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"Our Purpose is to ensure children have the learning, development and wellbeing outcomes they need for school and life."
Julia Davison, CEO
"Goodstart is passionate about providing all children, from birth, with the best opportunities to develop into wonderful people."
Lynelle Briggs AO
"Goodstart’s strong commitment to deliver high quality early learning and ensuring positive outcomes for all children in partnership with their families is evident in all we do."
June McLoughlin
“Goodstart’s commitment to research is advancing the national and international evidence base on the value of early childhood education.”
Sir Kevan Collins
“Ensuring all Australian children can regularly attend high quality early learning – no matter what barriers they face – is a vital part of Goodstart’s work.”
Natalie Walker
“Ensuring that all children have access to high-quality education in their early years is a vital part of addressing intergenerational disadvantage in Australia. Goodstart has a unique capability and opportunity to help make this goal a reality.”
Chris Harrop
“Investing in early education for all Australia’s children is the best investment Australia can make.”
Philip Coffey
Goodstart is committed to best practice corporate governance and processes that will enhance Goodstart’s effectiveness and ensure the appropriate degree of accountability and transparency to stakeholders.
Goodstart’s Board ensures the organisation’s behaviour is consistent with its Vision, Purpose and Strategic Priorities. The Board of Goodstart has ultimate responsibility to the Member organisations for the strategy and performance of the company in general. The Board is dedicated to fulfilling these duties in a lawful and professional manner, and with the utmost integrity and objectivity.
Goodstart Chair, Non-executive Director. Member, Audit and Risk Committee. Chair, Remuneration and Nominations Committee. Member, Quality and Social Purpose Committee
Appointed 01 December 2019
Paul Robertson has extensive experience as a Non-Executive Director and Chair in a wide variety of commercial and not for profit organisations across Australia. He is the immediate past Chair of Social Ventures Australia, St Vincent’s Health Australia and Alzheimer’s Australia (NSW). He was also a Director of Dementia Australia. He is currently Chair of Tonic Media Network, Chair of Grace Papers, Chair of Kinela, Director of Sydney Theatre Company Foundation, Founder and Director of the Financial Markets Foundation for Children and Director of the Telco Together Foundation. Paul has broad experience in finance including 27 years as Global Treasurer and Executive Director at Macquarie Bank. He was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2018 for distinguished service to the community through ethical leadership and management of, and philanthropic contributions to, health, social enterprise, research, education and arts organisations.
Director and Chief Executive Officer
Appointed 29 June 2011
Julia Davison joined Goodstart as its Chief Executive Officer in February 2011. Julia has led the development of Goodstart’s strategy and its transformation over the last 10 years and has extensive senior management experience in the human services sector in Australia and the UK. Between 1999 and 2004 she was CEO at Flinders Medical Centre, a large teaching hospital in Adelaide. From 2004 to 2010 Julia was CEO of WorkCover SA. Julia is Chair of Cape York Girl Academy and a member of the Cape York Education Board and has held a number of non-executive roles including Chair of Catherine House, a not-for-profit working to solve women’s homelessness, Director of Territory Insurance Office, NT and Director of Business SA. She has a strong interest in public policy and has a Masters degree from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Non-executive Director. Chair, Safety, Health and Wellbeing Committee. Member, Audit and Risk Committee
Appointed 15 December 2015
Lynelle Briggs was a Commissioner on the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. She is currently an Independent Director with Maritime Super, and independent member of the Government’s Aid Governance Board. She was Chairperson of NSW’s Planning Assessment Commission and Independent Chairperson of the General Insurance Code Governance Committee. Prior to joining Goodstart, Lynelle was a Councillor with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and a non-executive director with the Australian Rail Track Corporation. Lynelle is a former Australian Public Service Commissioner and former chief executive of Medicare Australia. She has extensive experience in the Australian Public Service, working in a wide range of fields, including social security, health and community services, transport, external territories, employment and labour market support and veterans’ aff airs. Lynelle became an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia in 2013 for distinguished service to public administration, particularly through leadership in the development of public service performance and professionalism.
Non-executive Director. Chair, Quality and Social Purpose Committee. Member, Safety, Health and Wellbeing Committee
June McLoughlin is the Executive Director Services at Our Place, a Colman Foundation Initiative. June has extensive experience in both policy and service development, research and practice in the early childhood, family support and children’s services fields, which has given her a broad and deep understanding of issues relevant to the needs of parents and their children. June has managed many state and national projects designed to refocus early years services to provide more integrated support for families with young children with a particular interest in vulnerable children.
