Harvard Club of Victoria

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.