David Leser is a multi-award winning journalist who has worked in Australia, North America, the Middle East, Europe and Asia for the past 40 years.
He won the 1999 Walkely award for feature writing for his expose of Alan Jones in Good Weekend, called Who’s Afraid of Alan Jones. He has been a Walkley finalist on three other occasions in the categories of feature writing, coverage of Asia and sports reporting. He is also the recipient of a human rights commendation for journalism and three other national magazine awards for feature writing.
David has worked as a feature writer for the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Melbourne Age, HQ magazine, the Bulletin, Good Weekend, the Australian Women’s Weekly, Italian and German Vanity Fair, Newsweek and The Daily Beast.
He has also worked as a Washington D.C, Jerusalem and Paris-based correspondent.
David is the author of 7 books, including a memoir: To Begin to Know: Walking in the Shadows of My Father which was shortlisted for the 2015 National Biography Award. He is also editor of Paul Kelly: The Essays (2012), as well as Executive Producer of the award-winning Australian documentary Paul Kelly: Stories of Me.
David’s latest book Women, Men and the Whole Damn Thing – about gender relations in the age of #MeToo – was published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in August, 2019, and then in the United States in 2021 by Pegasus Books.
Born in Montreal, David is a senior contributing writer to Good Weekend magazine and also works as a public interviewer, guest lecturer, writing mentor, and speech writer. He has two daughters, Jordan, a singer-songwriter, and Hannah, a photographer, and lives in Sydney.
Testimonials
“Our senior leadership team spent a morning with David Leser recently and the experience for many in the room was life-altering. One female leader said that David’s talk had “completely reframed her belief system” and that for the first time in her life she felt “surrounded by a group of men who genuinely understood the challenges” she had faced – and continues to face – “as a woman in society and in a professional setting.”
“For me, listening to David Leser talk about “Women, Men & the Whole Damn Thing was a lucid, profound and inspiring experience … full of heart, history and hope.”
“David was AMAZING!! Â So good.
He was so authentic, empathetic, vulnerable, informative, honest, open and the pace of the conversation was perfect.
It was a very emotional and thought provoking session.”
“One of our finest longform journalists – certainly our deepest – dives into the treacherous waters of MeToo (and then some) and emerges with something so timely, connecting and regularly sublime that it feels like it was written as much for my mates and I as it was for my daughters. Resolutely human. Utterly essential. Wholly unputdownable.”
“I want to hire a plane and air-drop this book onto footy ovals, board-rooms, electoral offices and boys’ schools.”
“If you are a mum of a boy, I think you need to read this book. If you are the mum of a girl, I think you need to read this book. If you are a woman, I think you need to read this book. If you are a man, I think you need to read this book. Especially, if you are a man, I think you need to read this book. And if you think you don’t need to read this book, I think you need to read this book. Please. Please. Read this book.”
“Staggering in its range and depth. A landmark book.”
“I started reading this book with my heart in my mouth and finished it with a sense of profound relief. At last, a man has listened and understood. David Leser has taken women, their lives, their pain, their fears and their desires as seriously as he takes his own. It is all we ask.”
“When I read Women, Men & the Whole Damn Thing, I thought, `how can I get this into the minds of Australian business leaders?’ It turns out 30 minutes with David Leser is enough to change the mindset of 60 Australian c-suite leaders. He is a critical part of any gender equality conversation.”
“David Leser brings a powerful and unique voice to one of the most complex issues of our time – gender equality, respect for women, and the ways women and men can become better allies to each other. His insights gleaned from researching and writing Women, Men & the Whole Damn Thing provide a crucial, refreshing and respectful male voice to the conversations we are all needing to have as leaders. I have not met a more important male advocate for how we navigate a more inclusive future together. For most of my career, I have sat on panels wrestling with these topics – David’s arrival as a new, deeply informed voice has never been more welcome, and needed. I have observed conversations taking new directions, and audiences re-examining their roles and responsibilities in light of David’s contribution. He is a game-changer at this momentous time.”
“I have invited David to speak at a number of high level Champions of Change meetings because of his skills as a writer and speaker on the subject of gender equality. David’s book Women, Men & the Whole Damn Thing was – and remains – a landmark achievement that demonstrates the power of men being constructively engaged in helping break down the barriers to equality.”