Professor Robyn Ward AM

Professor Robyn Ward (AM) is an academic leader, cancer researcher and clinician who has made significant contributions to health policy and practice in Australia, as well as to the higher education sector.  Since 2018 she has served as Pro-Vice Chancellor Medicine and Health, and Executive Dean, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney. Previous career roles included Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) at the University of Queensland, as well as senior academic roles at UNSW Sydney.

Since 2009, Prof Ward has served as the Chair of the Commonwealth’s Medical Services Advisory Committee, advising the Commonwealth Health minister on the circumstances under which public funding should be provided for medical services, technologies and procedures. She is the longest-serving member of the Australian Commonwealth’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (2000-2019), where her expertise in oncology and cancer biology helped evaluate the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of subsidising drugs, as well as developing policies regarding the best use of medicines in Australia. Over her research career, she has published over 270 original manuscripts that have been cited over 20,000 times by peers.

Among other roles, Prof Ward serves on the Council and Executive of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, and on the board of Red Cross LifeBlood Australia and Telstra Health. She is the Australian Commonwealth representative for the Health Technology Assessment International (HTAi) group, and program director of eviQ for the NSW Cancer Institute. In 2013 Prof Ward was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to medical research and patient care in the field of oncology.

Michael Ackland

Michael Ackland was appointed Telstra’s Group Executive, Consumer & Small Business in April 2019, after acting in the role since September 2018. Michael works to create and deliver the best experiences possible for consumers and small business customers through radically simplifying our products and services, while also working to transform the experience customers have with us.

Previously Michael was Telstra’s Executive, Sales and Service, where he led Telstra’s Consumer & Small Business sales and service channels, including Global Contact Centres (GCC), Telstra Country Wide (TCW) and Telstra Digital. He joined Telstra in 2016 as Executive Director of Telstra Country Wide, and was responsible for over 350 retail stores and over 16,000 partners nationally.

Michael joined Telstra from GE, where he held the role of CEO GE Healthcare, Australia and New Zealand. At GE, Michael held various executive leadership roles across GE’s Australia and New Zealand business, including financial services, corporate and healthcare divisions. Prior to GE, Michael was Principal at the Boston Consulting Group, where he worked for eight years.

Michael holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the University of Melbourne.

Michael became Telstra’s CFO on 1 September 2022 replacing Vicki Brady who becomes Telstra’s new CEO after Andy Penn announced his retirement in March 2022. Michael was appointed Chairman of the Telstra Health Board in September 2023.

Elizabeth Koff AM

Prior to Telstra Health, Elizabeth was Secretary of New South Wales (NSW) Health for a six-year term. As Secretary, Elizabeth was responsible for the management of the NSW health system, the largest health system in Australia with a $30 billion budget and 124,000 full time equivalent staff.

Key strategic achievements include the implementation of value-based care across NSW, the progression of eHealth initiatives and a $2 billion per year capital infrastructure program.

In 2020-21, Elizabeth led the NSW Health system through the COVID-19 pandemic and advised NSW crisis cabinet on the management of coronavirus in NSW and the subsequent vaccine roll-out.

Elizabeth was chair of the Australian Health Ministers Advisory Council (AHMAC) and its subsequent iteration of Health Chief Executives Forum, and is a Member of the Order of Australia.

Professor Michael Kidd AO

Professor Kidd holds a joint appointment as the inaugural Director of the Centre for Future Health Systems at the University of New South Wales, and as Professor of Global Primary Care and Future Health Systems at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford. He also chairs the advisory board of the Australian Alliance for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare.

He has previously held roles in Canada where he was the Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Family Medicine and Primary Care, Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto, and Senior Innovation Fellow with the Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care.

Professor Kidd is an elected fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, and a past president of both the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the World Organization of Family Doctors. He is a former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University, and former Professor and Head of the Department of General Practice at the University of Sydney.

Douglas Rogerson

Richard Mathews

Richard Mathews is the CEO of RPMGlobal and serves on its Board of Directors. He is a 25+ year veteran of the software industry who is recognised for his leadership and innovation. 

Richard has a successful track record in scaling public and private enterprise technology companies. Since joining RPMGlobal, Richard has helped lead the company’s development and growth from a desktop software provider to a truly global organisation that is transforming the mining industry with the delivery of enterprise solutions in operations. While the rest of the industry was contracting, he was investing and expanding RPMGlobal’s offerings and footprint.

Prior to RPMGlobal, Richard was the Non-Executive Chairman and CEO of eServGlobal Limited. Before eServGlobal, Richard was the CEO of Mincom and held Executive roles at JD Edwards and Translink Transport Authority. He is also a founding partner of MHB Holding Pty Ltd. He currently serves as a board member of Telstra Health Pty Ltd and previously was part of the Board for METSIgnited. Richard holds a Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Science and ACA.

