Our Team

Dr Carmen Lawrence

Chair

Dr Lawrence is a trailblazing former Premier of Western Australia (1990-1993) and the first female Premier of an Australian state. Named an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2022, Dr Lawrence is renowned for championing social justice, health, and education reforms.

Helen Reid

Director

Helen is a senior Human Resources and Organisational Development professional with over 25 years’ strategy, change management, policy development and governance experience honed during a lengthy global executive career across Australia, Europe and Asia. She was most recently Vice-President Human Resources for Shell Australia, playing a key role in the merger of Shell & British Gas in Australia.

Helen’s executive career includes more than 6 years consulting and coaching senior leaders in organisations in Western Australia, with a particular focus on organisational effectiveness and leadership performance. She shas supported CEOs and Executive Teams through major organisational transformations.

Gayle Morrison

Director

Gayle worked in the Australian Public Service (APS) for 18 years and prior to that in a range of allied health and academic positions. Her 13 years of APS experience culminated in 5 years as a First in a number of departments including Prime Minister and Cabinet and Veterans’ Affairs. During her career, she developed extensive networks across government departments both at the commonwealth and state government levels and the community has worked with a broad range of clients and stakeholders.

She has served on a number of not for profit boards and is currently the President of COTA ACT.

James Hazel

Director

Jim has had an extensive corporate career in both the banking and retirement sectors. His retirement village operations experience includes being Managing Director of Primelife Corporation Limited (now part of Lend Lease).

In 2023 Jim was made a Life Member of the Retirement Living Council, and in 2024 a Member of the Hall of Fame of the Property Council of Australia, for his services to the Senior Housing sector.

Patricia Sparrow

Director

Patricia has devoted most of her 40-year career to the issues affecting Australia’s over-50s and has for years advocated passionately to create a brighter, more inclusive future for older Australians.

That career has intersected with the areas of community, disability, aged care, health and advocacy across multiple roles with Aged and Community Services Australia, at Vision 2020, in the government sector and with COTA Australia. In all those roles, Patricia has been unwavering in her passion for advancing the interests of older Australians.

At COTA Australia, Patricia is working to build a better and fairer future for older people. She aspires to help create a society that better values and welcomes the contribution of older people.

The large, underlying challenge for the Australian community is to tackle ageism. Patricia firmly believes ageism should be as socially unacceptable as sexism and racism. Too often, she has seen older friends with incredible skill sets and with much to offer employers struggle to get a job purely due to their age.

She also wants to see a society where older people are listened to and have greater agency over their future and their affairs, rather than being patronised, spoken down to or having their views dismissed, simply because they are older.

In short, Patricia’s hope is to see an Australia where age is simply a number.

Mark Kinsela

CEO

Chris Jeffery

Chief Policy Officer

Kairi Watty

SFL Program Manager

Alex Pittendreigh

Volunteer