Professor Caitlin Byrne (2016 Alumna) - Pro Vice Chancellor, Griffith Business School, Griffith University

In the seminar rooms of Griffith University and the corridors of diplomacy, Caitlin Byrne cuts a thoughtful figure: equal parts strategist, academic and regional enthusiast. Her journey to Asia arrived unexpectedly mid-career, reframing her worldview and her sense of Australia’s place in it. “I am a latecomer to the Asia engagement piece,” she confesses. Byrne’s early diplomatic work focused on the United States, Europe and Latin America. Asia, she once assumed, was “probably off-limits to me.” 

Then came a formative trip to Peking University as a mature PhD student. “Within about six months, my whole career changed,” she recalls. The journey ignited a curiosity leading her from Korea to Cambodia, from Jakarta to Wuhan. What began as an academic detour evolved into a conviction that Australia’s future hinges on how deeply and imaginatively it engages with its region. 

“It’s really about taking full advantage of the location that we have,” Byrne explains. With the global environment at its most contested in recent memory, “Australia’s opportunities to be prosperous, productive and innovative…[will] come from the connections with the nations and communities across Asia.” 

Byrne is under no illusions about the challenges. “The future is one that Australia can’t take for granted,” she says. Even as alliances, such as the one with the United States, endure, “we’ve got to think very differently about how partnerships work…it’s going to be a much more complex environment.” 

However, she doesn’t advocate engagement for engagement’s sake, or simply to hedge against China. Instead, she urges Australians to develop “cross-sectoral” capabilities in the region, to learn from Asia. “The three words that really characterise Asia capability are ‘difference, diversity and dynamism’,” she says. 

Byrne has long studied the mechanisms of influence, especially for nations like Australia that occupy neither the commanding heights of a superpower nor the anonymity of a microstate. “I view soft power through the lens of a middle power,” she explains. “The ability to build coalitions of influence. Through attractiveness and the ability to bring people to you. Through story, through persuasion and through good policy design and practice.” 

For Byrne, Asia capability isn’t a bureaucratic box-tick or a matter of niche expertise. It is the precondition for Australia to be taken seriously by its neighbours and for Australians to better understand themselves. “It’s about how we sit at the table with others,” she says. “How we engage to find shared solutions to shared problems.” 

As a former diplomat and Director of Griffith Asia Institute, Byrne is well placed to gauge Australia’s readiness for the region it inhabits and, despite the challenges, her diagnosis is hopeful. She says that we have the right capabilities, “but we’ve got to be careful of complacency, of being too inward looking and shying away from the discomfort that can arise when engaging with communities that are different from those that we’re used to.” 

She also believes curiosity is the essential muscle that Australians must strengthen. “It’s about being open and empathetic and willing to listen, to explore and to understand the stories that others have and the journeys that they’ve been on,” she explains. 

This outlook informs her advice to others who may have come late to Asia, as she did. “Place is incredibly important and the connection that people have to place,” she says. “We talk about this in Australia, particularly for our First Nations people, and context matters. Really understanding people and place together matters.” 

The primacy of place came to the fore for Byrne when teaching about the resolution of the Korean nuclear crisis at Bond University. “I realised it was very difficult for me to teach that course without having experienced the place,” she reflects. Traveling to the Korean peninsula and meeting people from both North and South left her with a deeper appreciation for the shared humanity that can persist amid ideological differences.  

“When you look someone in the eyes, it can become clear that we all have very shared aspirations… even if those aspirations are as simple as getting through every day,” she says. And although the different ways that countries are organised politically “can be very confronting,” she argues that cultural and political divides should not obscure these basic truths. 

Instead, Byrne champions ‘empathy mapping’, a leadership approach rooted in emotional intelligence and contextual understanding. It’s a mindset she credits to her time with the Asialink Leaders Program, which encouraged her to rethink how projects, teams and partnerships are managed across cultural lines. 

Byrne views universities and schools as pivotal actors in shaping the region’s future, particularly as geopolitical and environmental challenges loom over Asia. Fresh from visits to India, Indonesia and China, she is animated by the energy and ambition she sees in young entrepreneurs and innovators confronting the realities of climate change, infrastructure gaps and social inequality. “I’m excited about the passion, energy, intellectual heft that I see in a young generation coming out of Asia, in all different places, with curiosity and drive,” she says. 

This will make education vital to the ongoing development of the region, according to Byrne, who points to the New Colombo Plan as a powerful example of how Australia can deepen its engagement by embedding young people in the region early. “We’d love to see that tripled in the next five years,” she says, while warning that such efforts must move beyond the usual institutions and individuals to seize the full potential of Asia’s next generation. 

While government initiatives such as the Southeast Asia Economic Strategy are steps in the right direction, she believes they are not enough. “We are not engaged to the extent we should be right across ASEAN,” she warns. “It would be really wonderful to see more of that opportunity taken up earlier by younger Australians.” 

Professor Caitlin Byrne is Pro Vice Chancellor at Griffith Business School, Griffith University and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. She was formerly Director of the Griffith Asia Institute and in 2021 received a special commendation from the Japanese Consulate-General for her contribution to bilateral Australia-Japan relations. Caitlin completed the Asialink Leaders Program in 2016.