Chief Executive
Professor Sue Matthews, RN BA MHScN DPH Wharton Fellow
Professor Matthews joined the Women's from the Niagara Health System in Ontario, Canada, where she was interim President and CEO.
Professor Matthews has held leadership positions in acute care hospitals, home and community care and government. She was the Provincial Chief Nursing Officer with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, where she advised Ontario’s Premier, Minister for Health and government on nursing and health system issues, and provided strategic leadership and advice on health system transformation.
She sits on a number of Boards and advisory committees including: the National Women's Health Advisory Council, Ambulance Victoria’s Equality and Workplace Reform Governance Committee, the Department of Health, Departmental Advisory Committee on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Viral Hepatitis, the Healthcare Worker Infection Prevention and Wellbeing Taskforce and the Personal Protective Equipment Taskforce COVID-19 Response. She is the Chair of the Victorian Healthcare Association.
Professor Matthews holds a Doctor of Public Health degree along with a Master's in Health Science Nursing degree from Charles Sturt University. In addition, she has a Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Health Studies degree from York University and a Diploma in Nursing from Ryerson Polytechnic University. Professor Matthews is a Fellow of the Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia. She is an Adjunct Professor Faculty of Nursing at Trent University. In 2021, she was awarded an honorary professorship by the University of Melbourne.
A recipient of numerous awards in recognition of her nursing work, Professor Matthews was also named one of Canada’s top 100 most powerful women by the Women’s Executive Network and received the Canadian Nurses Association Centennial Award.
Chief Operating Officer
Lisa Lynch
The Chief Operating Officer has executive responsibility for the leadership and management of clinical services across the hospital. This role ensures effective and efficient delivery of high quality, integrated clinical services across the hospital with a focus on safety, quality and the patient experience. It also provides strategic leadership to the overall operations of the Women’s and leads business improvement initiatives ensuring consistency with the Women’s strategic and annual operational plans.
Chief Communications Officer
Tania Angelini
The Chief Communications Officer is responsible for leading the development and implementation of all media and communication strategies, systems and protocols at the Women’s that are aligned with, and contribute effectively to, the strategic directions and business objectives of the Women’s. The primary purpose of this role is to promote and protect the Women’s reputation, maximising potential opportunities and minimising risk. The position provides direct support and strategic counsel to the Chief Executive, other executive leaders and the Women’s Board on all matters with potential to impact the Women’s reputation and standing, including media, issues and crisis communication and stakeholder management.
Chief Midwifery and Nursing Officer
Laura Bignell
The portfolio of the Chief Midwifery and Nursing Officer (CMNO) has responsibility for professional leadership of midwifery and nursing at the Women’s. This includes strategic, operational and industrial issues of relevance to midwives and nurses. The CMNO is responsible for ensuring the Women’s attracts and retains a high calibre midwifery and nursing workforce that espouses the Women’s values, and is competent and accredited to practice. The CMNO works with internal and external partners to enable the Women’s to maximise all available opportunities to plan, professionally develop, and effectively use its nursing and midwifery workforce.
Executive Director, Digital Innovation. Chief Information Officer
George Cozaris
The Executive Director, Digital Innovation (Chief Information Officer), has executive responsibility for strategic leadership and transformational information technology change programmes.
George established the Digital Innovation service in March 2023 a shared collaboration initiative for The Women’s and The Royal Melbourne Hospital. A single cohesive, dynamic, success-oriented service with improved digital capability delivering on becoming a Digital Health Service.
George is passionate to deliver on new digital advancements, efficiencies and explore opportunities around collaboration and consolidation of digital platforms.
General Counsel
Leanne Dillon
The General Counsel ensures the Women’s operates successfully within the complex regulatory and legislative framework in which it delivers services. The role is responsible for providing full service legal advice across a range of strategic and operational issues with a focus on effectively managing legal risk.
Chief Financial Officer
Sam Garrasi
The Chief Financial Officer has executive responsibility for the leadership and management of financial strategy and management, corporate support services, asset management, payroll, procurement and commercial operations at the Women’s.
This role provides strategic leadership to the Board and broader organisation on financial governance, compliance, policy and risk management and oversees financial planning and annual operating and capital budgets; financial analysis, business development and revenue management.
Chief Medical Officer
Mark Garwood
The Chief Medical Officer is responsible for providing the professional leadership of the Women’s medical staff to achieve the highest standards of clinical practice and patient-centred care.
The position oversees medical professional standards across the organisation and provides advice to the Executive on professional medical issues including medical workforce planning and management, clinical innovation and service development.
The Chief Medical Officer is accountable for medical governance, workforce, education, training, professional practice, leadership development, medico-legal matters, university relations, and is responsible for managing the Research domain including Research Governance, Research Facilitation and Research Strategy.
Executive Director, Clinical Excellence and Systems Improvement
Damian Gibney
The Executive Director, Clinical Excellence and Systems Improvement provides executive and strategic leadership to the quality and safety function and leads clinical improvement initiatives. This role has responsibility for improving our quality and safety culture, leading clinical and service reviews and working across the hospital at a system-wide level to connect and improve the quality, safety and experience of our patients.
Chief eXperience Officer
Sherri Huckstep
The Chief eXperience Officer is responsible for the development, implementation and evaluation of the Women’s Creating Exceptional Experiences Strategy which is the cornerstone of the Women’s 2016-2020 Strategic Plan. This position is responsible for creating an organisational culture that ensures the Women’s realises its commitment to put patients and consumers at the heart of everything we do.
Executive Director, Philanthropy and Community Investment
Jason Smith
The Executive Director, Philanthropy and Community Investment has responsibility for cultivating collaborative relationships with donors and supporters and driving philanthropic innovation across the hospital so that the Women’s can continue to provide exceptional value to the community and improved outcomes for women and babies. This role is responsible for establishing and managing significant partnerships with individuals, charitable trusts and businesses, donor relations and stewardship, major gift campaigns and the development and implementation of the Women’s philanthropy and community investment program.