Elizabeth Koff AM

Prior to Telstra Health, Elizabeth was Secretary of New South Wales (NSW) Health for a six-year term. As Secretary, Elizabeth was responsible for the management of the NSW health system, the largest health system in Australia with a $30 billion budget and 124,000 full time equivalent staff.

Key strategic achievements include the implementation of value-based care across NSW, the progression of eHealth initiatives and a $2 billion per year capital infrastructure program.

In 2020-21, Elizabeth led the NSW Health system through the COVID-19 pandemic and advised NSW crisis cabinet on the management of coronavirus in NSW and the subsequent vaccine roll-out.

Elizabeth was chair of the Australian Health Ministers Advisory Council (AHMAC) and its subsequent iteration of Health Chief Executives Forum, and is a Member of the Order of Australia.

Marisa Ghafoor

As Chief Financial and Strategy Officer, Marisa guides Telstra Health’s financial performance and reporting, leads the development of, and progress against our corporate strategy, and oversees our commercial, risk and transformation capabilities, to deliver long-term value.

Prior to joining Telstra Health, Marisa held a number of senior finance roles within Telstra in Australia, the Philippines and Hong Kong.

Marisa is a Chartered Accountant with consulting and operational experience in finance, strategy and transformation across telecommunications, media and entertainment and not-for-profit industries.

Farhoud Salimi

Farhoud joined Telstra Health as Chief Technology Officer in April 2023, prior to which he held the position of Executive Director, Service Delivery (CTO) in eHealth NSW.

Farhoud has a career spanning over 20 years with local and global experience both in private and public sectors. Farhoud has exceptional people leadership and technical experience and has been recognised and referenced extensively in IT forums.

A key achievement of Farhoud and his team was recognition at the 2021 NSW Premiers awards for the Mass Vaccinations Systems rollout in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most recently, Farhoud has been recognised by the CIO Magazine, as part of the CIO50 2022 Awards, as one of Australia’s most innovative CIOs for his contribution to the NSW Health digital journey.

Alex White

Alex leads the Corporate Affairs team at Telstra Health which includes responsibility for the organisation’s policy development, government relations, communications and marketing activities.

Alex has worked in senior government, parliamentary and policy roles including leading a team of advisers at the Australian Medical Association, the Prime Minister’s office, as Chief of Staff to a federal cabinet minister and as senior health and social policy adviser to a federal opposition leader. Prior to this he held various roles at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Alex studied history and politics at the Australian National University and has a Master of Public Policy and Management from the University of Melbourne

Dr Monica Trujillo

Dr Monica Trujillo joined Telstra Health as Chief Health Officer in May 2022. Monica is a digital health advocate and enthusiast who is focused on bringing together digital capabilities to help health and care organisations solve the complex challenges within their sectors. Monica is also passionate about improving health outcomes through the adoption of technology.

With more than 20 years of experience in medicine, executive roles and clinical informatics, across Australia and internationally, Monica is a leading advocate on fully and effectively engaging clinicians and consumers in the design, implementation, and sustainability of digital health solutions, in order to bring about high-quality and safe health and care outcomes.

Monica is a Board Member and Fellow of the Australian Institute of Digital Health, Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators, and Fellow of the Australasian College of Health Service Management and is at the forefront of delivering outcomes that break barriers to promote technology, better care and active community collaboration.

Paul Naismith

Paul is a community pharmacy owner and the CEO of FRED IT Group. He co-founded FRED in 1991 and has grown the business to become Australia’s largest provider of IT services to the pharmacy industry. He is the man behind the market leading IT solutions Fred Dispense, eRx Script Exchange and MedView amongst others.

Paul’s vision is to make medication management safer and more effective for all Australian’s. To help deliver his vision, Paul holds the position as Chair of the Board for PDL, the major indemnity provider for pharmacists as well as Chair of APPCo, publisher of the Australian Journal of Pharmacy. He is a member of the PSA and a fellow of the Australian College of Pharmacy.

Christopher Norton

Chris is a senior healthcare executive who has 22+ years’ experience in the health, pharmaceuticals and life sciences industry across Asia Pacific. Chris’ career has involved working in front line health care delivery, public health executive roles, senior positions in a Big4 delivering healthcare consulting, to Senior Executive positions at Telstra Health, Australia’s largest eHealth company.

Combining firsthand industry knowledge and extensive experience across strategy, planning, development and execution of digital health solutions, Chris is the Telstra Health Executive accountable for leading the Hospital portfolio; comprising Telstra Health’s Virtual Health Platform and a range of hospital clinical, administrative and support software solutions.

Chris role focuses on the leadership and execution of strategic, product, technology, people and financial outcomes. This includes accountability for delivering exceptional, safe and reliable products that delight the hospital customer base through leading a team of over 300 cross specialty staff.

