Harvard Club of Victoria

2024
Andrea Goddard, CEO, Stars Foundation
Andrea Goddard is Founder and CEO of Stars Foundation. Andrea has a background in health and organisational management and has worked in the education engagement sector for more than 20 years. She was General Manager Development for the Clontarf Foundation from 2005 to 2013 and had direct responsibility for the organisation’s growth and sustainability. She founded Stars to bring about gender equity in First Nations educational engagement programs. Andrea holds a Diploma of Applied Science, Bachelor of Science (Nursing), Graduate Diploma of Adolescent Health and Welfare, Diploma Business (Governance), and a Master of Public Health.

Stars Foundation provides school-based mentoring and holistic engagement support programs to improve health, education and employment outcomes for First Nations girls and young women across Australia. Stars currently supports 3,500 students in schools and almost 1000 Alumni. Stars programs support First Nations young women to remain actively engaged in education until completion of Year 12, and then to transition successfully into further study or employment. Stars Foundation is also addressing a significant gender inequity across the country, related to school-based support for First Nations students.
 

Geraldine Lannon, CEO Baptcare Victoria, SA, Tasmania
Geraldine joined Baptcare as the Chief Executive in September 2022. She is committed to empowering staff to achieve excellence in caring for Baptcare’s customers. Geraldine has more than 25 years of executive leadership experience, predominantly across metropolitan and rural Western Australian public health and community services. Geraldine holds clinical, management and governance qualifications including a Master of Business Administration and has been a finalist in the Telstra Women’s Business Awards. She has recently been appointed the Deputy Chair of the Aged & Community Care Providers Associations (ACCPA) Board. She is also a Director of Health Round Table which is committed to supporting health services across Australia and New Zealand to learn and share best practice care models across hospitals.
 

Baptcare, a faith-based not-for-profit organisation which, which has built a strong reputation for its services across Residential Aged Care; Retirement Living; Home Care; Affordable/Social Housing; Asylum seeker support programs; and Family and Community Services. Baptcare has approximately 4,000 staff and 485 volunteers and an operating revenue for 2023-2024 projected to be $380m. Baptcare is dedicated to improving the lives of individuals requiring specialised care and support.
 

Travers McLeod, Executive Director, Brotherhood of Laurence
Travers McLeod has been Executive Director of the Brotherhood of St. Laurence (BSL) since April 2022. BSL was founded in 1930 and is a social justice organisation with over 2500 staff and volunteers working towards an Australia free of poverty. BSL’s purpose is to advance a fair Australia through its leadership on policy reform, its partnerships with communities, and the quality of its services.

Travers started his career in public law, working for the State Solicitor’s Office in Western Australia and for Justice Michael Kirby in the High Court of Australia. Before joining BSL, Travers was CEO of the Centre for Policy Development, an independent Australian policy institute. He holds a DPhil and MPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes scholar and was a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations before working as a Policy Adviser for the Oxford Martin School. Travers is the author of Rule of Law in War, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2015. He is a Board member of the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture, an adjunct Professor at the University of Melbourne, and an occasional moderator for the Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership. Travers is a member of the Federal Government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee and the National Leadership Group for the Stronger Places, Stronger People Initiative.

2023

Kent Burgess, CEO, Your Community Health
Kent Burgess is CEO at Your Community Health. Kent has a background of leadership within for purpose healthcare across community health, mental health, LGBTIQA+ health and alcohol and drug sectors. His leadership is underpinned by a Master of Public Health and a clinical background as an occupational therapist. Kent’s career focuses on leading alongside communities to improve health and wellbeing, especially for those most in need.
 

Your Community Health (YourCH) is a for purpose not for profit community health service that partners with local community and delivers a comprehensive range of health and social support services to Melbourne’s inner and middle North with a focus on health equity. Services work across the diverse local population and across the lifespan.
 

Kent’s goal through participation in the HCV Non-Profit Fellowship is to accelerate his leadership early in his CEO career and to ensure Your Community Health remain a strong and sustainable organisation in a challenging environment, whilst continuing to be locally focused and responding to community need.

Clare Davies, CEO, Self Help Addiction Resource Centre
Clare Davies is the CEO of Self Help Addiction Resource Centre (SHARC). Clare joined SHARC in 2022 having held leadership positions in the non-profit sector for over 15 years. She has qualifications in social work, psychology and drug and alcohol work and is a current board member of the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association (VAADA).

SHARC is a peer-led organisation that has co-produced programs to support people impacted by alcohol and other drugs and, more recently, gambling. Although the impact of lived experience is increasingly recognised in Australia, SHARC has been promoting and advocating for lived experience through services, programs, and policies for more than 25 years.

SHARC is at a pivotal point of its evolution and operating within an environment of generational reform. This Fellowship will assist Clare to focus on the work ahead of embedding lived experience in all aspects of service planning, delivery and evaluation. It is an honour for Clare to be chosen to study at Harvard at this critical time to support the development of SHARC, the lived experience community and the non-profit sector.

