Deborah Glass was the Victorian Ombudsman, appointed to a 10-year term in 2014, responsible for investigations into Victorian government departments, local councils and statutory bodies. These included individual complaints and systemic issues, as well as referrals from Parliament, including the ‘Red Shirts’ case and the alleged politicisation of Victoria’s public sector. The Ombudsman is also Victoria’s human rights investigator, in which capacity she investigated the hard lockdown of Melbourne’s public housing towers in 2020 and the closure of the State’s borders in 2021. 

Deborah was raised in Melbourne where she practised law briefly before leaving Australia, then working for a US investment bank in Switzerland. From there she moved into a career in financial services regulation, first with the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. Moving to London in 1998 she was appointed CEO of the UK’s Investment Management Regulatory Organisation.  
Changing course to police oversight she was appointed a Member of the UK’s Police Complaints Authority and then a Commissioner of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the first agency with the powers to independently investigate the police in England and Wales. 

She  headed up numerous criminal and misconduct investigations into police involving fatal police shootings, deaths in custody and police corruption, as well as the landmark investigation into the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster. She was appointed IPCC Deputy Chair in 2009 and in 2012, was awarded an OBE for her service.   She returned to Australia in 2014 to become the fifth Victorian Ombudsman and first woman in the role.