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Real-world leadership for when it matters most.
Drawing on his experience as a NSW Police forensic investigator, international disaster responder, charity founder and endurance leader—including running 1,400 kilometres through Thailand—Peter Baines brings rare credibility to conversations about leadership, resilience and change. His keynotes combine powerful stories with practical frameworks that help leaders make decisions, build trust and keep their people moving forward through pressure and uncertainty. Audiences leave not simply inspired, but better equipped to lead when it matters most.
About Peter:
Peter Baines OAM has spent much of his career working in environments where pressure is high, information is incomplete and decisions carry real consequences.
During 22 years with the NSW Police, Peter worked across forensic investigations and major crisis environments, including the Waterfall train disaster, Bali Bombings, 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami and floods in Saudi Arabia.
These experiences shaped Peter’s understanding of leadership—not as a title or theory, but as the ability to remain calm, make decisions, build trust and provide direction when others are relying on you.
Following the Boxing Day Tsunami, Peter founded Hands Across the Water to provide long-term support for children and communities in Thailand. What began as a response to tragedy grew into an enduring commitment and a powerful example of purpose-led leadership in action.
Twenty years later, Peter returned to Thailand to undertake one of his greatest personal and physical challenges: running 1,400 kilometres across the country in just 26 days.
The Run to Remember reinforced a lesson that sits at the heart of Peter’s work: resilience is not built in isolation. It grows through discipline, connection, shared purpose and the people who continue moving forward alongside us.
Today, Peter brings these lessons to corporate, government and industry audiences across Australia and internationally. His presentations explore the realities leaders and teams face every day—change, uncertainty, responsibility, fatigue, trust and the pressure to perform when the way forward is not always clear.
Peter does not speak from theory alone. His lived experience gives audiences a compelling and practical perspective on what pressure reveals, what trust requires and how leaders can help their people move forward through change.
Together We Can is not just a story about running 1,400 kilometres across Thailand in 26 days. It’s not simply about blistered feet, fatigue, or physical grit, though all of that is present. This book is a heartfelt reflection on two decades of service, leadership, and transformation through the work of Hands Across the Water.
Doing Good by Doing Good shows companies how to improve the bottom line by implementing an engaging, authentic, and business-enhancing program that helps staff and business thrive.
International CSR consultant Peter Baines draws upon lessons learnt from the challenges faced in his career as a police officer, forensic investigator, and founder of Hands Across the Water to describe the Australian CSR landscape, and the factors that make up a program that benefits everyone involved.
Great leaders have something in common, a vision and purpose that inspires people with direction and hope. But how do leaders find their purpose and conceptualise their vision? In Leadership Matters, Peter Baines unfolds the lessons that have stayed with him through his decades in international counterterrorism and disaster response. In particular, the book reveals how the devastating aftermath of Thailand’s Boxing Day Tsunami has shaped Peter’s understanding of what it means to be a true leader – and how it led him to start a charity that has helped thousands.
Peter Baines started out as a police officer in the mean streets of Cabramatta in the early nineties. Becoming a specialist in crime scene forensic investigations, he was called upon to bring his skills to the Bali bombings in 2002.
But it was the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that forever changed the direction of his life. Helping the people of Thailand identify their dead, he met the countless children who had been left behind, orphaned, with nowhere to go. With a colleague he decided to make a difference, and set about creating the charity Hands Across the Water, building an orphanage and raising funds to raise and educate the children.
