{"id":90051,"date":"2024-01-26T04:06:08","date_gmt":"2024-01-25T17:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/geelongtimes\/?p=90051"},"modified":"2024-01-25T12:08:31","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T01:08:31","slug":"diana-taylor-honoured-with-am-on-australia-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/geelongtimes\/news\/diana-taylor-honoured-with-am-on-australia-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Diana Taylor honoured with AM on Australia Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONG-TIME Geelong sports administrator and lawyer Diana Taylor has been appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2024 Australia Day Honours List.<\/p>\n

The Highton resident received the honour for significant service to Australian rules football, and to the community of Geelong.<\/p>\n

Speaking earlier this week, Ms Taylor said she “wasn’t quite sure” the email from the Governor-General announcing her AM was intended for her.<\/p>\n

“I was very surprised, very overwhelmed and just so delighted.”<\/p>\n

In more than two decades of involvement in football, Ms Taylor became the first female president of a men’s metropolitan football league, the first woman appointed to the VFL Tribunal and after being appointed as a director of the Geelong Football Club in 2010, is now the club’s vice president \u2013 the first woman to hold this position in the club’s history.<\/p>\n

“Football, for me, is about people, and is about community, and about building community,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s also, I believe, Australia’s greatest positive change agent.<\/p>\n

“So you put all of those factors together, as well as the fact’s it’s the most exciting game you could possibly go and watch… I love it.”<\/p>\n

Ms Taylor’s legal achievements are equally as storied. She worked in multiple top-tier law firms and as in-house counsel for large Australian businesses before establishing her own legal consulting firm in 2009.<\/p>\n

After later expanding her legal career into business, she was a Telstra Businesswoman of the Year Award winner in 2016 and was Netball Australia’s inaugural general counsel.<\/p>\n

Geelong’s Bernadette Uzelac was also appointed an AM for significant service to the community of the Barwon South West Region.<\/p>\n

This includes many leadership, board, and advisory roles across a swathe of organisations over more than two decades.<\/p>\n

These include G21, Geelong Business Club, Kardinia Park Advisory Committee, Small Business Ministerial Council, Committee for Geelong, Deakin Business School, Future Proofing Geelong.<\/p>\n

There were six Medals in the Order of Australia (OAMs) awarded to people in Geelong today (Friday, January 26). They are:<\/p>\n