Executive Team
Julie May - Acting CEO and Executive Director, Community Services
Julie has over 25 years’ experience in education, leadership and human services. Her work, whilst varied, has always been guided by social justice principles. Julie prefers the notion of ‘socially just’ practice over ‘social welfare’ practice, believing that the notion of ‘welfare’ is entrenched in deficit thinking, systems dependency and stereotypes, and fails to celebrate the resiliency demonstrated by human kind.
Damien Connor - Chief Financial Officer
Damien is a skilled senior executive leader who has over 20 years of experience in finance, governance and strategy, focused on designing, managing and delivering community services, facilities and infrastructure in the government sector. He holds formal qualifications in Finance, Governance and Strategy, including a Bachelor of Financial Administration, and is a member of the Certified Practicing Accountants (CPA) Association of Australia. Damien is a passionate and humanistic leader who has successfully delivered various transformational outcomes and projects while improving customer and stakeholder satisfaction, and building workforce engagement, satisfaction, and capability. He is committed to the power of community and enjoys contributing to various community-based sporting clubs in his free time.
Naomi McCorkell - Executive Director, Strategy, Growth and Business Optimisation
A transformational leader with over 20 years’ experience working within community services, disability, government and non government, Naomi has held executive, board and advisory roles for numerous organisations. Her experience combined with a demonstrated capacity to build and maintain effective stakeholder relationships has earned her a reputation for exceeding expectations and delivering results.
Naomi is authentic and purposeful, engaging those around her to achieve shared goals, and sustainably delivering on agreed short, medium and long term goals. Her calm, engaging, decisive leadership style together with strong business acumen has resulted in leading successful teams and delivering desired strategic outcomes.
Dean Burrows - Executive Director, People and Culture
Dean brings over 20 years of experience delivering workforce solutions in large organisations, primarily in the community services and not-for-profit sector. For the past 11 years, he has held leadership roles with a major disability services provider, overseeing key People and Culture functions including HR Business Partnering, Industrial and Employee Relations, Payroll, Recruitment, and HR Systems.
Dean has also led People and Culture for several major transformational projects that have driven significant business growth and strengthened systems capability. His approach is grounded in enabling frontline workers and leaders to maximise their positive impact on the people they support—an ethos that aligns strongly with Challenge’s purpose and values.
