/ About

Hi! I’m Matt Beard. I’m a philosopher, dad, husband, pop culture nerd and a moral philosopher and ethicist with a special interest in leadership, military ethics, technology and applied ethics. I’m the Program Director of the Vincent Fairfax Fellowship at the Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership, where I help senior leaders – CEOs, senior military officers and public servants, entrepreneurs and world-leading academics – develop a personal, meaningful understanding of ethical leadership. Before that, I was a Fellow at The Ethics Centre in Sydney, where I worked on major consulting projects, conducted research, designed new products and services, spent a lot of time in the media and published Ethical by Design: Principles for Good Technology.

I also work a lot with young people. I’m the resident philosopher on the hit ABC podcast Short & Curly, where I sing and dance (literally) whilst teaching kids how to think about ethics. I’m also the author of The Short and Curly Guide to Life, which does the same, but in print. I love it when the two come together. Nothing makes me happier than when I give a boardroom talk about something like ethics and AI and then the chair of the board asks for a selfie because her grandkids love the podcast. I’ve also booked a lot of corporate engagements because, let’s be honest, a lot of professional ethics talks could use a dash of fun.

I’ve got an Honours degree in Philosophy from The University of Notre Dame Australia, plus a PhD for a thesis on military ethics, I’ve published a bunch of academic papers and book chapters and in 2016, I won the Australasian Association of Philosophy Prize for my “prolific contribution to public philosophy”.

I take a very non-traditional view of what a philosopher is, which means on a given day you might find me working on a thought experiment involving a zombie apocalypse, presenting to a board of directors, arguing on TV or contributing to national AI ethics policy (yes, these are all real examples).

Get in touch! I’d love to meet you!