Samantha Abeydeera joined Council in April 2023 as the Divisional Manager, Transport for Brisbane. In this role Samantha is responsible for one of Australia’s largest public transport providers with more than 3,000 employees facilitating close to 50 million annual customer journeys across bus, ferry and e-mobility. Samantha and her team are committed to providing a world class public transport service for the people of Brisbane by delivering on Transport for Brisbane’s vision of every customer; every journey matters.
Prior to joining Council, Samantha was the Executive Director of Strategic Operations at Transport for NSW. This unique role was responsible for driving end to end multimodal strategy and continuous improvement in mass transport for up to 700 million annual customer journeys. Samantha previously held senior roles in the private sector including Managing Director of Transport and the group’s Chief Operating Officer for Maritime at the NRMA Group.
In 2018 Samantha was recognised as one of the Top 50 Women in NSW Government for her transformational leadership as Director of Train Crewing at Sydney Trains where she led more than 1000+ Drivers and Guards who delivered in excess of 400 million customer journeys annually.
Samantha holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws from Macquarie University and has also undertaken executive education in Boston at Harvard Business School.