Management team

Lisa Norman - General Manager and CEO St John of God South East Melbourne Hospitals

Lisa Norman has worked for St John of God Health Care since July 2006. Lisa’s initial role at St John of God Frankston Rehabilitation Hospital was the Chief Executive Officer and Director of Nursing.

Lisa moved to St John of God Berwick Hospital in January 2010 as the Chief Executive Officer and Director of Nursing. Since starting at Berwick in 2010, Lisa has increased annual revenue from $15m to in excess of $70m. In late 2014 her role transitioned to Chief Executive Officer in anticipation of the planned redevelopment of the Berwick Hospital.

Lisa has extensive experience in health care roles, with a strong track record driving hospital growth in services and activity. Her previous role as Chief Executive Officer of St John of God Frankston Rehabilitation Hospital saw her double the number of patients in three and a half years, while also improving patient and staff satisfaction.

Lisa is a member of the Victorian Clinical Council. This committee provides direction to Safer Care Victoria and the Victorian State Health Minister on health strategy.

Shelley Cooper – Director Clinical Services, Mental Health

Shelley is a UK trained mental health nurse with over 15 years experience in clinical, education and leadership roles. Shelley holds a Masters of Business Administration (Health), completed at ACU.

Prior to joining St John of God Health Care in 2016, Shelley’s roles included Assistant Director of Nursing and Clinical Services Manager at Australian Private Mental Health Hospitals. Shelley has also led the development of a greenfields inpatient and day patient mental health service. Shelley is passionate about recovery-orientated practice and patient centred care.

Dr Usman Riaz - Director of Medical Services

Dr Muhammad Usman Riaz is a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists with a sub specialty in addiction psychiatry through RANZCP. He holds a Master of Public Health with a major in Occupational Health and Safety from Monash University and a Master of Psychiatry from the University of Melbourne.

Throughout his medical career he has experienced leadership roles in the public and private health sector. He also coordinates the RANZCP psychiatry training programme at Monash Casey Hospital. He is employed part time by Monash Health and also provides consultation liaison psychiatry services at St John of God Berwick Hospital.

Eveline Soon - Quality and Risk Manager

Eveline joined St John of God Berwick Hospital in June 2015 as Quality and Risk Manager and has postgraduate qualifications in Health Administration Management and Project Management.

With over 10 years of experience working in quality and risk in health care, Eveline has developed a passion for quality health care delivery, risk management and clinical governance.

Her achievements to date include implementing a surgical safety checklist across a large metropolitan health service, developing risk registers in consultation with medical and nursing staff, streamlining clinical processes to ensure patients benefit most from nursing care and supporting various health services to achieve ACHS accreditation.

Rhonda O'Connor - Director of Mission Integration

Rhonda O’Connor joined St John of God Berwick Hospital following a long history of working in youth ministry, pastoral care, education, parish and diocesan ministry.

Rhonda is passionate about ministry and mission. She has been involved in social outreach in Timor Leste, youth mental health, refugee and asylum seekers, adult education and mission development.

She enjoys the joys and challenges of supporting and mentoring caregivers as St John of God Berwick Hospital continues to grow. She is passionate about ensuring all caregivers are supported in living out St John of God Health Care Values and delivering exceptional compassionate care in our community.

In 2020 Rhonda took on the responsibility of mission integration across the South East Melbourne hospitals including St John of God Berwick Hospital, St John of God Frankston Rehabilitation Hospital and St John of God Langmore Centre.

Danny Antonopoulos- Director of Finance

Danny is an experienced finance leader and CPA with extensive knowledge across commercial private hospital operations.

In his most recent appointment, he was responsible for leading and managing the finance functions of two hospitals, including extensive involvement in strategic and operational direction. Prior to this role, Danny served in various senior finance director roles in medium to large sized hospitals for over 16 years.

Danny has a breadth of experience working closely with executive peers and frontline managers to enable hospital and clinical service objectives.

Suzanne Hallifax - Business Development Manager

Sue joined St John of God Health Care in 2021. With over 20 years experience being a member of senior hospital leadership teams, Sue has significant knowledge of the Victorian private health care industry and extensive experience in business development within this environment.

Sue’s focus is to identify and build strong working relationships with medical specialists, health executives, GPs and practice managers to continuously expand and grow the South East Melbourne hospital services.

Sara Crees - Director of Corporate and Hotel Services

Sara joined St John of God Health Care in September 2021 and holds a Bachelor of Business and Commerce majoring in Human Resources and Management at Monash University as well as a Diploma in Business Management, Cert IV in Workplace Health and Safety and is a Certified Practitioner of Human Resources with the Australian Human Resources Institute (CPHR).

Sara is an innovative and passionate senior executive with experience in a number of roles across different industries and specialises in organisational development, talent acquisition, employee development, industrial relations and team management.

Nicki Hockley- Director of Corporate and Hotel Services and Senior Human Resources Business Partner

Nicki was welcomed to St John of God Health Care in March 2022 and holds a Bachelor of Business majoring in Industrial Relations and Human Resources Management.

Nicki has over 20 years experience in NFP healthcare, provides high quality advice on EBA interpretation, HR policies, talent acquisition and employee development whilst embracing the organisational values and NFP ethos.