Episode Five - David Knoff

537 days of winter, surviving and leading in the harshest place on earth.

David's international career has taken him across the globe, including service as an officer in the Australian Army, diplomatic postings in Pakistan and Iraq, and, most recently, with the Australian Antarctic Program.

In 2007, as an infantry platoon commander, David served in the Solomon Islands, which began a lifelong career in international relations. Following this, David began working with Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He was soon overseas on his first Diplomatic posting to the Australian High Commission, Islamabad, at the height of the international coalition’s efforts to bring stability and peace to Afghanistan and Pakistan. David then went on to work as part of the international coalition to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Iraq.

In 2019, David was given a leadership challenge unlike any other in modern history, as the Station Leader at Davis Station, Antarctica, he was leading a team of just 24 through the isolation of an Antarctic winter when the COVID-19 Pandemic broke out. The impact of the pandemic on Antarctic operations saw David's team without a ride home as planned and facing one of the longest periods of isolation in modern Antarctic History.

David's book, '537 Days of Winter: Resilience, Endurance and Humanity while stranded in Antarctica during the Pandemic' tells the story of what it was like to lead a team through unprecedented uncertainty and how to find resilience in the most extreme environments.

Combining his experiences from war zones and his six different Antarctic expeditions, David now works as a professional speaker. As a speaker, David's unique story also helps organisations and individuals understand the importance of environmental awareness and works with schools and corporations to better understand humanity's impact on climate and the planet’s most remote wilderness in Antarctica.