
The Founders: Using business expertise to make a change

Kirrily Dear decided to take her business experience and apply it to charity work to give back to the community. Around a decade ago, Dear founded volunteer-based charity Run Against Violence to raise awareness and funds for domestic violence prevention. Among the G20 nations, Australia ranks eighth for the rate of domestic violence against women, according to OECD and Dear was inspired to take action in 2012 while hearing about domestic violence on the news. “It was during that news cycle that I heard the statistic of one woman a week being murdered and over the, you know, the subsequent months and learning more about the problem,” she said. “Up to that point, I'd been largely oblivious that we had an issue with domestic and family violence in Australia.”Broken Hill to Sydney - 500km mark. Credit: Pure Public RelationsHer activism started with the success of the White Ribbon Ultra Marathon in 2014, where Dear ran 860km over 12 days. “I ended up doing a charity run in 2014, and it was during that charity run that I met a young man who had grown up with horrific violence in his home,” she said “It was really the conversation I had with him that became a turning point. I then decided to use everything that I had wi







