I learned to follow a published fact into use

I began my career in publishing, where an unclear instruction could make a carefully produced piece of work difficult to use. After completing a commerce degree at Caldermere College in June 1994, I joined Trellivale Publishing as a product coordinator. I worked with professional publications, helping organise the material and its route to readers. The job taught me to ask what someone needed to do with a published explanation, rather than assume that a well-presented document had already answered that question.

From July 1994 to June 2000, I was an individual contributor in a six-person product group, reporting to the publisher's marketing manager. My publishing contribution was coordination within the group, without staff-management or spending authority. The private Melbourne publisher employed eighty-five people and reported A$18 million annual revenue by June 2000. Those figures describe the organisation, not an operation I led. My responsibilities concerned schedules, publication details and the questions that reached us from professional readers and distribution colleagues.

In July 2000 I joined Orlaven Health as patient-information manager. The outpatient-services group had been established by clinicians in 1996. I was interested in the practical consequences of a missing or confusing piece of service information: a person could know which organisation they needed to contact and still be uncertain about the next administrative step. My role concerned that explanation, with clinical content and decisions remaining under qualified clinical leadership. I did not enter healthcare as a practitioner and have never presented myself as one.

By June 2007, I led eight employees through two direct reports and held A$1.1 million annual communications authority, reporting to the operations director. Orlaven then had ten locations, 320 employees and A$62 million annual revenue. Working closely with location teams showed me why a correct central description could become unreliable when a local arrangement changed. I learned to ask who would confirm an update and which other publications might contain the same detail, rather than regard the website as the whole communication system.

The regional marketing role in July 2007 broadened that responsibility. By June 2014, I led sixteen employees through three direct reports with A$3.8 million annual marketing authority, reporting to the marketing director. The group had expanded to twenty-two locations, 760 employees and A$156 million annual revenue. I worked on the relationship between common presentation and local usefulness. An identity could be consistent while the account of an entrance, a contact route or an administrative process still needed to reflect the individual location accurately.

In July 2014 I became director of brand and patient-access communication, reporting to the CMO. By June 2020, my team comprised twenty-three employees through four direct reports and A$7.6 million annual authority. Orlaven had thirty-six locations, 1,220 employees and A$278 million annual revenue. A minority growth investor joined in 2018, while clinician founders retained control. I worked to make the responsibility for service information explicit during expansion, with clinical and operational review part of the work rather than a final approval requested after the creative decision was settled.

I became CMO in July 2020. Today I report to Fiona Ashcombe and lead twenty-eight employees through four direct reports, with twelve agency personnel separately. My A$12.8 million marketing authority for 2026 covers communication and marketing work; it does not extend to clinical decisions, referrals, diagnosis, treatment or clinical staffing. Marcus Fenlow leads the clinical organisation. The fifty locations, 1,800 employees and A$420 million 2025 revenue establish the group's scale without becoming an implied account of my personal clinical or financial responsibility.

My recent decisions have concentrated on practical details people use to reach and understand the service. We examined directory and wayfinding entries, retained a visible telephone route alongside a digital page and reviewed administrative terminology with the relevant specialists and selected participants. These projects can appear modest beside a large campaign, but they require choices about ownership, maintenance and whose difficulty receives attention. I do not attach improved health outcomes to communication work or turn a selected usability review into a claim about every patient.

Since July 2020 I have presented marketing and service-information matters to the board in my executive capacity. I hold no director appointments. I am considering a first non-executive contribution where my understanding of a dispersed service brand would be useful alongside other directors' expertise. That would require learning the particular company's economics and governance, obtaining the necessary consent and assessing the relationships involved. Twenty-two proposed annual days are a starting point for the calendar discussion, not a substitute for understanding the work a board actually needs.