Sean Duffy, CEO, Ballarat Community Health
Sean has lived in regional Victoria for most of his life and been the CEO of Ballarat Community Health for the past four and half years. He has worked in the health and community sector for the past 32 years, completing university study, initially in mental health and general nursing, followed by a master’s degree in business administration. He has a passion for rural and regional health care, especially supporting the most marginalised communities, designing, and delivering place-based health care tailored to community needs.
 

Ballarat Community Health (BCH) exists to ensure that people from all walks of life can access quality health care, no matter their circumstances. From primary care to community wellbeing programs, they work to ensure a holistic approach is taken to better health.
 

Having the invaluable opportunity to participate in the strategic perspectives NFP program will provide Sean with a space to be challenged, to grow and to sharpen his approach to leading and managing. Sean intends to share his learnings and bring back thoughts, frameworks and/or models that can help shape the strategic direction of BCH. This opportunity is exciting and a great step forward for both Sean and BCH.

2022

Terry Symonds, CEO, Yooralla
Terry Symonds joined Yooralla as Chief Executive Officer on 1 March 2021. With this appointment, Terry returns to the disability services sector, almost 30 years after beginning his professional career as a Disability Support Worker. In his most recent position as Deputy Secretary for Health in the Victorian public service, Terry had oversight of delivery of hospital and community care, as well as mental health and aged care. Terry is a member of sector peak, university and Ministerial advisory committees, and a Director on a non-profit health Board.
 

Yooralla is one of Victoria's oldest and largest non-profit disability support providers, offering residential, employment, community inclusion and other supports across the state. The Harvard Non-Profit Fellowship will help Terry to lead Yooralla through a significant reform journey, to modernise and diversify its services. Terry will have the opportunity to reflect on his experience in government, and how to apply his learnings to leadership in the non-profit sector. 

Toni Stewart, CEO, Focus Individualised Support Services
Toni holds a B.App Sci (intellectual disabilities) and has spent the last 28 years working across not-for-profit organisations in senior management roles, specialising in leading and managing teams through change, quality and continuous improvement projects and building positive cultures that focus on quality supports.

Toni has been the CEO at focus, a disability organisation on the Mornington Peninsula, for the past two years. She did not anticipate that for the first two years of her CEO career, risk mitigation due to a global pandemic and leading an organisation in one of the most locked down cities in the world would be her main challenge. But a challenge it has been, therefore Toni is extremely motivated and honoured to be selected to participate in the Strategic Perspectives Fellowship with Harvard Business School. She is confident the experience and knowledge gained will inspire and strengthen her ability to lead a high performing Organisation to achieve its mission to support people with disabilities to live the life they want.
 

2020

Dr Jennifer Fitzgerald, Chief Executive Officer, Scope (Australia)
Dr Jennifer Fitzgerald was appointed as CEO of Scope (Aust) in 2012. She holds a B Sc (Physio), MBA and Professional Doctorate of Physiotherapy. Jennifer holds Fellowships with the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Australian Institute of Manager and Leaders. She was awarded the Telstra Victoria Business Woman of the Year Award in 2016. 

Scope is a leading disability service provider with a Mission to enable each person we support to live as an empowered and equal citizen. Scope provides disability services throughout Victoria to thousands of children and adults with cognitive and physical disabilities. The organisation provides a wide range of services including early childhood intervention, supported accommodation, day and lifestyle programs, respite, individual support and therapy. Scope works to improve opportunities for people with a disability by influencing public policy, increasing understanding, and breaking down barriers to social inclusion. Scope has an extensive research program focused on creating a better life for people with a disability. 

Participation at SPNM will be a life-changing experience at both a professional and a personal level for Jennifer. The opportunity to step outside the business and to test her vision, strategy, beliefs and values with other leading organisations is a rare and valuable opportunity. The for-purpose sector plays a pivotal role in shaping a fair society, influencing public policy and enabling the voice of people with a disability and their families to be heard.

Marcus Godinho, Chief Executive Officer, FairShare
Marcus Godinho is the CEO of FareShare.  He joined the organisation as a volunteer shortly after it started and three years later became its first full time CEO.  Back then FareShare operated out of a small rented kitchen with a chef and a driver.  The organisation now runs Australia’s largest charity kitchens cooking 60,000 free, nutritious meals a week for people who have fallen on hard times.  Prior to joining FareShare, Marcus was involved in environmental advocacy.  He ran Environment Victoria for five years, sat of the national board of the Wilderness Society and worked at the Australian Conservation Foundation.  He also spent eight years working in corporate affairs functions for National Australia Bank and Mobil.

Marcus has a B.Comm from the University of Melbourne and completed an MBA at Monash University in the late 90s.  He’s keen to study the structures that other charities put in place as they grew and how large overseas food charities collaborate rather than compete with others organisations with similar missions.  In recent years FareShare has established unique facilities to transform rescued food into nutritious, appealing meals.  By focusing on establishing these facilities Marcus is positioning FareShare to collaborate with Foodbank, SecondBite and others, rather than compete with them.