We pride ourselves on the quality of the people with whom we work. We have a diverse team that includes individuals of varying levels of experiences and cultural backgrounds. Most of our consultants have over 25 years of experience across different roles of health and human services. We are also revitalized by the young consultants with fresh ideas who have joined our team.
Peter Axten
Director
Peter has been consulting to the health sector for over two decades. Prior to his role at Aspex, he spent six years as a senior executive in policy and planning as well as in an operational role as Regional Director for State Government. Peter’s experience includes change management in politically sensitive environments together with extensive strategic planning and service development across a broad spectrum of health and human services.
Dr Darren Harris
Director
Darren has experience across a range of health care roles including clinical, evaluation and consulting positions spanning 25 years. In the past 15 years he has specialised in policy and program evaluation at organisational, community, statewide and national levels. Darren has undertaken more than 80 competitively tendered evaluation studies, advised for over 200 government programs and presented at forums across the academic, public and private sectors.
Dr Peter Nagel
Director
Peter has held senior management positions in Government, most recently at the Victorian Department of Health & Human Services. This experience included key accountabilities across planning, policy review and program development. Peter has several years of consulting experience at Aspex and has led an extensive range of projects encompassing service planning, program review, workforce planning and strategy.
Larissa Freeman
Senior Manager
Larissa has over 17 years’ experience working in the healthcare industry. She gained a solid grounding in healthcare through a post-graduate management training program in tertiary, specialist and not-for-profit hospitals, as well as the Department of Health and Human Services. Larissa has held operational roles in Victoria and the USA, where she was responsible for managing staff training for an EMR implementation project at the prestigious Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston. Larissa has an MBA and an MHA and recently studied Managing Health Care Delivery at Harvard Business School.
Davor Sulava
Manager
Davor is a CPA who has had extensive experience as a senior finance consultant specialising in the Health, Education and Government sectors. Most recently Davor was a Manager in EY’s Business Consulting practice. Prior to this, Davor spent seven years in various business partnering and management accounting roles at various large organisations in the health and logistics sectors, including Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Northern Health, Toll IPEC and Linfox. Davor’s experience includes complex financial analysis and modelling, budgeting and forecasting, business case and funding model development, sustainability reviews, project management and stakeholder management.
Sabrina Stow
Manager
Sabrina has over 38 years’ working in Government and private consulting. This includes her work with the Victorian Heath Department, Department of Premier and Cabinet and as a project manager several nationally funded entities. Her experience extends across mental health, public health, and policy and strategy. Since joining Aspex Consulting she has been involved in a breadth of projects including service planning, program evaluation, policy development, governance, and due diligence reviews.
Clare Ranson
Manager
Clare is a CA-qualified accountant with 14 years of experience across insolvency, commercial and the health sector, including a major Victorian public hospital as well as a specialised public hospital. She is skilled in assisting and supporting clients in achieving their organisation’s strategic goals by developing financially sustainable opportunities and solutions. Her key strengths are building trusting relationships with key stakeholders and senior leaders, strong problem-solving skills and foresight for the implications of a problem and the solution. Clare has a genuine passion for learning and engaging with people from diverse backgrounds.
Leo Curran
Consultant & Senior Analyst
Leo has been with Aspex Consulting since its inception in 2007 and has extensive experience in quantitative analysis including data-linkage, demand modelling, population and utilisation review, and self-sufficiency analysis across a wide range of health and human services projects. Leo’s expertise is in analysing and presenting complex data in informative and accessible formats including informatics and GIS spatial analysis.
Sharon Lloyd
Senior Consultant
Sharon has 20 years of experience working for not-for-profit and commercial organisations in healthcare. She has held a variety of roles spanning primary care, health education and the clinical trials sector. She has extensive experience in project management, workforce planning, and stakeholder consultation. Sharon is a registered pharmacist with post-graduate business management qualifications and brings a strong interest in strategic and service planning, and program evaluation.
Susanna Bhatia
Consultant
Susanna is a Management and Finance graduate from The University of Melbourne and a recent addition to our team. Her passion for creating innovative solutions for business problems led her to the field of consulting. She has previously worked on a variety of consulting projects in multiple business areas and industries and developed excellent critical-thinking, analytical, research and team-working skills. Susanna’s diverse experience in domestic and international settings brings new insights to delivering outcomes.