Non-executive Director. Member, Quality and Social Purpose Committee
Appointed 08 May 2018
Tony Nicholson has been a senior executive in the social services and policy sector with 27 years’ experience in leadership of diverse and complex community organisations. This has involved a passion for, and a strong record in, service development and innovation, research and policy analysis and compelling advocacy on behalf of those disadvantaged in our community. Tony’s advice has frequently been sought by governments, most notably as Chair of the Australian Government’s White Paper on Homelessness, Chair of the Prime Minister’s Council on Homelessness, Deputy Commissioner with the Victorian Government’s Royal Commission into Family Violence and as a member of the Victorian Metropolitan Planning Strategy Steering Committee. Most recently he was the Executive Director of the Brotherhood of St Laurence for thirteen years from 2004 to 2017.
Non-executive Director. Member, Quality and Social Purpose Committee. Member, Talent and Remuneration Committee
Appointed 01 December 2018
Sir Kevan Collins has worked in the UK public service for more than 35 years becoming the first Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) chief executive in October 2011, having previously been chief executive in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Prior to this role he led a varied and distinguished career in education – starting off as a primary school teacher in London, leading the English Primary Strategy as national director, and then serving as director of Children’s Services at Tower Hamlets. Sir Kevan has international experience working in Mozambique, supporting the development of a national literacy initiative in the USA and has recently been appointed to the inaugural board of the Australia Education Research Organisation. Kevan is Chair of the Youth Endowment Fund, a Home Office funded national programme designed to use evidence to reduce levels of youth violence and crime in England and Wales. He completed his doctorate focusing on literacy development at Leeds University in 2005. He is a visiting professor at the University of London and was knighted for services to education in 2015.
Non-executive Deputy Chair. Member, Quality and Social Purpose Committee. Member, Remuneration and Nominations Committee. Member, Safety, Health and Wellbeing Committee
Natalie Walker is the founder and managing director, of Inside Policy, a privately-held boutique public consultancy and data analytics firm that advises government, corporates and not-for-profits on a range of social and economic policy matters. She is a committed advocate for reconciliation and was previously the chief executive officer of Supply Nation, a start-up greenfields company focused on increasing the participation of Indigenous business in the supply chain of Australia’s largest companies. Ms Walker has held roles at KPMG Australia, the Australian Human Rights Commission and in the Queensland Government.
Non-executive Director. Chair, Audit and Risk Committee
Appointed 01 January 2019
Chris Harrop is a Director in the Melbourne off ice of Bain & Company where he has worked for over 25 years in the US, UK and Australia, and recently completed a six-year term on the global Board of Directors. Bain is a global strategy consulting firm with over 12,000 staff across 61 offices in 38 countries. Chris has worked with clients in many industries, with a focus on services businesses. He has specialised in projects addressing corporate strategy, customer experience improvement and broad-based transformational change. Chris is a Non-executive Director at Social Ventures Australia and was a long-serving board member of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. He is a co-founder of Restacking the Odds, a not-for-profit partnership between Bain, SVA and MCRI working to address inter-generational disadvantage in Australia. Chris earned an MBA with Honours from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, and a Bachelor of Commerce with First Class Honours in Marketing from Otago University in New Zealand.
Non-executive Director
Appointed 06 December 2021
Phil Coffey is a highly regarded senior executive leader who has deep financial services experience. For over 20 years, Phil worked at Westpac Banking Corporation including three years as the deputy CEO of Westpac Group. Prior to this role, Phil held a number of executive positions including Chief Financial Officer and Group Executive, Westpac Institutional Bank. A passion for education led to Phil’s involvement in the Westpac Scholars program and his appointment as the inaugural Chair. Phil has over 30 years of senior executive experience – from leading significant investment decisions, large technology projects to mergers and acquisitions. Phil began his career at the Reserve Bank of Australia and he has also held executive positions at Citibank. Phil is serving on three boards in addition to Goodstart; Lend Lease, Macquarie Group Limited and Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
“What Goodstart’s founders, board and CEO have achieved after purchasing the failed ABC Learning business empire some nine years ago is nothing short of extraordinary. Their shared belief and conviction about early learning in the first five years, and its impact on lifelong educational and social outcomes has propelled their journey from day one. Goodstart is a story of what’s possible with entrepreneurism, and a strong vision closely tied to strong corporate governance. With significant founding debt repaid ahead of schedule, Goodstart has become a successful billion dollar for purpose organisation, a leading early learning provider and Australia’s largest social enterprise. Many lessons can be taken from Goodstart. Their vision has remained constant, however their ability to continually adapt and refine its strategic direction to thrive, despite the most competitive sector conditions, is testament to building a solid foundation built on leadership, governance and accountability.” – John Atkin FAICD, Chair, Australian Institute of Company Directors
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