ACGB Board Chair

Vicki Kyritsis BA, BSW, GradDipPublicRelations, CertIVTAA

Vicki is a passionate and highly skilled communications professional with a background in strategy, programming, stakeholder engagement and development. She has worked in complex environments solving problems with entrepreneurial thinking that has supported long term change.Vicki has a wealth of experience, and has had the privilege of working alongside extraordinary leaders in the not for profit, education, government, media, mental health and indigenous health sectors. 

Vicki currently serves as Board Chair and Director of the Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavemnet (2011- present) and as a non-Executive Director of Australian Friends of Asha Slums in India (2015 – present).

Vicki holds a Bachelor of Arts (Social Sciences) from La Trobe University, a Bachelor of Social Work from Monash University, and post graduate qualifications in Public Relations (PR) from RMIT University and Management from Melbourne Business School. Vicki is also a qualified trainer who has taught public relations to vocational education students at RMIT University and Swinburne University of Technology.

Robert Law BA (Hons), MA,MDY (Hons)

Robert brings extensive experience across advisory services and government, and holds the position of Director and Secretary of the Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement. Robert currently holds an executive role at Asialink Business (based at the University of Melbourne), advising companies and government on Asia growth opportunities. Prior to this, he was a strategy consultant with Monitor Deloitte, working with leading Australian companies across the retail, consumer products, technology and telecommunications industries on growth strategy, digital strategy and organisational transformation.

He started his professional career with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, serving as a diplomat at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. He later held a range of Federal Government roles in Canberra, including working on a number of crisis response efforts. He holds graduate and post-graduate degrees in history, diplomacy and international security.

Professor Michael Ashby MBBS (Lond), MD (Adel), MRCP (UK), FRCR, FRACP, FAChPM, FFPMANZCA

Michael Ashby is Professor and Clinical Director, Cancer, Chronic Disease & Sub-Acute Care Stream, in the Tasmania Health Service based at the Royal Hobart Hospital, and School of Medicine, UTAS. After graduation in London, and training in clinical oncology in the UK and France, he held clinical, academic, management and leadership positions in Adelaide and Melbourne prior to moving to Hobart in 2007.

He is a member of the International Working Group on Death Dying and Bereavement (IWG),and former Vice-President and currently a director and board member of the AustralianCentre for Grief and Bereavement (ACGB).

He sat on the Governing Council of THO South in 2014-5, and is an associate member of Group Relations Australia, as well as community and board chairing activities at a Steiner school.
He has research interests in law, ethics and the humanities as they apply to palliative care and decision-making at the end of life, and is currently working on the interface between psychodynamics and death and dying, grief and loss. He is Joint Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Bioethical Enquiry, an editor of the Journal of Palliative Care, and Mortality, and a reviewer for a number of international journals.

Dr Philip Bachelor OAM, BAppSc, MBA, PhD, FIML, FAICD

Philip is a social-behaviourist and business administrator specialising in bereavement-care and cemetery practice. CEO of Melbourne’s revitalised Box Hill Cemetery, he’s also a director of Paramedics Australasia, a mentor with the Institute of Managers & Leaders, an adjunct lecturer and a youth-justice volunteer.
 Having previously served on the board of The Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement between 2002–2005, Philip was reappointed in 2018.

His national quantitative Cemetery Visitation Study and qualitative Bereavement Response Study established an evidence-based foundation for professional cemetery services.

Publications include ‘Life after Death: Understanding bereavement and working through grief’ (2002 Hill of Content, Melbourne) and ‘Sorrow & Solace: The social world of the cemetery’ (2004 Baywood, New York). 

