Jillian is an award-winning journalist who concentrated primarily on business and motoring writing before turning her hand to authoring books in 2012 when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at the age of 42. Taking Control Compassionately is Jillian’s fourth book.
Community and philanthropy are ingrained into Jillian’s spirit and she works with numerous organisations to raise awareness and funds for health and medical research in areas close to her heart.
She is immensely proud to be an ambassador for global initiative Kiss Goodbye to MS and also spent two years as the writer in residence for MS Research Australia. Both of these roles have afforded tremendous opportunities, such as speaking at Australia’s Parliament House on World MS Day in 2018 and being invited onto the foundation team of ‘Stop and Reverse MS’ – a global strategic initiative to drastically reduce the time it will take to find a cure for MS from 40 years down to just 10 years via accelerated medical research.
All of these experiences have fuelled Jillian’s primary passion; to drive systemic change through story telling. In her ‘spare’ time, she has also written three best-selling books and worked as a ghost-writer. Jillian travels extensively – a great perk of being a speaker and a writer – and something she engineered soon after her diagnosis with MS so she could live life to the fullest.
Jillian Kingsford Smith is a well-recognised subject matter specialist when it comes to talking about the impact of multiple sclerosis and chronic illness. She has explored the topic from 360 degrees, researching and publishing a formidable body of work that explores MS from multiple perspectives; that of the the person living with the chronic condition, along with their support or carer network and the wide range of specialists and community services unique to this area. Key themes include how to get on with life after experiencing a life-changing event, the ‘decluttering of life’ that it takes to move forward and how to find alignment by clarifying the priorities for you life.
Philanthropy and creating systemic change to solve the challenges inherent to treating or living with a chronic illness is also a significant area of expertise for Jillian.
Every talk is customised to drive the most meaningful impact, combining engaging stories, reliable research, and practical techniques that push audiences to leave the event with a fresh insight and zest for how get on with life and solve challenges in rational yet innovative ways.
Jillian’s lived experience - combined with her years of interviewing and working alongside people with chronic illness - provide a bold and inspirational perspective to the topic.