Fiona Brew has undertaken many roles in the Victorian health system during a career that spans over three decades. Her experience includes nursing, consulting and corporate roles giving her a breadth of experience and depth of knowledge of the Victorian health care system.

Fiona has held senior executive roles including Chief Nurse and Midwife Officer, Executive People and Culture and relieving Chief Executive Officer Positions in the rural and regional setting.

In 2018, Fiona was seconded to the ACT as part of an Independent Review into the Workplace Culture within the ACT Public Health Services delivering the final report in March 2019.

Fiona was appointed to the Chief Executive role at Colac Area Health in June 2019 leading a transformational change agenda. During her current tenure, Fiona has led the organisation successfully through a cyber-attack and more recently, two COVID 19 outbreaks (105 and 39 respectively). The outbreaks remain Australia’s largest regional COVID outbreaks resulting in Fiona appearing in the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into contact tracing system and testing regime. The management of the outbreaks have been published internationally and been the subject of external reviews.

With a long-standing passion for building positive work cultures – investing in staff, building capability ultimately leads to positive patient experiences and outcomes. Fiona holds an Adjunct Research Fellow role at Federation University.

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Georgie is a regular Comic Panelist on Australian TV having appeared on The Project, HYBPA?, Hughesy We Have A Problem, Shaun Micallef’s Talkin’ ‘ bout Your Generation, Celebrity Name Game, Show Me the Movie and the Oxfam Melbourne International Comedy Gala.

Her exceptional comedic talent combined with her eighteen years Nursing has cemented Georgie as the go-to entertainment for Medical and Nursing Corporates, Conventions and Award Ceremonies.

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Dr Brendan Nelson AO is president of Boeing Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific. He is the senior company leader in the Oceania region and is the chairman of the board for Boeing Australia Holdings. In this role, Dr Nelson coordinates all Boeing activities, leads government relations and directs the implementation of Boeing’s strategy to expand its local presence and grow the business. Appointed February 2020 he is based in Sydney, Australia.

Dr Nelson is also Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia (AmCham), a Board Director of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, a member of the Space Industry Leaders Forum and the Business Council of Australia, and member of the Council at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

Prior to joining Boeing, Nelson served as director of the Australian War Memorial for 7 years. Prior to this, he was the Australian Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg, the European Union and NATO (2010–12). Apart from overseeing a major transformation in Australia’s relationships with the European Union and NATO, Dr Nelson forged deep links with the communities of Flanders, where almost 14,000 Australians lost their lives during the First World War.

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Anthony Dombkins until appointed the ACT Health Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer in January 2020 was the Director Nursing and Midwifery, Northern Sydney Local Health District. Anthony Dombkins graduated as a Registered Nurse in 1987 and holds postgraduate clinical certificates in Renal and Transplantation Nursing and Intensive Care Nursing, as well as a Masters, Health Management (UNE). Anthony Dombkins has held a variety of senior health management positions within the public and private health sectors across NSW. In June 2014, Anthony Dombkins was appointed an Adjunct Professor – Nursing with the University of Sydney and the Australian Catholic University. Anthony Dombkins was a member of the Clinical Excellence Commission Advisory Board and a Board Director for Stewart House.

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Denise trained as a general nurse at Albury Base Hospital and as a midwife at Preston and Northcote Community Hospital in Melbourne. She has a Graduate Certificate in Law and Management and a Masters (Honours) in Health Science Management.

Denise has a background in rural and regional health, managing community based services in The Greater Murray Area Health Service for many years.

Previous nurse leadership roles include Area Director of Nursing and Midwifery, Northern Sydney Central Coast Health Service; Area Director of Nursing and Midwifery, Illawarra Health Service; and Executive Director Nursing and Midwifery at Monash Health prior to her appointment to the Royal Melbourne Hospital as the Executive Director of Nursing Services, Allied Health and Residential Aged Care in July 2007.

Denise has a strong interest in building clinical and operational leadership capability and facilitating a healthy workplace culture for all staff to thrive in their careers. Through her executive roles, she has a long history in both NSW and Victoria in emergency management preparedness and responsiveness. She was the RMH Emergency Commander following the Bourke Street attack in Jan 2017 and more recently has had been responsible for leading RMH in planning and responding to COVID-19.

