Mr Julien O’Connell AO

Board Chairman

Newly appointed to the VMCH Board of Directors in 2019. Julien brings significant senior board and management experience, together with a detailed knowledge of health and aged care.

He has recently retired as Chair of the Board of Mercy Health which he held from 2008. He is a board member of Catholic Health Australia, Pro-Chancellor of Australian Catholic University, Executive Chairman of Mercy Health Foundation, Chair of PM Glynn Institute and is a member of a number of Archdiocese Committees and Councils.

Mr Vincent Arthur

Board member

Vincent was appointed to the Board in February 2022 and sits on the Finance and Audit and Strategic Projects Committees. Vincent has deep commercial knowledge from over 30 years executive experience.

Vincent has been Managing Director of logistics business L Arthur Pty Ltd since 2003. Prior to that he held various commercial roles with Rio Tinto Ltd over 10 years. Vincent is also a member of the General Freight Committee of the Victorian Transport Association and a Director of the Bethlehem Griffiths Research Foundation.

Vincent holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) from the University of Melbourne, and a Master of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, he has also completed post graduate studies in Business.

Ms Jo Dawson

Board member

Jo was appointed to the Board of Directors in June 2021. She is a Chartered Accountant and Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Jo has deep experience in customer facing highly regulated service businesses. During her career with Deloitte, both in Australia and the US, and National Australia Bank, Jo has specialised in managing, acquiring and building funds management, superannuation and insurance businesses.

Jo is a member of the Finance and Audit Committee. She is also a Non-Executive Director of PSC Insurance Group Ltd (PSI), Templeton Global Growth Fund Ltd (TGG), Bank First Ltd and Vision Super, and is Chair of the Finance Council of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

Mr Brendan Donohoe

Board member

Brendan was appointed to the Board of Directors in 2019 and sits on the Finance and Audit Committee. He established Bank of Ireland Asset Management Australia in 1996 and subsequently, a similar operation in Japan.

Brendan went on to manage all of Bank of Ireland Asset Management’s business outside of Ireland. During his 29-year tenure with Bank of Ireland Group, he held senior executive and directorship positions in Ireland, Australia, Japan, the UK, USA and Canada. Brendan subsequently joined the leadership team at NAB Asset Management, responsible for its global distribution, client services and the management of Antares Equities, a boutique asset management firm based in Melbourne.

Mr Michael Fisher

Board member

Michael was appointed to the Board of Directors in November 2019. He has had significant experience in information technology and cyber security.

Michael has run a successful business over the last 13 years that has provided a broad array of ICT services to Victorian Catholic institutions in the fields of education, digital media, social services and health.

Prior to running his own business Michael had a successful career in Human Resources with several publicly listed Australian organisations.

Ms Sally Howe

Board member

Sally was appointed to the Board of Directors in 2019. Sally brings extensive health, business and senior leadership experience with over 25 years experience in the not for profit private health sector, private health insurance markets and more recently, primary and community health.

Currently Sally holds non-executive directorships on the Connect Health and Community Board, a State Ministerial Planning and Partnership Board and is a Trustee (VIC) of the Committee for Economic Development Australia.

Sally serves on a range of board subcommittees including Remuneration, Nominations and Audit and Risk. Having also previously held NFP Board and School Council positions, Sally has governance experience across diverse sectors.

Ms Kate McCormack FAHRI

Board member

Kate was appointed to the Board Of Directors in 2021 and is a member of both the Quality and Risk and People and Culture Committees. Kate is the former Executive Director People, Culture and Learning for Mercy Health Australia (2001 – 2020) and is a Board Member of Catholic Care Victoria. She’s passionate about workforce and in particular, aged care.

Kate is also a Board Director of the Mercy Health Foundation and Caritas Australia People and Culture Committee.

Kate holds a Graduate Certificate and Masters of Business, Industrial Relations/HR Management/RMIT/Grenoble Ecole de Management – France. She studied at London Business School and Harvard Business School. She is a Fellow of the Australian Human Resources Institute.

Ms Mary Power

Board member

Mary was appointed to the Board of Directors in 2020 and has extensive experience in finance, superannuation, and the property industry. Working for an Australian based investment adviser, Mary has advised a diverse client base on asset allocation, portfolio construction and property related matters.

Mary has wide governance experience representing clients in numerous property transactions in Australia. Mary sits on the Strategic Projects Committee at VMCH.

Mr Bob Santamaria

Board member

Bob was appointed to the Board of Directors in early 2020. Prior to this he was Group General Counsel of ANZ Bank for 12 years; responsible for the provision of legal services to ANZ globally.