Dr Lauren Breen BSc (Hons), GradCertEd, PhD, MAPS 

Dr. Breen has been a Member of the Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement since 2008 and on the Board since 2014. She is an Associate Professor of psychology at Curtin University and a Registered Psychologist. Her award-winning, applied research centres on end-of-life care and grief and loss issues, includes research on chronic disease management, communicating the diagnosis of a serious/terminal illness, preparations for bereavement, the impact of caregiving on bereavement, psychotherapies for prolonged grief disorder/complicated grief, road trauma, understanding grieving children and families, building the community’s capacity to support grieving people, social and cultural norms of grief, and the interface between evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence

Most notably, she was successful in the inaugural round of the prestigious Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Awards for her project exploring family caregiving and bereavement in palliative care. She has been a chief investigator on $2million of grants and has authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. She is a member of the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement; a Board Member of the Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement; an Associate Editor of Death Studies; and a Fellow in Thanatology: Death, Dying and Bereavement. 

Raj Mathiravedu GAICD, MBA, MS

GAICD, Harvard Business Analytics, MBA Strategic Management, MS Mechanical Engineering, Bachelors Mechanical Engineering

Raj is Orica’s Vice President, Digital Solutions leading the company’s global digital strategy, product development and regional commercial team. The role is core to the delivery of Orica’s digital vertical, providing a suite of software and measurement technology solutions to customers to facilitate the continuous improvement of blast outcomes focusing on an end-to-end mining value chain integration.

Raj’s experience includes leadership roles across several functions including research and development, manufacturing, strategic marketing, operations, and sales. Prior to joining Orica, Raj spent three years as Strategic Marketing & Technology Head, Schlumberger Houston (2014-2016), responsible for setting the growth strategy for one of the production segments globally.

Ella McDougall BA, BHSc, BLLP, MBA, MAICD, FGIA

Ella is corporate lawyer specialising in commercial law, risk management and governance. Ella has worked as an in-house counsel in a variety of industries for over a decade and is currently the General Manager of Legal and Governance at Aged Care and Housing Group.

Ella has a special interest in governing for vulnerable people and ensuring that an organisation’s first responsibility is to its customers. Through her work with Aged Care and Housing Group, Ella has become aware of the different grief that accompanies aging and changes in life circumstances and the importance of supporting people through periods of grief and change.

Ella holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Health Science from Adelaide University, a Bachelor of Law and Legal Practice from Flinders University, an MBA from Torrens University, is a fellow of the Australian Institute of Governance and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Partha Nag MAICD, CPA

Partha Nag is an experienced non-executive director and Chair with more than eight years board level experience. As a board member and Chair of the Audit Committee on several not for profit boards as well as in his executive role at Strategic Business Alliance Ltd, he continues to demonstrate a proven ability to work independently as well as part of a board. As a senior board member he has extensive experience in financial reporting, business leadership, corporate governance and risk management.

Partha is a qualified CPA and a member of the AICD.

Mandy Pengilly GradCertCarCounsel, MAICD

Mandy Pengilly is the current General Manager for Invocare managing multiple brands and sites in Funeral Services across Queensland and Northern NSW. She holds qualifications in Social Science, Human Resources and Management and has over 17 years’ experience in management and leadership of large teams, across a variety of commercial health, disability, and research organisations . 

Mandy’s specialist areas are in improving business performance, large scale co-design & start up projects along with the implementation of transformational strategy.  Mandy is personally passionate about supporting and developing professionals in creating care and service. She is a member of the AICD.

Jacqui Weatherill BA. Grad Dip (Sp Sci) MBA GAICD

Jacqui Weatherill is an energetic and visionary senior executive and board director with a passion for positively influencing organisational leadership and corporate culture, to achieve enterprise-wide transformation and change. Jacqui has some 20+ years of experience at a senior executive level with not for profits, local government and the broader public sector, having held CEO roles for some 10 years – previously as CEO of the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust and currently as CEO of the City of Stonnington. Skilled in strategic planning, leadership development, transformation, mentoring and team building. Strong business development professional with an MBA focused in International Business from RMIT University.

Jacqui has a strong commitment to the development and delivery of high quality and accessible health and community services, with a special interest in  strengthening national grief and bereavement support based on her substantial experience in the cemetery sector.