Jillian Kilby

Jillian Kilby, NSW/ACT AgriFutures Rural Woman of the Year in 2018, has a keen interest in contributing and sharing her information and expertise across government, industry and the community.

As a civil engineer and farmer’s daughter from Coonamble, Jillian Kilby takes a committed and practical approach to making positive changes to lives across regional NSW.

Her vision is to improve the commercial success of regional start-ups by increasing the capability, capacity and confidence of business owners.

In particular, she wants to champion women to be brave with their lives and support them to pursue professional and personal goals.

Now, Managing Director and co-founder of The Stable Group, Jillian has served the infrastructure needs of NSW local governments west of the Blue Mountains for over 10 years. She works with clients in regional Australia and the USA, and enjoys cross-pollinating ideas.

In 2018, Jillian purchased the grand, historic post office in Dubbo’s main street to create The Exchange - a regional innovation hub and co-working space. This year, a second Exchange location comes to life in the recently restored Faulkner's heritage precinct in Narrabri. Jillian’s principal aim at The Exchange is to build confidence, capacity and capability to increase the chance of the commercial success of startups and other business ventures.

Jillian holds a Master of Business Administration and Master of Public Policy (2013–2016) from Stanford University, and uses a “design thinking” approach from this study to solve problems and shift infrastructure projects from the government planning stage to be shovel ready.

In 2010, she won the Australian Young Professional Engineer Award and Sydney University Young Alumni of the Year Award.