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Sandy Middleton is the Professor of Nursing, and Director of the Nursing Research Institute at St Vincent’s Health Network Sydney, St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne and Australian Catholic University. She is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Leadership Fellow with an interest in stroke and implementation research. She has been successful in obtaining 96 grants totalling over $86 million. Professor Middleton is Director of the Maridulu Budaryi Gumal (Sydney Partnership for Health Education, Research and Enterprise – SPHERE) Implementation Science platform; and Director of the Maridulu Budaryi Gumal (SPHERE) Nursing and Midwifery Implementation Science Academy. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation and the Clinical Excellence Commission; and Chair of the Steering Committee of the Australian Stroke Clinical Registry.

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Professor Jeanine Young is a registered nurse, midwife, and neonatal nurse.

Jeanine’s has a special interest in the development of evidence-based, culturally appropriate and practical strategies and educational resources to support families with young infants to incorporate Safe Sleep recommendations into the care of their baby. A particular focus is the development of individually tailored, community based, wrap around care interventions to address the multiple disadvantages experienced by families with social vulnerabilities who experience the greatest burden of infant mortality. Jeanine has collaborated with Change for our Children New Zealand, to provide the Pēpi-Pod® Program, an evidence based intervention to promote safer sleep environments for infants and families with identified vulnerabilities, which has been associated with reductions in infant mortality.

Jeanine is a ministerial appointment to the Queensland Child Death Review Board, and member of the Red Nose National Scientific Advisory Group, and Queensland Paediatric Quality Council.

Jeanine was awarded Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2020 for her significant contributions to medical research, tertiary education and nursing.

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Lorna Cook has been a Registered Nurse for over 40 years. She has worked in both private and public hospitals, in industry, in the Public Health Department and in private enterprise.

She has been a lifelong learner, even as a single mother of three young children, having graduated with a Hospital Based Diploma, then a Bachelor of Health Science, a Master’s Degree in Nursing and an MBA.

In 2013, she and her business partner started a Hospital-Substitution Health Service, chemo@home, which, as the name implies, administers chemotherapy to and immune therapy to cancer patients and to patients with chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease.

The company has grown exponentially and since 2017 has won numerous business awards for its innovation and disruption of the health sector. The company now employs some 80 people across Australia and continues to expand its service offerings. Lorna is now a proud grandmother of 5 and says nursing has been the most wonderful career and life’s privilege.

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Shannon Wallis is the Virtual Care Nurse Unit Manager at West Moreton Health Service (WMHS) and is leading clinical teams to deliver virtual care closer to home. WMHS has a variety of virtual care models that facilitate a smooth transition for patients through different stages in their health care journey. These innovative programs use Remote patient monitoring, telehealth, clinical software and reporting to focus on delivering personalised care to patient’s in their own home.

Shannon has held a variety of senior nursing positions during her career including a background in general nursing, Intensive care nursing, Nurse manager in patient flow/after hours and Cancer care services. Shannon is passionate about caring for her community and understands the importance of empowering patients to become active participants in their own healthcare.

Shannon was fortunate to be nominate by the executive team at West Moreton Health and received the 2020 Minister of Health award for Nursing Trailblazer.

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A Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner with 30 years clinical practice and extensive experience in teaching, leadership and research. Multiple awards won for contribution to nursing research, leadership, teaching, mentoring, and teamwork, including an Order of Australian Medal for contribution to nursing in Australia, and winning the inaugural ACN Federal Health Minister’s trailblazer award for innovation in nursing research.

Currently working at the University of Canberra, Nikki believes all Australia’s deserve access to quality care nearing the end of life regardless of their age, diagnosis or where they live. Nikki’s research team have successfully tested a model integrating specialist palliative care into residential aged care. They have been recognised nationally for their approach that led to reduced avoidable hospital transfer’s and normalising dying while increasing the capacity of staff to care for residents in their last months of life. Nikki represents nursing on the ACT Clinical leadership forum, was a solution focused expert witness for the resent Aged care Royal Commission quality and safety. Nikki has now published 11 papers in peer review and has applied to do her PhD this year.

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