Susan Hopgood is both President of Education International (EI) and the Federal Secretary of the Australian Education Union (AEU). The AEU has a membership of 181,000 teachers and education workers across pre-schools, schools and vocational education institutions in the public sector in Australia.

Susan first started her career teaching mathematics in secondary schools in Victoria, Australia in 1974. She joined the VSTA (now named the AEU) at that time and was an active member and representative at school, regional and state levels until commencing with the union fulltime in the position of Women's Officer in 1985 which she held until 1993. Since then, Susan has held a number of positions in the education union - Victorian Branch General Secretary (1993 - 1995), AEU Federal Women's Officer (1995 - 1996), Deputy Federal Secretary (1996 - 2006) where her responsibilities included international relations. She was elected Federal Secretary of the AEU in 2006, the first woman to hold this position.

Susan is active at both international and regional levels in her work at EI. She was elected as an EI Vice President at EI World Congress in Jomtien, Thailand (2001 - 2004) and then re-elected in Porto Alegre, Brazil, (2004 - 2007) and Berlin (2007-2011). She is also a member of EI Finance Committee, Chair of the EI Constitution and By-Laws Committee, and member of EI Women's Committee. At the regional level, Susan was elected as Vice-Chairperson of EI Asia-Pacific Regional Committee in 2000 to 2003, and was re-elected for the period 2003 - 2006 and again in 2006-2009. She has been active in the Council of Pacific Education (COPE) holding the position of Vice President for the period 1998-2006.

Susan is also extremely active in the Australian Trade Union Movement. She is a Vice-president the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and a member of a number of its Committees.