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Board of Directors

Opera Australia is a company limited by guarantee. Our governance is the responsibility of our Board of Directors, who are elected by our members. The Board is responsible for the overall strategic direction of the company and its ongoing viability.

Rod Sims AO

Chairman

Rod is currently Professor of public policy at the Australian National University, and Chair of the Competition Research Policy Network at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, Paris.

In March this year, he completed 11 years as Chair of The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

Prior to this, he had a wide range of commercial and public sector roles in many countries, including Director and Partner at commercial advisory firm Port Jackson Partners Limited, Chair of project development company InfraCo Asia based in Singapore, Director of Ingeus Limited which was then Europe’s largest welfare-to-work company based in London, and Chair of the State Rail Authority in NSW.

Rod was previously also Deputy Secretary in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, responsible for all domestic policy issues, and Deputy Secretary in the Department of Transport and Communications.  From 1988 to 1990 he was the Principal Economic Adviser to Australia’s Prime Minister, Bob Hawke.

He has a love of opera, and has been a subscriber, and then a patron, of Opera Australia for over 30 years.


Professor Warren Bebbington AM

Warren  is currently a Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Studies in Higher Education at the University of Melbourne. He was Vice Chancellor of the University of Adelaide 2012–2017 and before that Deputy Vice Chancellor (University Affairs) at the University of Melbourne.

Prior to his time in university management, Warren had a long career in music, as Dean of the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music for 17 years, before that Head of Music at the University of Queensland for 6 years, and he taught at the ANU School of Music. He won  a ACTL Citation for “30 years of outstanding teaching in music” (2008), his publications include the  Oxford Companion to Australian Music, and he was for 10 years the music member of the International Advisory Board of Encyclopaedia Britannica. He studied musicology and conducting in New York as a Fulbright Scholar, and remains a Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne.

Warren is also Chair of the Board of Melbourne University Publishing Ltd, Chair of the fine arts college LCI Melbourne, and Chair of the autism peak body Amaze Inc.


Warwick Bray

Warwick Bray guides infrastructure investors and companies across Asia Pacific and Europe to address the economics and infrastructure implications of 5G, capital allocation and improvement to ROIC, and create value though cost and customer service transformation for both operators and infrastructure owners. His work has resulted in several innovation and organisational award wins across Asia Pacific, Europe and globally. He has previously held Board positions at CSL (HK) and GSMA’s strategy committee, as well as Chairman of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association and Foxtel’s Audit and Risk Committee. He currently is a Board member of the Audit and Risk Committee at Spark NZ.

Previously Warwick was CFO of Telstra and Group MD and Head of Telstra Mobile. He led company-wide customer service and cost transformation and created mobile broadband and Asia’s leading “Internet of Things” businesses. As a McKinsey partner in the 1990s, Warwick provided operational and strategic assistance, to second operators, integrated telecommunications companies, energy companies, and institutional and private equity funds, for the introduction of 2G in Europe. As a securities analyst in Europe in the 2000s Warwick valued integrated and cellular telecommunications companies. He was also MD and Global Telecoms Sector Leader at JPMorgan and DrKW London.


Jonathan Feder

Mr Feder LLB (Hons)/BSc is a Partner in the Intellectual Property team at K&L Gates. He is a current board member of Melbourne Theatre Company, a role he has held since 2010. Mr Feder has also raised investment funds for numerous theatrical productions which have been presented throughout the world including shows in New York, London and Australia.

Mr Feder joined the Opera Australia Board in February 2017.


Jane Hansen AO

Ms Hansen is a Company Director with more than 25 years investment banking and management experience in London, New York and Australia. Currently Chair and CEO of the Hansen Little Foundation and all associated philanthropic initiatives, Jane was formerly a mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance specialist at Macquarie Bank and First Boston/Credit Suisse.

Jane joined the Board of the Melbourne Theatre Company in February 2015 and is also the inaugural Chair of the theatre company’s Foundation. She is the Deputy Chancellor and a Member of the Council of the University of Melbourne, and sits on the Melbourne University Humanities Foundation and is Deputy Chair of the Believe Campaign. Jane also sits on the Board of the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and is a Fellow of the University of Melbourne. Previous directorships include the MCG Trust, the State Sport Centres Trust, the federal body of Athletics Australia and the Foundation of the State Library of Victoria.

Jane Hansen holds a Bachelors Degree in Economics from Monash University, a Masters Degree in Finance and Business Administration from Columbia University in New York, and is currently undertaking an Arts Degree majoring in History at Melbourne University.

Jane and her husband Paul Little established the Hansen Little Foundation in 2015 with Ms Hansen in the role of Chair and Chief Executive. The Hansen Little Foundation is a large philanthropic foundation active in the arts, higher education and medical research along with a broad range of smaller initiatives.


Michelle Kam

Michelle Kam is a Strategy Consulting Partner at Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) in the Strategy& division, leading Australia’s Katzenbach Centre, a global PwC specialist organisation that focuses on culture, leadership and change. With a Ph.D in Cognitive Psychology (UNSW) and as a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Michelle provides strategic advice to many ASX listed companies to navigate the increasingly complex global environment and transformational change through creating agility, focus and mobilisation of employees and valuing diversity so people thrive. She works across a variety of sectors including financial services, telecommunications, mining, media, not-for-profit and the public sector. She also supported PwC’s CEO to develop the firm’s growth and Future of Work strategies and the firm’s stance on anti-racism.

She is passionate about the arts and education. She served as a Non-Executive Director at Shaun Parker and Company over 2016 - 2018, and is a current member of the Alumni Council for the University of Sydney.


Deena Shiff

Deena Shiff B.Sc(Econ)/BA/FAICD has had a career in government, the law and as a senior executive. She was the founding CEO of Telstra’s corporate venture capital arm, Telstra Ventures, and a Group Managing Director at Telstra. Previously, Deena was a partner in the leading law firm, Mallesons Stephen Jaques.

Deena is currently the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Marley Spoon AG (ASX:MMM) and is a Non-Executive Director on the boards of ProMedicus (ASX:PME) where she chairs the People and Culture Committee; Appen (ASX: APX) ; Electro Optic Systems (ASX: EOS ); and Opera Australia where she also chairs the People and Culture Committee.

Deena chairs the International Advisory Board of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decisions and Society; the Advisory Board of the Australian Centre for China in the World, as well as the Australian Broadband Advisory Council.


Andrew Sisson AO

Andrew graduated in mathematics and statistics from Melbourne University and joined the investment department of National Mutual Life as a share analyst in January 1974. He worked for National Mutual for fourteen years managing the share portfolios of the statutory funds as well as the portfolio management subsidiary.

He established Balanced Equity Management in 1988 to manage discrete portfolios of Australian shares. It now has $10 billion under management, concentrating on the largest fifty companies in the index with an investment approach based on long-term view fundamental value. In 2011 Balanced Equity Management was acquired by Franklin Resources Inc, a funds management company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Andrew joined the Opera Australia Board in February 2017.