Our Board members

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, Sydney Theatre Company Foundation and Telco Together Foundation. He is currently Chair of Tonic Media Network, Chair of Grace Papers, Chair of Kinela, and Founder and Director of the Financial Markets Foundation for Children. 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.

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’ affairs. 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.

Appointed 15 December 2015

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.

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. Kevan holds an honorary degree from Durham University is a visiting professor at the University of London and was knighted for services to education in 2015.

Appointed 01 December 2018

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.

Appointed 01 January 2019

Chris Harrop is a Director in the Melbourne office of Bain & Company where he has worked for nearly 30 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 14,000 staff across 65 offices in 40 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.

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 two boards in addition to Goodstart; Macquarie Group Limited and Lendlease. He recently retired from the Board of Clean Energy Finance Corporation.