Maggie Zhang
Consultant
Maggie is an MBA graduate at Melbourne Business School and a recent addition to our team. She has 6 years’ experience working across public and private sectors of oral health/dentistry, and 5 years’ experience creating and building her own corporate accommodation business. She has solid quantitative/analytical abilities, and strong critical/strategic thinking skills. She carried out strategy consulting work for an ASX company and is keen to bring all her knowledge and skills through a highly diversified career to Aspex’s current and future projects.
Chetan Venkatesh
Data Analyst
Chetan has extensive experience in achieving data-driven solutions to deliver robust and relevant business insights. He has a strong analytical background with in-depth knowledge of relational databases, statistical models, big data capture, manipulation and analysis. Chetan is specialised in the design and implementation of interactive and intelligible visualisation dashboards, machine learning as a solution to real world problems and comprehensive business reporting.
Amanda Singleton
Associate
Amanda has a diverse background in the delivery of health services in Victoria, working in private and public, rural and metropolitan health services. An experienced consultant, midwife and manager of maternity staff, her work has provided a solid grounding in business management in private and public health sectors. With a unique combination of technical, analytical and clinical understanding, Amanda has worked on a number of operational and financial reviews, service planning and quality initiatives.
Nubia Hernandez
Associate
Nubia is a CA qualified accountant with over 12 years of experience working with commercial and public organisations, including two of Victoria's major public health service providers. She is skilled in supporting clients in achieving strategic organisational goals by developing financially sustainable opportunities that enhance decision-making. Nubia's strengths are her abilities in analysing and modelling complex concepts to transform them into simple, practical, and implementable solutions.
Dr Ruth Vine
Associate
Ruth is a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (FRANZCP), a member of the Medical Practitioners Board (Victoria) and the Board of Forensicare. She has had senior management roles in the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services including as Chief Psychiatrist and Director of Mental Health. Ruth is a previous Chair of the AHMAC National Mental Health Standing Committee, the National Mental Health Workforce Committee, and the National Safety and Quality Committee. Most recently, Ruth was the Executive Director of NorthWestern Mental Health, a division of Melbourne Health from 2013 - 2019.
Dr Julian King
Associate
Julian specialises in evaluation and value for money. He brings over 20 years experience in public policy, including establishing and leading the New Zealand office of an Australian consulting firm, senior consultancy roles at KPMG, and policy positions at Health Canada, NZ Ministry of Health and Social Policy Agency.
Julian is a member of the Kinnect group, an Associate of Oxford Policy Management, and an Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne and Charles Darwin University. He is a former Board member and Treasurer of the Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association (ANZEA) and a member of the American Evaluation Association.
Dr Fran Wise
Associate
Fran has spent over 25 years’ in the health care sector including clinical experience in a variety of rehabilitation areas. Currently a Senior Rehabilitation Physician, she has held a number of senior positions across both private and public hospital settings, and plays a major role in the research activities of her unit. Fran’s expertise in research design and data analysis has led to a number of successful grants and accolades, with her work also having been published in peer-refereed journals.
Kevin Carter
Associate
Kevin is a former registered psychiatric nurse with over 30 years of experience in mental health including clinical practice, service management and development, hospital and community-based service delivery, training and service planning. He has a detailed and extensive knowledge of mental health services and requirements in Victoria and significant experience in health service development and service planning, particularly mental health service capital planning and development.
Melanie Rolfe
Associate
Melanie has extensive experience in psychosocial support and arts in health programs across paediatric, adolescent, and young adult palliative care, oncology, and disability. She is skilled in psychosocial service provision for young people experiencing mental health issues related to cancer and grief and has worked across a range of organisations. Melanie has proven skill in research design, implementation, analysis, literature reviews and publication and is highly experienced in project management, quality improvement, and stakeholder engagement. Melanie has presented at international conferences on consumer engagement in healthcare and was a TEDxQUT speaker presenting on Joy Matters; How Nature Play Powers your Potential.