New board member Robert Hughes brings a passion for excellence and extensive disability sector experience to Gellibrand.
Robert Hughes is a man who likes hanging out with the stars. Not celebrities – the real stars in the night sky.
“I’m passionate about physics, particularly cosmology and astrophysics,” he said. “I attend conferences, I go star gazing and do astrophotography. I also try to get everyone around me excited about the beauty of the universe we live in!”
Robert also saw beauty in Gellibrand’s client support. From a family with lived experience of disability, he has held several roles in the disability sector over the past five years, including as a general manager of a disability provider, and that’s when he came across Gellibrand.
“The organisation was well regarded, well run, and extremely focused on clients,” Robert said, adding that he became involved with Gellibrand’s board because he knows from family experience how important Gellibrand’s services are to the community.
From Scotland, Robert worked there as a people leader in the banking sector in his early career before becoming a business improvement consultant. In Australia, he worked for Scope, the nation’s largest disability service provider, and through that he developed professional connections at several other large providers. Robert also worked with the Department of Families, Fairness, and Safety when it managed the transfer from block-funded supports to individual funding and he has honed his professional expertise through education and programs at the University of Oxford.
“I’m hoping to bring to Gellibrand deep sector knowledge, organisational change expertise, and contemporary strategy into the long-term outlook of the organisation,” Robert said.
He added that now is a time of many challenges for the disability sector and organisations like Gellibrand, including attracting and keeping workers and maintaining responsive client support in a “volatile funding environment.”
“Gellibrand is well placed to tackle these challenges because its growth strategy is conditional on well-researched needs, and not a desire to be a certain size. Additionally, the culture of Gellibrand as a community between clients and team members positions it well in the market for both new team members and new clients.”
