and international capacity-building projects around counterterrorism and leadership. He spent time advising Interpol in France and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in South-East Asia.

Baines has received numerous awards, including an Order of Australia Medal in 2014, for his international humanitarian work. In 2016 he was awarded the Most Admirable Order of the Direkgunabhorn (Fifth Class) by the King of Thailand. In 2010 he was an NSW finalist at the Australian of the Year awards. He was the first Australian to be awarded the international honour of a Rotary Professional Excellence Award in 2008. He received the NSW Police Service Medal and the Australian Federal Police Operations Medal for his work in Asia.

He was the first NSW Police Officer to be awarded the Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal and Australian National Medal. He has completed university studies in Law and Forensic Science and postgraduate studies in Management.

Today Baines helps businesses build effective sustainable leadership programs through the unique mix of his leadership and corporate social responsibility initiatives. He is Director of International Operations for Hands Across the Water and sits on a number of boards.

In 2023 Baines wrote his third book, "Leadership Matters: Stories and Insights for Leaders, Achievers and Visionaries", published by Wiley. Baines has written two previous books, Hands Across the Water, published by Pan MacMillan, and Doing Good by Doing Good, published by Wiley.