Aged Care Financing Authority Members Bios

The Government announced the establishment of the Aged Care Financing Authority (the Authority) on 1 August 2012.

Ms Lynda O'Grady

Chair

Lynda O'Grady is Principal of the management consultancy firm, Advanced Management Services, which provides business advisory services on strategic and operational issues to clients across a wide range of industries and sectors.

During 2000’s, she held roles at Executive level at Telstra including Chief of Product. Prior to that, Lynda was Commercial Director of Australian Consolidated Press (division of PBL); and General Manager of the Business Systems Division of Alcatel Australia.

Lynda is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and is currently a member of the Council of Bond University and an Independent Director of the National Electronic Health Transition Authority (NEHTA).

Lynda holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) degree from the University of Queensland..

Professor Graeme Hugo

Deputy Chair

Professor Graeme Hugo is an Australian Research Council Australian Professorial Fellow, Professor of Geography and Director of the Australian Population and Migration Research Centre at the University of Adelaide.

His research interests are in the demography of ageing, migration and population policy. He is the author of over three hundred books, articles in scholarly journals and chapters in books, as well as a large number of conference papers and reports.

He held an ARC Federation Fellowship between 2002 and 2007 and was Chair of the Advisory Committee on Demography and Liveability of the Commonwealth Department of Sustainable Environment, Water, Population and Communities.

He is a member of the Australian Statistics Advisory Committee, the National Housing Supply Council and the National Sustainability Council. In 2012 he was named an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO).

Mr Ian Yates

Ian Yates has been in national leadership positions in the COTA (Council on the Ageing) network since 2002 and been Chief Executive of COTA Australia since June 2009. He was Chief Executive of COTA SA from June 1989.

Within the COTA network Ian holds a number of other positions including as a Director of COTA Member Services and of COTA Insurance Services. He has been a Board member of the Aged Rights Advocacy Service auspiced by COTA SA since it was founded in 1990. He is a Director of the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency.

Ian has served as the COTA representative on a wide variety of Federal and State Government bodies, including advisory bodies to ASIC, the ACCC and the AER and in aged care on bodies such as the ACFI Industry Reference Group, the ACC and the Ministerial Advisory Group for the Long Term Reform of Aged Care Funding.

Ian is also Deputy Chancellor of Flinders University, a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and was appointed a Member in the Order of Australia in 2005.

Mr Nick Mersiades

Nick Mersiades is Catholic Health Australia’s senior policy advisor on aged care. He is also currently seconded on a part time basis to Aged and Community Services Australia to assist with policy analysis and development in relation to the implementation of the Government’s aged care reform package, Living Longer Living Better.

Nick has extensive experience in government and health and age care gained from working at senior levels in the Commonwealth Government and in the not for profit sector.

In the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, he was head of the Ageing and Aged Care Division. The Division is responsible for developing policy advice for the Minister for Ageing and for administering the Australian Government’s residential and community aged care programs. Nick also served as State Manager of the Department’s Queensland and New South Wales offices and headed the Department’s Budget Management Branch. Prior to joining the Department of Health and Ageing, he held senior executive service positions in the Commonwealth Department of Finance where he was involved in public policy issues across a number of portfolios.

Nick left the Department of Health and Ageing in 2006 to become General Manager Strategic Policy for Catholic Healthcare Limited, a large provider of health and aged care services based in New South Wales.

Mr Paul Gregerson

Paul Gregerson has led the Bupa Care Services Australia business since 2008. He has worked with Bupa since 2001, managing Bupa's largest hospital in the UK for three years before moving to Singapore as Chief Executive Officer for a number of Bupa's primary health and care businesses in Asia.

In 2006, he was appointed Director and Chief Representative for Bupa in China, where he established a Representative Office and scoped the market opportunity for health insurance which helped develop Bupa's proposition, product and distribution strategies.

Ms Sally Evans

Sally Evans has over 25 years’ experience in executive healthcare roles in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. In her current role as Head of Aged Care, AMP Capital, she is responsible for the investment and asset management of the largest private sector aged care investor in Australia, the Aged Care Investment Trust. Prior to joining AMPCI, Sally was a Fund Manager (Social Infrastructure / Aged Care) at Westpac Funds Management, and before that Healthcare Director, Asia Pacific, for the Compass Group and a member of their global healthcare leadership team.

Sally was a member of the Ministers Advisory Group for the Long Term Reform of Aged Care Funding following the 2003 Hogan Review of Pricing in Residential Aged Care and received the 2002 Telstra Australian Corporate and Private Sector Business Women's Award.

Sally is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and is a Director of Domain Principal Group, a Director of the Blue Cross Group and Chair of the social venture, LifeCircle.

Mr Graham Hodges

Graham Hodges was appointed Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the ANZ Banking Group in 2009. Prior to this role, he was Chief Executive Officer of ANZ New Zealand and the Director of ANZ responsible for running the ANZ Group's New Zealand business. Graham has held the positions of Group Managing Director Corporate, Managing Director Small to Medium Business, and Head of Corporate Banking for Australia and New Zealand.

He joined ANZ in 1991 and was appointed Chief Economist in 1992, a post he held for three years. Before ANZ, Graham spent several years with the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC and nine years in Commonwealth Treasury in Canberra.

Graham has a Bachelor of Economics (Hons) from Monash University.
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