Governance

Grant and partner Bev, have 3 primary school children at our school.

Grant’s professional career has been mostly around event technology; sound, video, lighting, and in the last 10 years has specialised in online video events and web development. He also gained 8 years youth / social work experience working for The Salvation Army in Brisbane (2 years), Melbourne (3 years) and Los Angeles (3 years). Throughout his various roles with The Salvation Army he served on governance and advisory boards, ranging from smaller local level, state based and national based operations.

Grant is currently a founder of 2 companies, an event production company here in Australia and an online event start-up company based in South Carolina, USA. His day to day responsibilities include leading teams of employees and contractors on complex projects around in-person / virtual events and web development. Grant has a real willingness to listen, learn and understand the complexities of school governance and operations.

Shelley has two young children who attend the school and was drawn to Waldorf education as it takes account of the needs of the whole child.

Shelley has over 20 years’ experience working within the public and private sectors across a range of industries including health and IT.  She has established and managed governance and accountability structures, led business and hospital process re-design, developed strategies and business plans, undertaken project management roles, held executive support roles for Boards and senior executives and managed IT training for large scale reform projects. In her spare time, Shelley enjoys gardening and aims to grow as much of the food for her family as possible.

She enjoys sharing with her boys the skills of growing food – from raising the seed, to harvest, to plate.  When not in the garden, she is often in her kitchen preserving food by dehydrating, pickling, conserving and canning.

Kerry is mum to twin boys who attend our school and was drawn to Steiner education for the focus on holistic learning, development of social consciousness and being deeply connected to the world around us.

Kerry is a Director at the Australian Centre for Social Innovation helping to solve big social challenges in Australia. She has been part of the team transforming the organisation into a networked operation. Kerry has a range of experiences in leadership and governance including roles as Board Director, Vice Chair, Governance Sub Committee Chair and Strategic Monitoring Sub Committee Chair in two national boards and one state based board.

When she is not deep in social change work or governance roles you’ll find Kerry planting trees, bush walking or beach combing.

Year joined: 2021

Peter has one granddaughter at the school, and another close on her heels. This is pleasing for Peter as he has developed firm belief in Steiner pedagogical principles. His own children studied at Cabra College, where he was a Board member for 9 years, assuming the Chair for 4 of them. He has also been a director of The Wilderness Society here in SA since 2006, with about 6 years as Chair and these past 4 years as Treasurer, plus on the Board of their national leadership body for 5 years.

Peter calls himself a ‘StrategiCulturEvolutionist’ – well, just for fun really.  But he has worked for about 20 years with enterprise and industry leadership groups to support their professional growth, enabling them to better grasp and respond to increasingly turbulent conditions, and to catalyse teams and team members to develop the enterprise culture, strategic capability and operational wherewithal necessary to thrive in any context or to tackle any challenge.

Earlier in his career there were 30 years in banking, holding management roles at Westpac and Community CPS Credit Union, developing what he hopes is a good appreciation for the challenges of leadership and of governance principles and functions, especially as they apply to not-for-profit / member-owned enterprises.

CPA, MBA and Bachelor of Commerce

Hannah joined the Board as she wanted to contribute to the community she lives in. She is passionate about learning and the important role Steiner education offers.

Hannah has over 20 years experience working within profit for purpose industries across disability, aged care, retirement and technology services. She specialises in transforming business models to ensure financial sustainability through continuous improvement of process and enabling technologies. In her previous roles Hannah has been responsible for corporate service leadership, strategic acquisitions and divestments and the implementation of transformation programs. Joining the Executive Team at Minda in March 2022 Hannah is responsible for Children’s Services, Corporate Finance, Infrastructure and Technology.

She is passionate about ongoing sustainability to ensure the Communities she works and lives within can continue to respond to changing expectations. Hannah has two young children and spends most of her spare time with her family and their horses.

Lachlan has over 30 years experience leading a multi-generational South Australian family business focussed on creating value from organic resource. Through business, Lachlan has experience in managing diverse teams, business development, marketing, stakeholder engagement, financial performance, strategic planning and reporting to an active Board. Lachlan also has had experience on a number of Boards including the South Australian Governments board for Zero Waste SA (now known as Green Industries SA), Interchange SA which is focussed on supporting children, teenagers and adults with disabilities. In addition to these, while his children attended the Steiner Stream at Trinity Gardens Primary School, he chaired the Ground’s committee meetings.

Emma is an independent Board member who was drawn to work with the school due to its philosophy, values and focus on student development. Emma served in the Australian Army for almost twenty years, working in strategic health and intelligence roles. During this time she worked with many indigenous communities around the world on education and development programs – leading to a passion for driving change through education. Upon leaving Defence, Emma has worked in a variety of Board and executive appointments at various organisations, with a strong focus on governance, compliance, strategic planning, integrity and change management. Mum to two children and an avid volunteer, Emma is a fitness enthusiast spending her spare time in bushwalking, running, cold-water swimming and pilates. When not out in nature, you will find her cuddled up with one of her children and a good mystery novel.

Jennifer is a lifelong learner. As one of the founding teachers of Mt Barker Waldorf School she worked for around 20 years as both a class teacher and high school teacher and has been active in Waldorf Education for around 45 years.  She was appointed as the first Educational Administrator (equivalent to the Principal) at Mount Barker, which she carried until her retirement in 2010.  Her two children and grandson attended the school.

In 2011 Jennifer was asked to take on the role of Principal at Sophia Mundi Steiner School in Melbourne. She has been a board member at Sophia Mundi and Little Yarra Steiner Schools and has mentored other school boards.   She has training in Biography work, Theory U, and various other educational areas, including Extra Lesson.  Her early working life (for 10 years) was in a cancer research laboratory as a medical technologist.  Lifelong interests include reading and music and people and the world.