Our speaker series brings together leading voices from across health, policy, media, and economics to explore the forces shaping Australia’s health system. This curated program of thought-provoking sessions is designed to inform, challenge, and inspire stakeholders across the sector.
Kunal Luthra, Partner at McKinsey
Dr Kunal Luthra is a former medical doctor and leader in McKinsey & Company’s Australian healthcare practice. Kunal supports clients across Australia and Asia, with a focus on strategy and innovation. He leads McKinsey’s knowledge work in Australia on AI’s impacts on our healthcare sector.
As part of this work, he has advised clients across the healthcare system. Kunal has also played an active role in digitally-enabled public health and prevention initiatives.
Kunal has a medical degree from Monash University and worked in the Victorian public hospital system prior to joining McKinsey.
Dr Margaret Faux – Founder and CEO at Synapse Medical Services
Dr Margaret Faux is a health system lawyer, senior executive, academic, and founder of Synapse, a global company powering payment integrity across health systems through expert consulting and technology solutions. With over four decades in healthcare—including 15 years nursing and 30 years as an administrator and lawyer—Margaret brings unmatched insight into health system regulation in Australia and internationally.
Margaret holds a PhD in Medicare claiming and compliance and is widely regarded as one of Australia’s leading experts on the legal and operational mechanics of the Medicare system. Margaret also leads a team of experts who provide consulting and advisory services to payers and providers, and she is regularly engaged as an expert in legal matters involving Medicare billing and MBS item interpretation.
A prolific writer and advocate, Margaret contributes frequently to health reform debates and has published extensively on codes, classifications, regulation, payment integrity and digital enablement.
She is the author of “Medical Bills Made Easy” A bold and unapologetic resource written exclusively for patients.
Dr Adam Triggs – Partner at Mandala
Adam is a partner at the economics advisory firm, Mandala, and an academic with the ANU Crawford School, Brookings Institution and e61 Institute. In previous roles Adam led the Canberra office of AlphaBeta, was research director at the ANU Crawford School and has worked as an economic advisor to the Minister for Competition, in the Prime Minister’s Department, in the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and for Noel Pearson at the Cape York Institute. He holds a PhD in economics, a masters in international economics and a law degree.
Kos Samaras – Director Strategy and Analytics at RedBridge
Kos Samaras specialises in compiling and interpreting research, statistical data and polling to provide a unique insight into the cause and effects of social and political issues impacting communities across Australia.
Often sought for expert commentary on polling data and its impact on all levels of politics, Kos’ keen understanding of the nature of political parties and government decision-making (drawn from more than 25 years of political experience with Victorian Labor) allows him to deliver effective solutions for a broad range of clients.
Simon Welsh – Director Research and Reputation at RedBridge
Simon Welsh’s specialty is the collection of insight on public opinion toward complex and sensitive issues to inform strategy and policy development.
Simon’s expertise in research and policy analysis is built from 25 years of market and social research as well as a background in cognitive psychology. During this time, he has provided strategy, marketing and organisational change services to senior decision-makers across the private and public sectors. Prior to starting RedBridge, Simon ran a strategic consultancy that worked closely with senior executive teams and Boards to deliver strategic planning programs, market/policy analysis, and organisational reviews.
Tony Barry – Director Corporate Affairs and Communications at RedBridge
Having worked for the highest level of government, media and corporate decision-makers in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, Tony Barry offers more than 25 years expertise in media management, communications, risk management, policy development, strategy, and qualitative and quantitative research.
Tony has extensive government experience working in policy areas including regulatory affairs, financial services, superannuation, transport and health. As a trusted corporate consultant Tony has provided risk management advice to banks, superannuation funds, health care providers, telecommunications and mining companies, and professional sports organisations.
Ashleigh Gleeson – National Health Editor at News Corp Australia
Ashleigh Gleeson is national health editor for News Corp Australia’s state and community mastheads, running the health index pages and modules across websites like heraldsun.com.au, dailytelegraph.com.au, couriermail.com.au and advertiser.com.au.
She sends out a newsletter every Tuesday called Health Weekly, which is all about news you can use for your wellbeing, including on how to save costs.
Before helping launch the new health section in February, she was chief of staff at the Herald Sun and has been a journalist in various reporting or newsroom leadership roles since 2011.
Kate Aubusson – Health Editor at the Sydney Morning Herald
Kate Aubusson is the health editor at the Sydney Morning Herald. She was previously the Herald‘s breaking news reporter. She worked at Australian Doctor, breaking political and medical news, as well as reporting across eleven Specialist Updates titles for medical specialists. In 2015, Kate presented the ABC documentary Lest We Forget What, and has freelanced for national and international media outlets.
John Black – Executive Chairman at Australian Development Strategies
John began his working life in the late sixties as a teenage cadet journalist and part-time student of economics, politics and economic history.
By the mid-seventies, he found himself a member of the SA Premier’s Economic Intelligence Unit, working on electoral reform and exploring spatial demographics.
After moving back to Queensland in the early eighties, John worked for Bill Hayden, profiling Australian elections back to the 1960s, and then picking key demographic and spatial targets for the 1983 election campaign, a winning template used for the next decade by the Hawke Government.
As a Senator for Queensland, he chaired the Senate Drugs in Sport Inquiry, set up Australian Drug Testing Regimes and contributed to the development of (relatively) drug-free international sport, later becoming a member of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency.
After retiring from the Senate in 1990, John moved back into Journalism as a contributor to the Australian Financial Review, writing its Lies and Statistics’ column. While working as a feature writer, John established Australia’s first demographic profiling company Australian Development Strategies.
The growing profiling work with schools led to the start-up ten years ago of Education Geographics, which is now Australia’s leading profiling company in the education sector.
A sister company to Education Geographics called Health Geographics, was more recently established under the leadership of John’s spouse, Dr Jeanine McMullan and HGS now is the demographic profiler for Private Health Australia, with clients across the Australian health sector.
Dr Jeanine McMullan – CEO and Senior Mapper for Education Geographics Australia
Dr Jeanine McMullan is CEO of Health Geographics and a vocationally trained General Practitioner (MRCGP, FRACGP, DCH, DRCOG) with over 20 years of frontline healthcare experience in Australia. A graduate of Liverpool University, she combines her clinical expertise with advanced spatial strategy, using GIS technology to map and analyse health and welfare service needs—Australia’s fastest growing industry sector.
Under her leadership, Health Geographics delivers award-winning, data-driven insights to support strategic planning in healthcare and community services. Based in Queensland, Jeanine was named a 2024 Infosol Award winner for Best Business Dashboard.