Speakers

Jen is Chair of national charity Redkite (https://www.redkite.org.au/).

Redkite has been providing essential support to young people wth cancer, and their families for over 30 years.

In her professional career, Jen has worked for over 25 years in investment banking, financial communications and investor relations. she was Chief Operating Officer of independent investment bank Greenhill & Co for almost a decade, and is now a non executive director of a number of ASX listed property trusts and equity fund managers.

Jen lives in Castlecrag with her husband Paul, and her school-age children.

Tony Jones is the General Manager of Job Ready

Trusted for over 20 years and a part of ASX-listed company ReadyTech (ASX:RDY), JobReady works with education and employment providers to co-create intelligent software systems that allow them to better oversee, control and drive the business outcomes they need to succeed.

JobReady represents a new way to manage the complex human journey through study, work and career transitions.

With a background in major IT transformation projects including at Universal Music Group in the UK, Tony’s operational expertise has been instrumental in JobReady’s growth since he joined in 2006.

Don Wilson is a Northbridge icon.

After a number of years founding and then running the highly successful Bushcare's Major Day Out, Don and his wife Marianne have turned their attention to the litter in our streets, establishing "Get Fitter with Litter", seeking to rid our environment of plastic waste, one street at a time!

Dr Lindsay McBride is a Senior Anaesthesiologist at RPA Hospital in Camperdown, and a Northbridge resident!

For 10 years, Lindsay has led teams to Baguio in the Phillipines, providing surgical correction for cleft lip, palate abnormalities and burns, as part of the Interplast program.

Rotary has a long association with Interplast having funded the first tow Australian programs way back in the 1980's.

Louise and Janet are former Principal artists of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, playing flute and harp, and are now respectively Music Director and President of the Roseville Music Club.

They will speak of their experiences, of the Club and, if we are lucky, may even give us a short performance.

For further information see http://www.roseville.fmca.org.au/

Stephanie is a social anthropologist, originally from Switzerland, who has lived in Sydney since Dec 2017.

With a history working in humanitarian aid and development in organisations such as Caritas, Red Cross and SDC, for thye 10 years prior to 2017, Stephanie lived in Flores (East Indonesia) with her husband and two children,  She has been working with Nusa Tengarra (and Colin Barlow, who we have met previously), since 2017 and will give us an update on her most recent visits to the East Indonesian region and progress on water tank initiatives.

Judith Charnaud is a Rotarian who has lived in East Timor for the past 14 years, in a very remote area called Oecusse .

This is a small part of East Timor which is not actually attached to East Timor but rather it is situated in Indonesian West Timor! . Judy will speak about plans for a SewAID project in Oecusse (teaching a variety of sewing skills, including school uniforms, dressmaking, school curriculums) and Days for Girls. Women and girls in remote areas lose 5 days of education every month, simply because they lack access to basic hygiene options. Days for Girls gives these days back through sustainable feminine hygiene kits that last for 2-4 years.

Steve is Chairman and co-founder of KODA Capital, a private wealth advice partnership. and Executive Chairman of Prodigy Investment Partners, a multi-boutique funds management incubator.  Steve has worked in wealth management for over 30 years, comencing as an economics graduate at MLC in Perth under the ownership of Lend Lease, then running MLC's advice networks, leading MLC Investments and finally taking over as CEO in 2004. He was appointed to the Group Executive of NAB in 2009 and was Group Executive for MLC and NAB Wealth until 2013. 

Steve is also a founding Director of The Banking and Finance Oath. The Oath is an industry initiative to improve our society by building trust and confidence in the finance industry, by re-asserting the moral and ethical foundation of the industry beyond regulation, compliance and any professional standards, and by broadening expectations and discussion to include ethics, integrity, honesty and trust.

Steve lives in Castlecrag.

Steve Matthews was born in the UK in 1953, migrating to Australia in 1985. At the age of fifty-five, Steve sold his business interests to fulfil a lifetime’s ambition to write. Since then, his acclaimed children’s books have been published in Australia, UK, Canada and the USA. 

‘The Skinny Girl’ is Steve’s first adult novel. Although this is a work of fiction, it is based on interviews, research, published works and other materials. It deals with women's issues, domestic abuse, and adversity.  Like most people, Steve assumed that a victim of abuse was identified by a black eye or broken arm. While the frightening statistics about domestic violence and abuse regularly appear in the media, he learned that there are some statistics that are not recorded.

Steve is donating all of his income from this book, in perpetuity: 50% to the Homicide Victims’ Support Group (Aust) Inc. and 50% to various other organisations that help the victims and families of domestic abuse in many different ways.