Meet the WCS Board Directors:
Cathy Skippington
Board Chair
Cathy has more than 25 years’ experience across the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors as a non-executive Director and Senior Executive. Cathy has worked across a range of areas including environment protection, affordable housing and workplace health and safety. Cathy is a strategic thinker, principled and value driven. As a successful Executive Consultant, Cathy provides advice and training in governance, strategy, business and change management, risk management, safety leadership, stakeholder engagement, organisational culture and performance.
Glenn Powell
Deputy Board Chair
Glenn is a technology consultant with 25 years of experience working in the private and public sectors. He has worked in General Management roles spanning Sales, Finance, Human Resources, and Programme Management in industries as diverse as professional services, construction, logistics and power generation.
Dr Alison Oakleigh
Dr Alison Oakleigh brings a range of skills and experience to the WCS board including her experience as an Occupational Therapist; a lecturer and teacher in tertiary education settings; a policy officer in various social policy areas; and her research into the relationships between community organisations and governments. Alison has a longstanding connection to WCS, as a guardian and sister of one WCS service user and as an aunty to three more WCS service users; as an employee of WCS (many years ago as a teenager); and as a WCS service user (many, many, many years ago, as a baby and toddler). Some of Alison’s earliest memories are wishing her mother would come home early from WCS board meetings! Alison has a particular interest in exploring how people with profound intellectual disabilities can have meaningful input into organisational governance processes and is grateful to the WCS board and staff for welcoming her sister, Susan, as an occasional observer at board meetings. Alison is passionate about social justice and supporting and activating the community to be inclusive for all.
Catherine Campbell
Catherine retired from full time work in the health sector in July 2021 after 38 years of working in a variety of nursing roles; predominately in paediatrics and specialising in adolescents, children with complex needs, and vulnerable families. In 2009 Catherine accepted a position which saw her establish and participate in the successful cross-directorate School Youth Health Nurse (SYHN) pilot program. This role promoted positive health outcomes for young people, and Catherine worked alongside both government and NGOs to support and advocate for young people and their families. Prior to retiring, Catherine worked as the Clinical Nurse Consultant for both the SYHN program and the Healthcare Access at Schools Program, supporting children with complex or invasive healthcare needs to attend school with support. Her advocacy role and managerial style were recognised in the Canberra Hospital Awards. Catherine continues to maintain her nursing registration and expertise working casually for Canberra Health Services. .Catherine was the ACT Member of the National Diabetes in Schools Committee and a member of the Canteen ACT & NSW board. Catherine was the ACT Member of the National Diabetes in Schools Committee and a member of the Canteen ACT & NSW board.
James Tonkin
James has 25+ years’ experience in the corporate sector where his work in corporate real estate markets has seen him focus on building strong leadership, corporate governance and best practice financial and risk management approaches. He also has experience supporting indigenous businesses strengthen their business systems to support success. Through his work, he has seen the importance of teams developing effective business practices to ensure success.
Matt Sierp
Matt is an experienced, client focused and dedicated health professional with over 30 years’ experience in the aged care industry. Matt has a wealth of experience in community, retirement communities and care centres and has developed his clinical and business management expertise while providing effective executive leadership for a number of aged care organisations.
Matt is currently providing support to aged care organisations in building retirement villages in a part time role. Matt is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Ram Naik
Ram brings a wealth of financial management and accounting experience to Woden Community Service. He has almost 20 years experience in the accounting and finance field. He has held leadership and management roles across national and international companies, government departments and not-for-profit organisations. He currently serves as Director of Finance and ICT at Directions Health Services in Canberra.
Ranga Parimala
Ranga is currently a senior executive in the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, as the Chief Operating Officer for Parks Australia. Ranga has over 30 years of experience at all levels of government and private sector, playing some key roles in the developing complex business cases, business and economic policies for resource commodities, agriculture and Indigenous land issues. Ranga has extensive policy and leadership experience combined with strong stakeholder engagement and communication skills, delivering critical business outcomes. Ranga is a long-term Canberra resident and has lived in the Woden area for most of his time in Canberra; he also has a passion for music and both his children attended WCS’ Early Childhood Learning at Lyons.
Dr Robert Tanton
Robert is a Professor in Economics at the University of Canberra and was Director of the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling from 2015 to 2020. He has advised State, Federal, Local Government and NGO’s on housing; poverty; inequality; and disadvantage. He has been involved in work on the impact of communities on early childhood development through the Kids in Communities collaboration; has led the development of child social exclusion indexes for NATSEM; and indexes of wellbeing for older Australians for The Benevolent Society. He has advised the ACT Government on their Wellbeing framework, and continues to work with the ACT Government on their affordable housing strategy.
Sandie Wong
Sandie is a Professor in Early Childhood at the Macquarie School of Education, Macquarie University and currently holds a four-and-a-half year Senior Research Fellowship with Goodstart Early Learning. Sandie has worked as an academic, manager, researcher, evaluator, educator, consultant and nurse, within a range of early childhood, academic and health organisations. She is committed to working in collaborative, strengths-based ways, to lead and support high quality research, evaluation and practitioner enquiry that contributes to best practice in early childhood.
Becoming a Board Member
Membership of the Woden Community Service Board of Directors is open, excluding staff members of Woden Community Service Limited (WCS).
A membership application is provided by contacting the Secretary of the Board by email at company.secretary@wcs.org.au
All applications are considered in line with the WCS Constitution 2023 by a determination of the Board at the next board meeting.