Peter Baines

Peter Baines OAM is one of Australia's most respected leadership experts — not through theory, but through lived experience at the sharp end of some of the world's most challenging environments.

Over a 22-year career with the NSW Police, Baines led teams in response to acts of terrorism and natural disaster on a global scale. He was part of the leadership response to the 2002 Bali bombings and went on to lead international teams following the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004, heading multiple rotations into Thailand to identify those who lost their lives. His final years in the Police were spent on secondment to the National Institute of Forensic Science, working on counter-terrorism and leadership capacity building — advising bodies including Interpol and the United Nations Office of Drug and Crime. He has also been engaged by the Government of Saudi Arabia on crisis mitigation and deployed to Japan following the 2011 tsunami.

It was the scale of human loss in Thailand that moved Baines to act. In late 2005, he founded Hands Across the Water — a charity dedicated to the children left without parents by the disaster. Today, Hands has raised over $40 million, supporting several hundred children every night across multiple locations in Thailand, and continues to create meaningful shared experiences that connect supporters deeply to its work.

Baines holds qualifications in Law, Forensic Science, and postgraduate Management, and is the author of four books — "Hands Across the Water," "Doing Good by Doing Good," "Leadership Matters," and his most recent release, "Together We Can." His accolades include an Order of Australia Medal for International Humanitarian work, the Fifth Class of the Most Admirable Order of the Direkgunabhorn awarded by the King of Thailand, a Rotary Professional Excellence Award — the first Australian to receive this international honor — and multiple police service medals. He was a New South Wales finalist for Australian of the Year in 2010 and in 2025 was recognized as one of the top five most influential Australians working in Thailand.

When he's not on a stage or in the field, Baines can be found with his wife Claire on their rural property, running ultra marathons, or flying helicopters. In 2024, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Boxing Day Tsunami, he ran 1,400 kilometers through Thailand in just 26 days — the equivalent of 33 marathons — in the heat and humidity of a country that has shaped so much of who he is.