Ian Hancock will discuss the different lives and careers of Ainslie Gotto - as Prime Minister John Gorton's chief of staff, a company director with Drake International, interior designer, Liberal party activist, and major figure in the national and international Women Chiefs of Enterprise. He will ask: how and why did she advance so far and achieve so much, and what price did she pay?

Ian Hancock has published book-length biographies of John Gorton, Nick Greiner and Tom Hughes, biographical chapters on Roden Cutler, David Martin and John Carrick and several entries in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, including one on Harold Holt. He is currently working on biographies of Ainsley Gotto and Josiah Symon and, with Nicholas Brown, on a biography of Frederick Wheeler.