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Appendix 1. Committee and Board Member Profiles

NBA Board Members

NBA Board Members (L to R) Associate Professor Alison Street AO, Ms Penny Shakespeare (proxy for Mr Mark McCormack), Professor Chris Brook PSM, Professor Lyn Beazley AO, Ms Gayle Ginnane (Outgoing Chair), Mr Paul Bedbrook and Mr Geoffrey Bartle.

NBA Board Members

Dr Amanda Rischbieth - Chair

Dr Amanda Rischbieth has over 30 years' experience in health and academia including CEO and non-executive directorship roles across health care delivery, clinical (critical care), public health, research, ethics, and corporate governance. She is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Adelaide, a Governor's Leadership Foundation Fellow, and a former Telstra Business Women Awards Finalist in two categories.

Following her twelve month Harvard Advanced Leadership Fellowship in 2017, Dr Rischbieth was invited back as a Visiting Scientist to join Harvard's Culture of Health project – a partnership between Harvard Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Business School - a role she continues to hold. Her previous directorships include the Australian Organ and Tissue Authority, the National Heart Foundation of Australia SA, Australian College of Critical Care Nurses (National President), South Australian Public Health Council, Urban Renewal Authority, and the South Australian Motor Sport Board (V8 Supercars Adelaide 500).

Formerly a Director of Research for Calvary Health Care where she led the establishment of an international cancer clinical trials unit, Dr Rischbieth established and co-led a private cardiac and general Intensive Care Unit. Dr Rischbieth has received various awards and recognition for her business and community contributions. In 2018, she joined a humanitarian project team in Sri Lanka fitting prosthetic hands to over 240 land-mine and other victims.

Dr Rischbieth was appointed Chair of the NBA Board in March 2019.

Mr Geoffrey Bartle – Community Representative

Mr Bartle has over thirty years of experience at an executive and strategic level in technology enabled business transformation and the design and implementation of business solutions. Prior to retirement, he was a management consultant and had a proven track record of delivering genuine business benefits for his clients in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

His consulting roles included Strategy, Governance, Business Architecture, Benefits Management, Organisational Transformation, Procurement, Change Management, Business and System Analysis, Strategic Business Cases, Program Design, Business Process Improvement, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, and the design of technology enabled solutions to optimise business outcomes.

Mr Bartle's industry experience included human services, disability services, health, police, education, superannuation, government services, insurance, small business, sustainability and Green IT, mining, taxation, racing and wagering, social welfare, public housing and smartcards; delivered in government, university and private sector environments.

Mr Bartle has also had extensive experience in a diverse range of Senior Executive Service roles in the public sector in Australia and New Zealand including national administration of large legislative, compliance, business and client service programs.
The diverse range of roles undertaken by Mr Bartle during his career has equipped him with sound business acumen, and an unusual breadth of knowledge and experience, that he drew upon to deliver high calibre consulting services. His pragmatic approach to problem solving, together with his skill in engaging with clients and stakeholders at all levels of an organisation, and his broad exposure to a variety of proprietary and industry methodologies and processes, enabled him to take on a range of challenging engagements.

He understands that a holistic and consumer-centric approach across the entire healthcare continuum is essential, and holds a number of community representative roles including:

  • National Blood Authority – Haemovigilance Advisory Committee
  • Australian Digital Health Agency – Secure Messaging and Interoperability Steering Committee
  • NPS MedicineWise – Opioids Working Group
  • WA Primary Health Alliance – Chronic Heart Failure Steering Committee
  • WA Primary Health Alliance – Health Care Home Governance Group
  • WA Primary Health Alliance – Chair, Metropolitan Community Advisory Council
  • WA Department of Health Cardiovascular Health Network Executive Advisory Group

Mr Bartle was appointed to the NBA Board as the community representative in October 2017.

Professor Lyn Beazley AO – State and Territory Representative (Small Jurisdiction)

After graduating from Oxford and Edinburgh Universities, Professor Lyn Beazley built an internationally renowned research team in neuroscience that focused on recovery from brain damage, with much of her investigations undertaken as Winthrop Professor at the University of Western Australia. Currently Professor Beazley is Adjunct Professor of Science at Murdoch University.

Professor Beazley was the Chief Scientist of Western Australia from 2006 to 2013, advising the WA government on science, innovation and technology, as well as acting as an Ambassador for science locally, nationally and internationally. Professor Beazley chairs several boards/councils including the Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Network, WA Innovator of the Year and Royal Perth Hospital Research Foundation and serves on others including the Royal Institution Australia. Professor Beazley was a Trustee of the Western Australian Museum from 1999 to 2006 and currently is Patron of the Friends of the Museum, along with many other educational, environmental, social and health-related organisations.

In 2009 Professor Beazley was awarded Officer of the Order of Australia. In that year she was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and in 2019 became a Fellow of the Academy of Science. In 2011 Professor Beazley was inducted into the inaugural Western Australian Women's Hall of Fame and was elected a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators and a Companion of Engineers Australia. Professor Beazley has worked to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics to the community, especially to young people. In 2015 she was inducted into the Western Australian Science Hall of Fame and was announced as the 2015 WA Australian of the Year.

Professor Beazley was appointed to the NBA Board in January 2017.

Mr Paul Bedbrook — Financial Expert

Mr Paul Bedbrook has had a connection with blood issues via his personal involvement with haemophilia for three decades. He is the father of two adult sons with haemophilia. For much of this time Mr Bedbrook has been involved with the Haemophilia Foundation NSW (HFNSW) and the Haemophilia Foundation Australia (HFA). Mr Bedbrook is a past President of HFNSW and past Treasurer of HFA. He brings his personal experiences with blood issues to the Board as well as feedback from a community of individuals who rely on the blood and plasma products distributed to Australia's health services under the auspices of the NBA.