Pre-ANZ, Bob’s career spanned more than 40 years across governance, securities, mergers and acquisitions, including numerous complex transactions in the resources, manufacturing and finance sectors.

Bob has also held Partner and Executive roles and been a Relationship Partner for Rio Tinto, ANZ, BHP Billiton, Goldman Sachs JBWere, Aviva Insurance Group and Bendigo Bank.

Ms Phoebe Shipp

Board member

Phoebe was appointed to the Board of Directors in 2019. She has a background in technology with over ten years’ experience in the ICT industry and has held roles across sales, business development, market enablement and management consulting.

Phoebe currently works at Ernst and Young, one of the largest audit and consulting firms in the world, as a Director in the Asia Pacific Managed Services Group. She also holds the title of President of the Sales Enablement Society Melbourne Chapter.

Phoebe has a Bachelor of Commerce (with Honours) from the University of Melbourne.

Sonya Smart

Chief Executive Officer

Prior to joining VMCH in February 2017, Sonya was Chief Executive of Catholic Homes Incorporated in WA, a position she held for over six years. She has also held leadership roles in residential and community care at Southern Cross Care WA.

A graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (2016), Sonya holds a Master of Business Administration from Curtin University of Technology (2010) and a post graduate qualification in Clinical Psychology from Edith Cowan University (2002). Sonya’s entrepreneurship and business acumen was recognized in 2008 when she received a ‘40under40’ award: an honour which recognizes excellence and innovation amongst WA’s young leaders.

With a passion for residential aged care, disability and community services, Sonya has been a long-time advocate for delivering exceptional care to marginalised people in the community.

Bridget O’Shannassy

Chief Mission Officer

Bridget is assigned with the important task of developing VMCH’s strategic plan to lead and shape its Catholic mission.

More than 30 years of experience in leadership roles within Catholic education, not-for-profit NGO’s and health care organisations has given Bridget a depth of understanding of Catholic culture and faith, and the ability to lead large teams.

Bridget possesses a great awareness of the need for supportive and empathetic relationships, and is able to articulate VMCH’s mission in a way that is enriching and energising through formation opportunities. A significant achievement of Bridget’s includes leading VMCH’s response to Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) in Victoria and being the Aged Care Representative on Catholic Health Australia’s VAD taskforce.

Chris Hilton

Chief Financial Officer

Chris has extensive leadership experience across a range of sectors including property and health, spending a large part of his career as General Manager of Finance at both Lendlease and Allity Aged Care. He is also highly-skilled in all facets of aged funding and reporting, integration and sales; retirement governance requirements; leadership during growth and productivity improvement.

David Williamson

Chief Operating Officer

David is a highly-experienced Senior Leader with 25 years of experience across the health, disability services and personal injury insurance sectors. David holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Occupational Therapy and a Master’s in Business (Personal Injury). David is committed to safeguarding the rights of people with a disability by promoting and facilitating choice and control and has particular expertise in developing service models which promote capacity building and the delivery of person-centred care.

Natalina Velardi

Chief Legal & Risk Officer / Company Secretary

Natalina is a governance and legal professional with over 20 years’ experience. She is passionate about encouraging good governance practices to support ethical approaches to business issues. She has held a number of senior executive roles in the not-for-profit sector and for the past five years has been in the aged care and disability sector as the Company Secretary and General Counsel/General Manager Governance of Villa Maria Catholic Homes Ltd. She is a graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia. She is also a practicing legal practitioner and a member of the Association of Corporate Counsel.

Jason Uzice

Chief Property Officer

Jason has 20 years’ experience leading high profile projects with exposure across asset classes, including residential, commercial, retail, government, hotels, greenfield developments and refurbishments.

With recent tenure in optimising operational delivery of major projects, he combines a sophisticated understanding of levers across the full development and project life cycle with a clear focus on people, process and governance to ensure that projects are risk-appropriately managed, properly funded, delivered on time and within budget.

Maria Paz

Chief Information Officer

Maria has 20+ years’ experience leading transformational business and technology change across the financial services, not for profit, government and higher education sectors. She has a successful history in building and managing cross-functional teams to improve capabilities related to program and shared services delivery, governance, operations, performance, program/portfolio management, risk, audit, and assurance.

Maria is passionate about using emerging technologies and data to identify new business transformation initiatives and aligning business strategy with technology strategy. She particularly enjoys managing change and innovation that positively affects and contributes to improving social and community outcomes.