Allegra Spender

Allegra Spender (born 10 March 1978) is an Australian politician and businesswoman. She is currently the member of parliament for Wentworth, having originally won the seat at the 2022 federal election. She is one of a number of centrist community independents (often referred to as "teal independents") who won election on a platform of action on climate change, economic reform, political integrity, and gender equality.

She is the third generation of her family to sit in federal parliament, after her grandfather Sir Percy Spender and father John Spender. She was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, and corporate executive before entering politics, including as managing director of her mother Carla Zampatti's fashion label and CEO of education charity the Australian Business & Community Network (ABCN).

Allegra Spender was born in Sydney on 10 March 1978. She is the daughter of former Liberal politician and diplomat John Spender and fashion designer Carla Zampatti. Her grandfather, Sir Percy Spender, was a Liberal MP under Prime Minister Robert Menzies, a diplomat and the president of the International Court of Justice. Sir Percy was one of the key authors of both the ANZUS Treaty and the Colombo Plan. Her grandmother was Lady Jean Spender, a novelist. Her sister is fashion designer Bianca Spender. Her half-brother is Alex Schuman.

Spender attended Ascham School, where she was head girl and Dux, and achieved a UAI of 99.95.

She received a BA in economics from the University of Cambridge, where she was at Trinity College, and an MSc in organisational psychology at the University of London.

Spender started her career as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company before working as a policy analyst in the UK Treasury. She later worked as a Change Leader at London's King's College Hospital and as a consultant in Kenya for TechnoServe. Spender was the managing director for her mother's fashion label Carla Zampatti for 9 years. She was also the Chair of the Sydney Renewable Power Company and the CEO of the Australian Business & Community Network (ABCN), a social mobility charity that links students from low socio-economic schools and mentors from business.

In early 2020, a local group of professional women established Voices of Wentworth. The group was concerned primarily with the Morrison government’s lack of evidence-based climate action, integrity in politics and record on supporting women. Voices of Wentworth was inspired by the impact of similar Voices groups in the electorates of Indi and Warringah.

In 2021, Spender was approached by a separate group of locals “Wentworth Independents” who were seeking an Independent candidate to run in the division of Wentworth at the 2022 Australian federal election. The group wanted a woman with "deep local roots and an impressive CV" who shared the community's core beliefs on the need for more integrity in politics, action on climate change and gender equality. After initially declining the approach, Spender announced her intention to run in November 2021, citing government inaction on climate change as one of the key reasons for her candidature.