Dean's Industry Advisory Board

Chair

Associate Professor Beth Kotze

Director MH–CYP (Mental Health – Children & Young People) 
Mental Health Drug and Alcohol Office, Ministry of Health

Adjunct Professor Beth Kotzé is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and an experienced mental health service leader with a particular interest in effective, evidence-based and clinically meaningful mental health strategy and policy development. Beth has led and managed mental health services at Local Health District and Area level for over 20 years. She has also worked at the State level for the Ministry of Health in the development and implementation of strategy and policy. She maintains active clinical practice and involvement in teaching and training with both the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) and the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators (RACMA). Beth has served on numerous committees and working parties at state and commonwealth level and for the colleges over many years and most recently represented NSW in the development of a national approach to the planning of mental health services.

In 2000 she was awarded the Bernard Nicholson Prize as most outstanding candidate (RACMA) and in 2010 she was awarded the Margaret Tobin Award by the RANZCP which is an award in honour of Dr Margaret Tobin that recognises the RAMZCP Fellow who has made the most significant contribution to administrative psychiatry in Australia and New Zealand in the past 5 years.

Members

Ben Chiarella

CEO Dudley Private Hospital and Ramsay Surgical Centre Orange 

Ben Chiarella was most recently Operations Manager - Virtual Rural Generalist Service, with Western NSW LHD and prior to this held the position of Director of Clinical Innovation for Ramsay Connect where his role and focus was on delivering change and innovation in how healthcare is delivered across Australia. He has a wealth of experience in managing change and driving innovation and operational performance across tertiary, primary and community aged care and is passionate about models of integration across sectors, chronic disease management and hospital avoidance.

Ben holds a Bachelor of Education (Secondary Human Movement and Health Education), a Master of Business (Human Resources and Marketing) and a Master of Nursing from the University of Sydney.

Ben has a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities around rural and remote health, chronic disease, and ageing both as a Registered Nurse and in his role designing innovative programs to support older people to age in place. Ben has extensive leadership experience with a strong reputation as a people manager and thought leader on virtual health and innovative models of care focused on hospital avoidance.

One of Ben's proudest achievements in his career to date was being appointed as the first ever Chief Nursing Officer for the Rural and Remote Medical Service which historically had been a medical focused organisation. 

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Ms Leslie Everson   

Head of Consumer, Clinical Quality and Risk – Bolton Clarke Residential Aged Care 

A passionate health and aged care leader, manager, coach, mentor, RN and UTS Alum, Leslie Everson's career has spanned public, private and third schedule providers. 

In a career spanning over 30 years, Leslie is currently Head of Consumer, Clinical Quality and Risk at Bolton Clarke Residential Aged Care and most recently held the role of Director, Clinical Governance and Risk at Allity Aged Care (now part of Bolton Clarke), whereby as the nursing director, she provided professional leadership, overseeing clinical strategy and supporting the Operations team, responsible for residents in 43 residential aged care homes across 3 States. Leslie's previous roles have been as CEO of a Sydney based aged care provider, Director of Nursing and Patient Care and subsequently Director of Operations of St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, plus several senior regional aged care manager and director roles leading and managing up to 17 residential aged care Homes across multiple States. She has also held a Learning Set facilitator role at the Hardy Group.

Whilst at St Vincent's Hospital, Leslie co-led the development of the ACU-St Vincent's & Mater Health Sydney Nursing Research Unit whilst holding the title of Adjunct Professor with the University, assisting in curriculum development and a review of the University's School of Nursing.

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Ms Bernadette (Berne) Gibbons

Head of Business Innovation and Partnerships - InfoMedix

With a background in Nursing and the Pharmaceutical Industry spanning 30 years, Berne Gibbons has held  senior roles including Product Manager for Anaesthetics at Glaxo Wellcome, Head of Hospitals at Mayne Health Pharmaceutical Wholesale, CEO for Central Hospital Supplies and most recenlty Managing Director for Vitro Software Pty Ltd, where she developed a particular interest in providing digital health records and strategic use of information. Berne Gibbons has led a number of major e-health projects including the successful bid for the PCEHR Infrastructure contract when she was Head Of Health for Telstra and has consistently contributed to progression of technology to improve healthcare for all Australians.

Berne Gibbons is the Chair of the AIIA Health Special Interest Group and is a member of the Dean of Health's Industry Advisory Board and Adjunct Associate Professor at UTS. Berne Gibbons has been committed to advancing Digital health in Australia for over 15 years. Berne is also a Board member on the NFP organization Pathfinders with a special interest in registering the Births of Aboriginal people through the National Aboriginal Birth Certificate Register, being run by Pathfinders. 

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Mr Robert Mills

Chief Executive Officer - Tresillian

Robert Mills is CEO of Tresillian Family Care Centres in NSW. Tresillian is an affiliated health organisation, governed by a Board of Directors that has 86 mother & child beds with 250 staff spread throughout 6 sites across NSW. Robert has been working within the public hospital system since commencing his Nursing certificate in 1982 and over the last 30 years his career has been focused mainly in the discipline of maternal and child health. He was the Director of Maternal & Child Health at Macarthur Health Service (Campbelltown & Camden Hospitals) from 2000 to 2003 prior to being appointed as the Chief Executive Officer at Karitane in NSW. 

Robert is currently on the Board of the Australasian Association of Parenting & Child Health, currently as President and also the NSW Health Services Association, currently as the Treasurer. He was recently a Director on the Board of the Association of Children’s Welfare Agencies (ACWA). In 2012, he also graduated from The Australian Institute of Company Directors course and went on to become a Fellow. Since 2013, he has also been a Hospital Accreditation Surveyor with the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards (ACHS). 

