Our People

As a passionate advocate of diversity, Rob is an experienced Non-Executive Director and Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Rob currently serves as Board Chair of Linking Futures, a market leader collaborating with companies, individuals, and communities, to support strong and dynamic futures for Aboriginal Australians.  Rob also currently serves as Board Chair of an investment consortium supporting Aboriginal business opportunities.

Rob brings to the disAbility Living Board extensive Operations leadership experience in the water sector: as COO of Suez Environnement’s North American operations, and as EGM in Queensland and South Australian water utilities.  Combined with his senior production management experience at General Motors, Rob is well versed in the challenges of technically diverse and geographically dispersed workforces.

With a particular passion for generating organisational culture and employee engagement uplift, Rob has a strong focus on safety, innovation and delivering the best possible outcomes for the client.

Tim Ridgway is an accomplished and well-regarded strategic and commercially astute Organisational Psychologist with over 30 years of global consulting experience spanning Australia, the U.S.A., South America, Europe, Africa and Asia.  He has an extensive professional network across public and private sector organisations and NFP and NGO sectors. His experience encompasses the health, aged care and disability sectors, having delivered services with deep expertise in governance, strategy, systems, leadership and the design and execution of complex transformation and change programs.

With over 20 years of Board experience, Tim is a highly experienced and well-qualified Director, Board Member and Chair of Remuneration and Nominations Committees, including currently serving as a Member of the Psychology Board of Australia, and previously as Non-Executive Director of the Leukaemia Foundation of Australia Board and the South Australian Board.

Tim has been a Registered Psychologist with AHPRA since August 2000 and an adjunct lecturer to the Adelaide University Masters of Organisational Psychology program for over ten years. He provides professional supervision of students on placement for this program.  Tim has also previously been active in the Australian Psychological Society (APS), serving on the College of Organisational Psychology committee in South Australia. He is a professional mentor to several students and early career professionals.

Mark Clayton is an accountant and corporate services specialist who has run professional service and business consultancy practices for many years and has also worked in the disability support area.

Mark is passionate about the community services sector and currently works as Director of College Services at Flinders University. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Accountants, holds a Masters degree in Applied Social Science and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

With a background on several not for profit Boards and as Treasurer on a number of these, Mark brings a wealth of governance practice and financial and risk management experience to the Board.

Pauline McEntee has a strong background in the provision of services to the most vulnerable through the Community and Government sector and shares her clinical governance experience with DLi.

With qualifications and experience in public policy and administration and social work, Pauline provides the board with insight and understanding of our clinical governance and social risk and compliance requirements. She has a strong commitment to ensuring services are focussed on the needs of people with disabilities and include their voice.

Michelle began her health career in emergency nursing.  Over the last 20 years, Michelle has held a range of executive roles in health and aged care across Queensland (QLD), South Australia (S.A.) and the Northern Territory (N.T.), in public, faith-based and not-for-profit sectors and in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service.  This includes leading hospital and health services, including a District of 17 geographically dispersed hospitals across South West Queensland and a large hospital in Adelaide, South Australia, the Executive Director of Performance and Planning of a very large health service in South Australia, which had a budget of over $2.5B and five years Executive experience in aged, community and disability services, leading services across regional Queensland and the Northern Territory, including approximately 2400 residents in residential aged care services, 60 community service centres and 1000 home care package clients with 5000 staff.

She was the CEO of an Acute Hospitals N.H.S. Trust in England, consisting of three hospitals with 6000 staff serving a population of over 500,000 with a budget of £400M, and led Top End Health Services in the Northern Territory, responsible for all public health services for approximately 80% of the Territory’s population, over 25% of whom are Aboriginal people, accountable for a budget of over $1B and approximately 5000 staff, across four hospitals and over 25 remote primary clinics.  Michelle is currently the CEO of the Adelaide Primary Health Network.

With a legal and business background across the not-for-profit, private, and public sectors, Sam was appointed CEO in August 2021 following a career that has spanned the disability and community services sectors as well as law, agribusiness, and high-risk industries. With over 20 years of experience as a senior executive, she has a track record in achieving transformational change and has expertise in strategic planning, risk, corporate governance, and business improvement, as well as organisational development, culture and change management. Her commercial focus is supported by strong values-based leadership and a person-centred approach to service delivery.

Sam has also served as a board member of organisations in the disability, aged care, community services, agribusiness, energy and government sectors.

She has a Bachelor of Laws, Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Business Administration and is a Graduate of the Australia Institute of Company Directors and a Fellow of the Governor’s Leadership Foundation.

With over 25 years of human resource experience in senior management roles, including the disability sector, local government, and commercial operations. Ben has extensive experience in most aspects of People and Culture, including industrial relations, workforce planning, leadership of multi-site and multifaceted teams, values and culture transformation, learning and development, as well as work health and safety.

Ben is well regarded for his reliability, personal integrity, collaborative leadership, pragmatic and professional approach to human resource management. Ben has the interest of others firmly at heart.

Professional Member – Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI)

Jen joined DLI in 2017 and is the General Manager, Corporate Services. She currently oversees DLI’s finance, property and information technology teams.

Jen started her career in accounting and has previously held senior finance, IT and business analyst roles for services organisations.

Jen is an experienced leader who is passionate about transformational change and leveraging data to improve service delivery.

Neil Buder has extensive experience in managing and leading teams in various industry sectors.

Success has been achieved, leading small and large scale enterprises in face-to-face and online sales, contact centres – where the focus has always been client-centric.

Programme managing new systems and workflow design has assisted in achieving workplace efficiencies and embedding a workplace culture receptive to positive change.

More recently, Neil has experience working in management roles within the disability sector, focusing on client engagement and NDIS compliance.

Neil has qualifications in Business Practice, Contact Centre Management, Human Resource Management and is a graduate of the University of Adelaide Graduate School of Management

Kate joined DLi in 2022 as General Manager, Client Services after transitioning from Operations Manager at a large disability accommodation provider.

With over 17 years of leadership experience across domestic markets in health and human services, including managing operations, customer relations and business development with a team of allied health professionals, Kate has a proven track record in delivering successful services with a positive influence on business growth, retention, and engagement as well as financial performance while ensuring her teams provide the highest quality of service for clients and customers. As a values-driven senior leader, she is invested in creating and nurturing high-performing and engaged teams passionate about their work by building trust through integrity, transparency, and collaboration.

Kate has a Bachelor of Applied Science (Occupational Therapy) and a Masters of Business.