Terry Moran's distinguished career includes holding the most senior position in the Australian Public Service – Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Appointed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, he continued in the position when Julia Gillard became Australia's first female leader. Previously, he spent more than seven years as Secretary of the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet.

Terry led the Department's work on national security and international policy, environment, industry and economic policy, social policy and reforms negotiated by the Council of Australian Governments. These reforms included a package of initiatives to reshape funding, governance and accountability for Australia's public hospitals. During the global financial crisis, he helped lead Australia's highly successful policy responses.

Terry led development, negotiation and implementation planning for the National Reform Agenda for the Council of Australian Governments, work he began while heading the Victorian Public Service. This agenda reshaped relations between the Commonwealth and the States, particularly in business regulation, health care and hospitals, schooling, vocational education and training, social housing, indigenous affairs and cities.

While Secretary of the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet and Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Terry played a leading role with Steve Bracks and senior officers in initiating, planning and achieving financing for new institutions which have come to make an important contribution to Australia's cultural life and higher education. These included the Australian and New Zealand School of Government, the Melbourne Recital Centre, the Wheeler Centre (for books and ideas), the Grattan Institute, and Opera Victoria.

In addition to his public sector leadership and policy development expertise, Terry is a leading figure in Australia's education sector.

He is a former CEO of the Office of the State Training Board in Victoria and the first CEO of the Australian National Training Authority in Brisbane. In 1998, he was appointed Queensland's Director-General of Education. He also reviewed the Southern Australian TAFE system on behalf of the South Australian government.

Since he retired from public service, Terry has been the Chair of the Barangaroo Delivery Authority in New South Wales, the Cranlana Foundation, the Melbourne Theatre Company, and the Centre for Policy Development.

His other roles include as a Senior Advisor at the Boston Consulting Group and Maddocks Lawyers, Director and Deputy President of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, and Director of the Menzies Foundation. He was also National President of the Institute of Public Administration Australia.

In 2006, Terry was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for service to public sector leadership in key policy areas and program implementation, including technical and further education at state and national levels.

In 2012, he was invested as a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for eminent service to the community through public sector leadership, as a significant contributor to policy development, program delivery and effective governance, and the implementation of contemporary government administration.