Jo Feldman

Jo is a commercial lawyer specialising in international trade, arbitration and cross-border investment, with a background in senior trade and diplomatic roles for the Australian Government. She brings direct experience negotiating, implementing and enforcing the legal frameworks that underpin Australia’s integration into global markets.

In her 15-year diplomatic career, Jo advised on all of Australia’s trade and investment agreements with its top 20 trading partners, including as a trade negotiator on Australia’s major trade agreements with China, Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom and others, as well as on the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership).

Jo was appointed Australia’s representative at the United Nations in New York on human rights (2018-2021), at the World Intellectual Property Organization (2016), and at the World Trade Organization on digital trade (2013-2014). In 2019/2021 she served (by consensus of the 198 participation nations) as Vice Chair of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, reflecting her seniority in complex, high-stakes negotiations across diverse geopolitical blocs.

She was previously the Chair of the Trade and Business Law Committee of the Law Council of Australia.

She has also acted on trade disputes involving China, the US, and the EU, with experience across the broader strategic and diplomatic considerations that shape trade enforcement. This provides her with a practical understanding of how trade and supply chain tensions emerge, escalate and are resolved in a contested geoeconomic environment.