cohealth renews leadership, strengthens governance and elevates community voice

cohealth is undertaking substantial changes to renew its leadership, strengthen its governance and give clients, communities and staff a greater voice in its future.

These changes deliver 100 per cent renewal of cohealth’s Executive Leadership team.

They include the appointment of a new interim Chief Executive, the departure of the Deputy Chief Executive and the establishment of an executive role focused on client participation and community partnerships.

Kate Gillan has been appointed Chief Executive for nine months, providing experienced and stable leadership while recruitment for the permanent role is completed.

Ms Gillan has extensive leadership experience across public, private and not-for-profit healthcare, spanning acute, community, aged and primary care. She will work with outgoing Chief Executive Nicole Bartholomeusz ahead of Ms Bartholomeusz’s departure on 31 July to support a smooth transition.

Deputy Chief Executive Chris Turner has made the decision to leave cohealth after 13 years with the organisation.

His departure marks a complete change in the composition of cohealth’s Executive Leadership team.

Strengthened leadership will include the appointment of a Director of Primary and Community Care and an interim Medical Lead to be announced next week.

Significant Board renewal is also underway to strengthen governance and bring new skills, experience and perspectives to cohealth.

Sam Sondhi has made the personal decision to step down as Chair, recognising that the role’s current demands require a greater time commitment than he can provide alongside his full-time Chief Executive responsibilities at Futurity Investment Group.

Recognising the scale of work required during the current period of renewal, a transitional Chair will be appointed to lead the Board through this phase, with an announcement to be made shortly.

Recruitment is well underway for three new Board Directors, with more than 60 applications received for the Director roles.

The process is seeking expertise across clinical and primary care, government relations, strategic financial management, and the lived experience of people who use health and social services. The selection committee includes a cohealth consumer, a Victorian Department of Health representative and the independent Chair of cohealth’s Board Nominations Committee.

cohealth welcomes the Victorian Government’s appointment of Chris Altis as Board Monitor for an initial 12-month term. Mr Altis will work alongside the Board to strengthen understanding, transparency and connection between cohealth and government.

As part of this broader renewal, cohealth has introduced a new executive role, to work together with our teams to strengthen client participation and partnerships.

This leadership role and organisational focus respond to what cohealth has heard clearly from clients and communities: they want a meaningful say in decisions that affect their care.

We remain committed to establishing new ways of listening to and partnering with the clients and the communities we serve, and improving how we communicate with and engage staff in decision-making and organisational change.

This work is an important part of cohealth’s response to Recommendation 13 of the Independent Review, which calls for new approaches to client, community and staff engagement.

Together, these changes represent a substantial renewal and refresh of cohealth’s leadership, governance and approach to client and community participation and partnerships.

They will provide greater stability and ensure clients, communities and staff have a stronger voice in cohealth’s future.