Professionally, Mr Bedbrook has had over thirty years of experience in financial services. His current roles include: Chairman of Zurich Financial Services Australia Ltd, Independent non-executive Director of Credit Union Australia (CUA) Ltd and Independent Chairman of ASX listed Elanor Investors Group.

Mr Bedbrook was a senior executive for over twenty years with the Dutch global banking, insurance and investment group, ING. Mr Bedbrook's early career was as an Investment Analyst and Investment Portfolio Manager at ING, and between 1987 and 1995, he was the General Manager Investments and Chief Investment Officer for the Mercantile Mutual (ING) Group in Sydney. In the decade to 2010, Mr Bedbrook was in turn, President and CEO of INGDIRECT Canada, CEO and Director of ING Australia and Regional CEO of ING Asia Pacific based in Hong Kong.

Mr Bedbrook has been a member of the NBA Board since May 2011 and was appointed to his current Board role as financial expert in August 2013. Mr Bedbrook is also a member of the NBA Audit Committee.

Professor Chris Brook PSM — State and Territory Representative (Large Jurisdiction)

Professor Chris Brook was a senior executive in Victorian Health for thirty years, fulfilling both professional (Chief Medical Officer and Director, Public Health) and management roles (Regional Director; Director Acute Health; Director Rural Health and Aged Care; and Executive Director Wellbeing, Integrated Care and Ageing).

Professor Brook has been part of blood and blood policy since 1988 and a national champion since the 1990s, including the several transformations in that time. He is especially proud of how treatment for people with haemophilia has utterly transformed in his time.

Professor Brook was re-appointed to the Board in January 2017.

Ms Penny Shakespeare – Australian Government Representative

Ms Penny Shakespeare is Deputy Secretary of the Health Financing Group in the Australian Government Department of Health. This includes the Technology Assessment and Access Division, Medical Benefits Division, Provider Benefits Integrity Division.

Since joining the Department of Health in 2006, Ms Shakespeare has held a number of senior leadership positions. Penny was the First Assistant Secretary of the Technology Assessment and Access Division, where she led the division through a period of significant change to further build on the division's capabilities in Health Technology Assessment.

Ms Shakespeare has also previously led the Health Workforce Division, Medical Benefits Branch and Private Health Insurance Branch.

Prior to joining the Department of Health, Ms Shakespeare was:

  • an industrial relations lawyer in the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations,
  • in regulatory policy roles, including as head of the ACT Office of Industrial Relations.
  • a member of the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission
  • a member of the Workplace Relations Ministers' Advisory Council.

Ms Shakespeare has a Bachelor of Laws, a Masters degree in International Law and is admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor.

Ms Shakespeare was appointed on the NBA Board in May 2018.

Associate Professor Alison Street AO – Public Health Expert

Professor Alison Street graduated in 1971 from Monash University with first class honours in medicine. After completing postgraduate training in clinical and laboratory haematology in Melbourne and Sydney, Professor Street spent three years in clinical research in Boston. Professor Street returned to Melbourne to work with Monash University and Alfred Health in 1984, where she retired from the positions of Head of Laboratory Haematology and Haemostasis-Thrombosis (including Haemophilia) in 2012.

Professor Street's main professional interests were in haemostasis-thrombosis, transfusion medicine and teaching. During her tenure at Alfred Health, Professor Street was Chief Examiner in haematology for the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia between 2001 and 2006, and President of the Haematology Society of Australia and New Zealand between 1996 and 1998.

Professor Street was a Board member with the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH) between 2002 and 2012 (Vice-President Medical between 2008 and 2012) and a Board member of the Blood Service between 1998 and 2004.

Professor Street's other appointments are:

  • Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Immunology and Pathology, Monash University
  • Chair of the NBA Haemovigilance Advisory Committee, and
  • Member of the Steering Committee for the Asia-Pacific Haemophilia Working Group.

Professor Street received the Award of Officer in the Order of Australia in 2006 for services to haematology and the community of people with congenital bleeding disorders, and is an honorary life member of the Haematology Society of Australia and New Zealand, Australian Society of Thrombosis and Haemostasis and the Australian and New Zealand Society of Blood Transfusion.

Professor Street was appointed to the NBA Board in January 2017.

Audit and Risk Committee Chair

Mr Ken Barker

Until 2009 Mr Barker had some forty two years of experience in the New South Wales Government. He worked for New South Wales Health for twenty four years where his last appointment was as Chief Financial Officer. He is now director of his own company, which specialises in financial management and provision of strategic advice, mainly to government agencies. He is also a member of a number of state government governance boards and of several New South Wales agency audit and risk committees.

Mr Barker has worked with the former New South Wales Blood Transfusion Service, and has made important contributions to many of the key decisions and events that have shaped the current Australian blood sector: the establishment of the Australian Red Cross Blood Service and the NBA; provision of national indemnity arrangements for blood and blood products; the Stephen Review of the Australian Blood Banking and Plasma Product Sector; and the 2008 KPMG business study of the Blood Service.

Mr Barker was appointed to the NBA Interim Board and has served as a full Board member since the inception of the NBA. He was reappointed in May 2011 and his term extended until August 2013. He served as Chair of the NBA Audit Committee between 2003 and 2007 and continued to serve as an Audit Committee member, until his appointment as Chair in October 2013.

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