Executive Team
Stephen Doley - Chief Executive Officer
Stephen brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise from the community services sector and has dedicated his career to having a positive impact on people with disability and shaping the sector through the provision of innovative solutions.
His professional experience has covered most areas of community services and he has held multiple executive positions in large not-for-profit organisations, both regionally and nationally.
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.
Anthony Whale - Executive Director, People and Practice
Anthony brings a wealth of experience in human resources and industrial relations to his role as Executive Director, People and Practice. In his previous role as a Human Resources Business Partner at Challenge, he has been a trusted advisor across all aspects of the employee lifecycle and a key leader in industrial relations.
Passionate about diversity and inclusion, Tony was a founding board member of the Hunter Diversity and Inclusion Collective and serves on the Australian HR Institute Newcastle and Hunter network committee. His leadership within Challenge has been instrumental, including his contributions to the Strategy In Action Core group and his work as a Culture Champion.
Julie May - 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.
Kylie Boyraz - Executive Director, Allied Health
Kylie has over 20 years’ experience in senior management and executive roles across local government and the non for profit sector. Her passion is providing support and a level of healing to individuals and families who have experienced trauma or been impacted by a stressful experience; ultimately strengthening relationships.
Kylie spent 10 years living and working in Istanbul and more remote parts of Turkey and promotes cultural diversity and assisting our most vulnerable community members to access support and ensure they are receiving services that are inclusive and responsive to their needs.
Kylie’s education background includes a Bachelor of Social Science with a major in Habilitation, a post graduate in Family Dispute Resolution and a Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment.
