Shaping the Future of Australia’s Care Economy

Deena Shiff, brings a wealth of experience from her distinguished career in government, law, and as a senior executive in the communications industry. As the founding CEO of Telstra’s corporate venture capital arm, Telstra Ventures, Deena led the charge in making investments in emerging e-services/digital businesses. She was the first woman appointed as Group Managing Director at Telstra, where she led large business divisions between 2001 and 2013.

Deena is a Director of ProMedicus Ltd, a Melbourne-based health software company operating in Australia, Europe, and the US. She is an Independent Board Member of GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, a global fund that finances, procures, and distributes vaccines in the Global South.

In addition, Deena chairs the industry peak body, Australian Telecommunications Alliance; the space technology accelerator, AROSE and the International Advisory Board for the ARC Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision Making and Society (ADM+S), which researches the human impact of AI.

Carmela Sergi is an accomplished senior executive and intellectual property attorney with extensive leadership experience across the pharmaceutical, medical technology, aged care and health service sectors. Carmela served as the founding CEO of ARIIA, Aged Care Research and Industry Innovation Australia and is currently a Board member of Advocacy for Disability Access and Inclusion Inc (ADAI).

Carmela is committed to improving health and care through collaboration, knowledge translation and industry uptake of research outcomes. She has significant experience in leading large and complex research & industry collaborations with a focus on commercialisation and translational impact. Carmela also brings extensive experience in developing partnerships at local, national and international levels. She has a proven track-record of working with diverse stakeholders such as government, university, industry, health services, consumer

Jan Bingley is a senior executive with an extensive career in technology transfer, commercialisation and venture. She has deep experience in governance especially as relevant to publicly funded organisations and in complex multi-party collaborations, is results focussed and a driver of entrepreneurial culture. She has been an advisor to Government on innovation policy relating to improved research & industry collaboration and commercialisation; appointed to various government working groups and committees to develop and operationalise government policy.

Jan has led a number of complex commercial negotiations with industry and research partners from various sectors and has been involved in forming and advising numerous deep-tech start-up companies including managing several successful exits. Jan is currently the Director of Business Development and Commercialisation at La Trobe University and prior to this role was the Director of Business Development and Commercialisation at the Global CCS Institute. She was also the General Manager Business Development and Commercialisation at the CSIRO between 2003 and 2015.

Deborah Brennan is a political scientist whose research focuses on gender and social policy and the role of markets in human services. Throughout her career, Deb has worked closely with governments, community organisations, peak bodies, unions and service providers. She was the inaugural Convenor of the National Association of Community Based Children's Services (NABCBS) and is a former President of the Australian Political Science Association.  

Deb was made a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of significant service to social policy research, gender equity and tertiary education.  In 2023 she was appointed to the Productivity Commission to co-lead an inquiry into universal early childhood education and care.

Bronwyn Pike is the former CEO of Uniting Vic. Tas and has extensive experience across the public, private and community services sectors. Bronwyn was the Victorian State Member of Parliament for Melbourne from 1999 to 2012. Her 13-year parliamentary career included 11 years as a Minister for Housing, Aged Care, Community Services, Health, Education and Skills. Before entering parliament in 1999, she was the Director of Justice and Social Responsibility in the Synod of Victoria, which provided children, youth, family and aged care services as well as social justice advocacy.

Bronwyn has considerable governance experience at national and state level. She has chaired the Boards of Western Heath, the South Australian Urban Renewal Authority (Renewal SA) and UnitingCare Australia and has been a Board member of Australian Health Policy Collaboration, Leap In!, Lifeline Australia and Uniting NSW.ACT.

Tony is an Independent Non-Executive Director and Chair of Audit and Risk Committees.  He is an experienced business leader and adviser having worked with KPMG Australia for 32 years where he provided audit, risk and deal advisory services and served on the KPMG Australia Board.

Tony’s sector experience includes technology, not-for-profit, healthcare (including disability services, medical device and biotech), consumer markets and financial services. Tony currently serves on the Boards of Capital Group Investment Management Limited and Carriageworks and is Independent Chair of the CoalLSL Audit and Risk Committee.  He also advises companies across professional services, mental health and technology.

Professor Irene Blackberry is the Research Director at Care Economy CRC. Professor Blackberry is a health services and implementation science researcher of complex multifactorial care. She has over 20 years of research experience across the Care Economy in Australia and abroad, predominantly in healthcare, aged care and informal care sectors. Her research expertise focuses on access to care and models of care that are innovative, effective and sustainable, building skills in individuals and greater capacity of the whole-of-community to support people from diverse background and rural communities.

She is committed to addressing care crisis by breaking down the siloing of care sectors and is the leading force behind Australia’s Care Economy research including building an industry-led research partnership program on Care Economy and establishing the Care Economy Collaborative Network.

Irene is the Past President of Australian Association of Gerontology Victoria, member of the NHMRC Council and Principal Committees 2021-2024 Triennium, on the editorial board of several international journals and expert advisors to government and not-for-profit organisations. Irene has attracted $135m in competitive research grants and published 210 papers.

Professor Desai has successfully led many multi-million-dollar R&D programs in socially relevant, high impact application areas such as transportation, energy management, logistics/supply chain, health care and precision agriculture. His work has resulted in several innovative designs and patent applications which have underpinned a number of start-up companies.

Wendy’s research expertise is in dementia, depression and delirium. With a focus on finding evidence for best practices in the care of older people, and particularly those with dementia, improving quality of life, and evidence for managing behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD). She has a keen interest in technologies and, within a social robotics laboratory, she develops and evaluates assistive technologies and social robots.

Adam has nearly 20 years of experience in digital health and data science with a focus on applied machine learning and natural language processing in public health and clinical epidemiology. His research programs aim to improve how people access health information related to their care; improve health behaviours by monitoring how evidence and misinformation are taken up by the public; and develop new tools to improve how we use clinical trial evidence in systematic reviews and clinical practice.

James is an international data linkage expert with extensive experience in utilising large, linked population-based health administrative datasets to generate national epidemiological and management information. James has contributed to the development of the Privacy-preserving Record Linkage (PPRL) methodology. His expertise spans monitoring and evaluating health service performance and developing digital technology platforms to support virtual care models and remote monitoring.

Sarah is a Professor of Health Systems and General Practitioner with extensive skills and experience in rural and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research, health services and workforce research. Her focus is on collaborating to improve equity in health care services for underserved populations, particularly rural, remote, Indigenous and tropical populations, and on training a health workforce with appropriate knowledge, attitudes and skills for this purpose.

Michelle is a health systems researcher specialising in digital health, implementation science, and data visualisation.  Michelles research investigates what drives successful health innovation and how these insights can be transformed into strategies for meaningful and lasting impact — particularly in rural and remote communities.

Sheila specialises in infant-toddler pedagogies and learning in early childhood education centres. With a deep interest in relationship-based pedagogies, she investigates the nature of social interactions between children, their educators and peers, to consider how these interactions contribute towards very young children’s learning.

Rob has over 25 years' experience in senior management working in the professional services and education industries. Rob leads the CRC’s Education and Training Program and is responsible for delivering targeted learning opportunities, building capacity across research, industry, and community stakeholders, and supporting career pathways for research higher degree students, early career researchers, and the care workforce.