About Venessa

Venessa Paech (BFA, MA, PhD) is an internationally recognised online communities expert and educator, with a three decade history in the field.

Within Australia, she has led community for Lonely Planet, REA Group, Envato and Australia Post. Through her consultancy PeerSense, Venessa helps organisations design, build and maintain thriving communities that meet strategic objectives. Her clients have included: ABC, Teach for Australia, QUT, University of Sydney, Australian Conservation Foundation, SANE, Bunnings and Woolworths.

In 2009 Venessa founded the Australian Community Manager Roundtables, which became Swarm in 2011 — the national conference for community pros. She programmed and hosted Swarm for 11 years, drawing hundreds of online community practitioners to Sydney and Melbourne annually, with guests from Australia and abroad.

Venessa is Co-Founder and Director of Australian Community Managers (ACM), the national centre of excellence for online community management training and resources. ACM produces research into community management and moderation practice, facilitates the national Code of Ethics for community professionals and offers certified training for anyone working with online groups or communities (professional or volunteer). 

In 2023 she founded and launched All Things in Moderation, the world’s first global conference for humans who moderate. ATIM runs annually online.

Venessa works in several international community management leadership collectives, and liaises with industry, government and researchers to grow and improve community management practice in APAC. She serves as an expert witness in Australia for legal matters surrounding the use of social media and online communities. 

Venessa developed and taught the first post-graduate online community management Unit for the University of Sydney, and also teaches online community management for post-graduates at the University of Melbourne. She teaches community at work for business leaders at the University of Sydney Business School. 

Venessa earned her PhD from the University of Sydney in 2026, researching the impacts of AI on community governance. She is a popular speaker on online community, digital safety and issues impacting our digital, social lives, keynoting at leading international and Australian conferences and events.

Before her community life, Venessa trained in musical theatre at Tisch School of the Arts (NYU) and worked in New York and Australia as a performing artist. She still works as a choreographer in Australia.