Chris helps teams to discover, define, and solve their most complex challenges and barriers to efficient and effective healthcare delivery enabled through digital healthcare. Chris specialises in strategy, digital healthcare, transformation, productivity and efficiency. Having led teams to implement large scale transformation programs, in particular digital health programs, Chris brings extensive experience and learnings from across the health sector to his clients.

Emma Brennan

Emma Brennan joined Telstra Health in 2021. Emma has senior HR experience across professional and financial services, telecommunications and media. Prior to Telstra Health, Emma was in an executive position at an industry super fund where she had accountability for the people function. Emma has spent time in strategic business partnering for over 15 years. Emma has a passion for relevant and impactful people practices that enable organisational strategy. Emma has attained a Masters of HR in Industrial Relations. Emma has also attained a Bachelor of Human Resources and a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD).

Stephen Colman

Stephen joined Telstra Health in August 2018 and is our Population Health and Customer Success Executive.

Stephen has demonstrable experience of over 20 years in developing and delivering strategic and operational initiatives as a program manager of large scale and complex projects and as a proven operational leader, managing the operations of one of Australia’s largest Wealth Management platforms.

Prior to joining Telstra Health Stephen worked in the Financial Services industry with key leadership roles in AMP and AXA and was also employed by KPMG Consulting Ireland, where he worked across multiple sectors throughout Europe. Stephen has led the successful implementation of several large scale transformational change programs, managing not only the execution of delivery but also business performance and team culture in environments of ambiguity.

Stephen holds a Bachelor of Management, Science and Information Systems from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

Dr Tim Ross

Tim is a corporate clinician with a purpose for enabling populations to live their best lives through innovative digital health solutions. 

Tim has been with Telstra Health for four years and currently carries responsibility for clinical governance and operations, ensuring clinical safety is paramount in the work we do for our digital health products and services across their full lifecycle in all Telstra Health businesses.

Tim joined Telstra Health as Medical Operations Director for the National Cancer Screening Register, leading operations across cervical and bowel cancer screening for three years. Prior to this he worked at Bupa Australia and New Zealand as Medical Services Director for Bupa Villages and Aged Care, Australia and New Zealand, and as a National Medical Director across all Bupa businesses. He has an MBA and CHIA certification.

Tim is also a non-executive Director of Local Guardians which provides digital support for aged home care packages.

Tim completed medicine at Monash University and holds the Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (FRACGP). His clinical career involved 20 years of general practice in urban and rural locations, and in the U.K. He has worked for the RACGP training program and in the Department of General Practice at the University of Melbourne.

Representative work has included Primary Health Networks, Australian Medical Association (AMA) Victoria, AMA Federal, and RACGP Victoria Faculty, involving board work and specialist committees.

Professor Dorota Gertig

Professor Gertig is Medical Director of Population Health Solutions and the National Cancer Screening Register at Telstra Health. 

She is a public health physician and senior epidemiologist, who completed her medical training at Monash University and has a Doctorate in Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. Professor Gertig has an international profile in cancer research, including the epidemiology of cervical, breast and ovarian cancers. With more than 100 scientific publications, her primary research focus has been on policy relevant research and impact of the HPV vaccine, as well as improving participation in cancer screening. She is committed to improving quality, safety and digital innovation in population health programs.

Ms Vickie Irving

Vickie Irving joined Telstra Health in 2015 as the organisation’s Clinical Health Specialist, lead the development and implementation of innovative, eHealth-enabled service delivery models. Vickie has since been promoted to the roles of Deputy Chief Health Officer and Head of Clinical Innovation & Effectiveness in the Enterprise Clinical Excellence and Growth team.  

With a passion for continuous improvement and innovation, accompanied by extensive clinical, healthcare administration and ICT experience, Vickie Irving has successfully driven the development and implementation of large-scale business transformation initiatives to improve access to healthcare, enhance customer experience, improve productivity, streamline processes and reduce unnecessary costs. 

Prior to joining Telstra Health, Vickie worked in a variety of clinical roles for Queensland Health, before specialising in strategic and health service planning. She then transitioned into clinical service redesign, lean methodology and process improvement where she led a number of highly successful state-wide service improvement and clinical redesign initiatives involving emergency department, elective surgery, specialist outpatient and community-based services, with measurable impacts on access and patient flow

Dr Janice Tan

Dr Janice Tan is a GP and digital health expert. With dual expertise in primary care and digital health, Janice is currently working with Telstra Health as their Clinical Director, PACC & Ecosystem. She is also the deputy chair of the CESPHN Clinical Council. 

Janice has provided deep clinical insight on Australia’s primary health ecosystem to various organisations including start-ups, established companies, government bodies and investment arms. Janice is chiefly interested in how digital health can help solve the age-old problems persisting and contributing to health inequity. She is passionate in advocating for health technology innovation to improve workflows and reduce inefficiencies in primary care.