One example of this collective action is the Harvard Club of Victoria fellowship program that Hill chairs, which sends local nonprofit leaders to Harvard Business School for a weeklong course on nonprofit management to learn strategies for addressing challenges in their communities.

Hill will be the first Australian and the first Canadian to lead the HAA, as well as the first from the Asia Pacific region. She plans to bring those perspectives to the table as president.

“I’m excited by what it says about the HAA to choose someone like me. It’s really walking the talk in terms of inclusion and engagement of international alumni. I want to make sure I honor that,” she said.

While Hill hopes to continue to deepen the HAA’s global outreach in the year ahead, she applauds the implementation of online voting in the Overseer and HAA director elections, which has made it easier for alumni abroad to participate. She also praised current HAA president Margaret Wang ’09 for leading by example in driving the board’s ongoing work on inclusion and belonging.

“I’m really happy to be following Margaret,” Hill said. “By putting herself out there and sharing her personal narrative, she has modeled the sorts of behavior that we aspire to.”

Throughout her presidency, Wang has encouraged alumni to bring their values and experiences to bear in their work for Harvard. The result, Wang said, is a community that has become more open to new ideas and more willing to broach difficult conversations.

“You have this intergenerational group of people from all over the world trying to engage with each other on things that are meaningful and sometimes challenging,” she said. “I’m seeing engagement across differences, and that makes me very optimistic.”

Hill is the right person to build on this momentum, Wang said.

“Alice lives the values that we talk about in terms of being your authentic self,” said Wang. “She’s uniquely positioned to continue opening up conversations with the alumni community around the world.”

In addition to seeking advice from former HAA presidents, Hill is drawing inspiration from Harvard President Larry Bacow’s statement that “Harvard is its people.”

“I also want to recognize how place shapes people — how Harvard is part of what makes us who we are,” Hill said. “If you’ve been a student here or you’ve worked here, you always belong to Harvard.”