When I sat down with Ainslie Moore, I thought we’d spend 45 minutes doing what we’ve almost never done in the past 25 years: talk without an agenda.

We made it about 30 seconds.

Because Ainslie opens with the kind of confession that tells you exactly what sort of episode this is going to be, she has a “flight home story” she “will not tell the rest of the world”… and then casually admits she once booked a train from London to Brussels because she thought that’s where The Hague was.

From there, we’re off. Travel disasters, sliding-door moments, and the deeper thread underneath it all: how someone goes from being a 17-year-old international student with a life-changing exchange experience, to becoming a proper policy operator who can move a whole system with the right alliance, the right incentives, and the right message.

And yes, we do get into the line of the episode: people call it “herding cats” when you’re trying to coordinate universities, but the secret to herding cats is moving the food bowl.

• Ainslie’s first overseas trip at 17: turbulence, flooded toilets, and a mid-flight hostage threat involving a statue… which somehow ended up in Women’s Day.

• The exchange year in Spain that changed everything, including the moment she realised she could become someone braver, louder, more confident than the “shy person” she arrived as.

• A brilliant, plain-English lesson in what Universities Australia used to be, back when it was still the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (AVCC).

• Policy advice that actually helps: don’t do it alone, find shared interest, build an alliance, and remember communication matters as much as the policy.

• Why climate action has become unavoidable in international education, including student expectations and what CANIE exists to push the sector to do (beyond “we teach sustainability”).

• Ainslie’s New Zealand reality check: small can be nimble, good ideas can move fast, and policy can go from paper to legislation inside a year.

It’s funny, too, how the conversation keeps flipping between the “romance” of international education (travel, language, identity, becoming more yourself) and the machinery that makes it possible (policy settings, incentives, and the behind-the-scenes work nobody sees). It’s two sides of the same coin, and Ainslie lives right at the centre of it.

Global Horizons is a production of The Global Society, Australia’s Learning Abroad support company. Our editor is Len Zamora and our distribution specialist is Angelo Ablao. Rob Malicki is the executive editor and host. The podcast wouldn’t be possible without The Koala News, Australia’s international education news website. This episode is supported by Choosing Your Uni, Australia's unique, AI-powered platform that helps domestic and international students to find the right institution for them, and that helps Australian institutions to access new markets.

For guest suggestions and feedback, email podcast@globalsociety.com.au

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