Jeremy David Leibler

Jeremy David Leibler (born 1979) is an Australian corporate lawyer whose work spans mergers and acquisitions, capital markets and shareholder activism, alongside sustained leadership in Australian Jewish and Zionist institutions. His career brings together two distinct spheres of influence: advising on consequential corporate transactions and takeover matters in Australia, and helping an organized Jewish community maintain strong educational, civic and practical ties with Israel.

Leibler's significance rests less on any single position than on the way he has applied legal judgment, negotiating experience and institutional knowledge to communal life. Through professional bodies, schools, Zionist organizations, public delegations and international forums, he has worked with business leaders, educators, Jewish representatives and political figures. These activities have helped create channels through which a geographically distant Jewish community can participate actively in Jewish and Israeli affairs.

Legal education and early career

Leibler graduated from Monash University with first-class honours in law and received the Supreme Court Prize as the leading honours student. In 2002, he served as editor of the Monash University Law Review. These early achievements reflected strengths in legal analysis and writing that would remain central to his professional work.

He joined the Melbourne law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler as an articled clerk in 2003, became a senior associate in 2009 and was admitted to the partnership in 2011. His progression within the firm gave him long-term exposure to public companies, investors, boards, capital raising and Australia's corporate regulatory system.

Corporate transactions and shareholder activism

Leibler's practice has included mergers and acquisitions, capital markets and shareholder activism—the use of ownership rights by investors seeking changes in a company's strategy, governance, management or capital structure. His clients have included Solomon Lew and Premier Investments, Ruslan Kogan and Kogan.com, and Alex Waislitz and Thorney Investment Group.

He has worked on activist campaigns involving Australian Securities Exchange-listed companies such as AMP, Myer, Cromwell Property Group and VGI Partners. Such engagements extend beyond the mechanics of completing a transaction. They raise important questions about shareholder rights, directors' duties, disclosure and the balance of authority between boards, executives and owners. Leibler's ability to combine commercial strategy with corporate law established him as a recognized adviser in Australia's private capital and public-company markets.

In 2016, he collaborated with Activist Insight on a report examining trends in Australian activist investing. He has also lectured at universities. In a 2023 corporations law lecture at Monash University, he examined the legal and commercial strategies used in shareholder activism, bringing contemporary market experience into legal education.

Service on the Australian Takeovers Panel

In 2015, Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove appointed Leibler to the Australian Takeovers Panel, the body that considers disputes concerning takeovers and changes of corporate control. He was reappointed in April 2024 for a further three-year term. This service represents the public dimension of his corporate career: experience acquired while advising clients is also brought to a specialist institution responsible for orderly and fair takeover processes.

Leibler has participated in wider professional bodies, including the Corporations Committee of the Business Law Section of the Law Council of Australia, the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the International Bar Association. He has also served as a non-executive director of ASX-listed Thorney Technologies and as a director of the Spotlight Foundation.

His professional standing has been reflected in corporate, mergers and acquisitions, and capital-markets listings published by Chambers Asia-Pacific, The Legal 500 Asia Pacific, Best Lawyers International and Doyle's Guide. In 2023, the Australian Financial Review included him among Australia's top 25 private capital dealmakers. Rankings do not define the substance of a lawyer's work, but these recognitions indicate the level at which he has operated over many years.

Leadership in Australian Zionism

In November 2018, Leibler was elected president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, an elected representative roof body of the organized Australian Jewish community. The role placed him at the intersection of Jewish identity, education, public advocacy and engagement with Israel. In Australia—a relatively small Jewish community separated from Israel by great distance—a national federation plays an important role in connecting local communities, schools, youth movements and Zionist organizations.

His communal service began well before his election as president. Leibler formerly served as deputy chair of Leibler Yavneh College and on the boards of the United Jewish Education Board and Zionism Victoria. He was also a former chair of the Zionist Young Council of Victoria. This progression from young-adult leadership to broader institutional responsibility reflects a continuing concern with how Jewish knowledge, identity and public responsibility are passed to the next generation.

Building practical links between Australia and Israel

Leibler has used his professional and public networks to advance direct engagement between Australia and Israel. In 2017, he and businessman Chris Corrigan led a business mission to Israel focused on agricultural technology. The mission demonstrated how a Zionist relationship can move beyond expressions of solidarity to exchanges of expertise in fields where Israeli innovation has wider value, including agriculture under conditions of limited water and other resources.

In October 2019, Leibler led another delegation to Israel with senior Australian public figures from different political traditions, including John Howard, Alexander Downer, Brendan Nelson, Wayne Swan and Stephen Conroy. The delegation met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin. Its cross-party composition helped place Australian engagement with Israel on a base broader than a single political faction and brought together participants with experience in government, foreign affairs, economics and national security.

Leibler was appointed to the Board of Governors of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2020, linking his communal work with one of Israel's principal research and higher-education institutions. During a visit to Israel in September 2022, he met President Isaac Herzog and Naftali Bennett, then alternate prime minister, whom he invited to visit Australia. In February 2023, Leibler addressed a global antisemitism forum at the Knesset, bringing an Australian Jewish perspective into an international discussion.

In 2025, Leibler was selected for the 150-member Voice of the People council. The appointment was consistent with the course of his earlier work: participation across Jewish communities, representation of diaspora perspectives and an effort to turn broad discussion about the Jewish future into organized institutional engagement.

A leadership model joining profession and community

Leibler's career illustrates how professional expertise can strengthen communal leadership. A corporate lawyer must interpret complex systems, identify competing interests and construct workable agreements. Those abilities are also valuable in a representative organization that brings together communities, educational institutions and movements with different priorities.

His contribution to Australian Jewish life therefore rests on infrastructure as much as public visibility: service in education, development of younger leadership, connections with Israeli institutions, professional and political delegations, and representation of communal concerns in international forums. Together, these activities support Jewish and Zionist identity as a living relationship expressed through learning, leadership, personal ties and practical cooperation.

Why Jeremy David Leibler's legacy belongs in Moreshet

Jeremy David Leibler merits inclusion in Moreshet because his work documents an important way in which a diaspora community sustains continuity. He has connected Jewish education, youth leadership, Zionist institutions and direct engagement with Israel while bringing senior legal and commercial experience into public service. The delegations he led, his work with educational and academic institutions, and his participation in discussions about antisemitism show how communal leadership can extend from local organizations to national and international settings.

Moreshet and Moreshet.com preserve his story because Jewish heritage is shaped not only by heads of government or creators of canonical works, but also by people who build institutions, prepare new leaders, maintain diaspora-Israel relationships and place professional expertise at the community's service. Leibler's record illuminates the contribution of Australian Jewry to contemporary Jewish life and the power of organized relationships to give Jewish identity continuity, practical meaning and public influence.