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Ms Donna Murray

Chief Executive Officer - Indigenous Allied Health Australia Ltd

Ms Donna Murray is a descendant of the Wiradjuri nation of the Murrumbidgee River and of the Wonnarua nation of the Hunter Valley (NSW) and the Chief Executive Officer of Indigenous Allied Health Australia (IAHA), a national member-based Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander allied health organisation. Donna provides strong strategic leadership across the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and wider allied health sector and has extensive experience in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership and governance, education and community development. 

Having worked in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs for over 25 years within government and the community sector at local, state and national levels, Donna has strong relationships and networks within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. She also holds qualifications in Event Management, Business, Indigenous Governance and Wiradjuri Language, Culture and Heritage. In 2016, Donna was appointed an honorary Associate in the Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney.

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Hayley Ryan

Clinical Specialist Lead – Uniting

Hayley Ryan has 22 years’ experience in nursing and has worked in both acute and aged care over this time. Hayley has a passion for healing wounds as a Wound Clinical Nurse Consultant and Clinical Excellence lead across Seniors directorate NSW & ACT for Uniting. Hayley also operates her own company WoundRescue across Australia & New Zealand.

Hayley has a wide range of postgraduate experience in wound management, while also completing a Master of Business Admin (MBA). Hayley is currently completing her PhD and is also chair of the board for Wounds Australia and Board Member Diabetes Foot Australia.

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Clare Sandford

CEO Naturalena Foundation 

Clare began her career in health before transitioning to health law, where she practised as a medico-legal solicitor. Drawing on real-life experiences in health litigation, she lectured in health law for over a decade, preparing nursing and social work students to navigate the complexities of emerging legal and ethical issues in their fields. Her career evolved into Executive leadership, where she held multiple executive roles within the university sector, including national positions in Entrepreneurship and Innovation as well as Chief Operating Officer, advancing initiatives that bridged academic, industry, and community interests.

Currently, as the CEO of an international not-for-profit with operations across the USA and Australia, Clare is engaged in exploring and implementing innovative solutions to complex social issues. Her work centres on uniting diverse stakeholders—businesses, government, educational institutions, and entrepreneurs—to drive social innovation and forge impactful connections between communities and industry. With a strong interest in the transformative role of AI within healthcare, she brings to the advisory board a unique blend of strategic insight, cross-sector experience, and a forward-thinking approach well-suited to addressing challenges and opportunities at the intersection of health, technology, and social impact.
 

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Sue Shilbury

CEO – Family Planning Australia

Sue Shilbury brings more than 32 years’ experience within the NSW and Victorian public health sectors and in the Social Services Sector having held a range of Executive Leadership roles in hospitals, health services, local health districts and the Not for Profit sector. 

Before joining Family Planning Australia, Sue Shilbury was Director Communities at Uniting NSW/ACT, held the position of CEO Austin Health from January 2017 to December 2019 and served as a non-executive Director on the FPA Board from 2014-2017. Sue is passionate about working with vulnerable communities, ensuring access to services, and advocating for peoples’ right to choose the healthcare which is right for them supported through access to high quality information to assist in decision-making.

Sue Shilbury is a leader in driving policy changes for the disadvantaged, in alignment with Family Planning Australia’s work with at-risk communities and overall commitment to offering low and no-cost care to people.

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Megan Williams

Megan is Wiradjuri through paternal family and has worked for over two decades advocating for the use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s expertise in health service design and evaluation, research, ethics and university curriculum, especially to improve access to health care for people in prison and prevent incarceration.

Megan is author of the Ngaa-bi-nya Aboriginal evaluation framework available at the Evaluation Journal of Australasia and cited by the Australian Evaluation Society and Productivity Commission in its background work for the Australian Government's Indigenous Evaluation Strategy.

Most recently Professor Williams held the position of Associate Dean – Indigenous in the Faculty of Health, UTS and was Head of Discipline, Girra Maa Indigenous Health in the faculty’s School of Public Health.  

Megan is a member of the AIHW National Prisoner Health Information Committee and Corrective Services NSW Aboriginal Advisory Council. Megan has been miimi (sister) of Mibbinbah community organisation for 15 years, and is Chairperson of independent media company Croakey.org.

Megan has MRFF, NHMRC, government and industry funds for research, and has had local and national roles including as a Human Research Ethics Committee chairperson, and Health Sociology Review associate editor including for the Yuwinbir Special Issue.

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Adjunct Associate Professor Leanne (Lulu) Zalapa

Adjunct Associate Professor Leanne (Lulu) Zalapa is a health industry leader with an extensive career in nursing and philanthropic services. Over the course of her 16-year tenure as CEO and Founder of the Prince of Wales Hospital Foundation, she raised some $50 million for infrastructure, research, equipment and patient care projects including the Nelune Comprehensive Cancer Centre and the Louisa Hope Fund for Nurses.

Adjunct Associate Professor Zalapa also launched other charities as programs within POWHF including Dry July and Dreams2Live4 which both became national charities and is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor in the UTS Faculty of Health. She holds a Bachelor of Nursing (1993) from UTS, Master in Health Administration (1999) and Graduate Diploma Public Health UNSW (2001).

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Faculty of Health representatives

Professor Debra Anderson 
Dean

A/Prof Lynn Sinclair 
Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning)

Professor Angela Dawson 
Associate Dean (Research)