Our People

Katie graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce at Curtin University, majoring in Accounting & Business Law before spending the better part of 10 years in the mining and resources industry as a Management Accountant. During this time, she actively volunteered with organisations including Starlight, State Emergency Service, Camp Quality and Youth Affairs Council WA.

In 2017 after a 2-month long adventure camping around Africa and visiting a 110 hectare garbage dump in Jakarta, she rediscovered her passion for volunteering and social impact; from there, began her social entrepreneurship journey with the dreams of driving and instilling positive change in the lives of others. In October, she bid farewell to her accounting career to start The Underground Collaborative.

The organisation exists to provide employment to empower women and young people experiencing or at-risk of homelessness. She is passionate about social justice, international aid, the environment, human rights and children, and is an advocate for social enterprise in creating systems change, and has a particular interest in property, development, urban design, and how the mergence can create greater social impact.

Her motto: You don’t have to change the world, to change the world. Change your world, to change someone else’s.

Brooke is a very passionate values-based leader who is committed to supporting our communities and assisting those people who are truly in need.

With over 20 years’ experience working in, and alongside the not-for-profit sector, she is committed to making a difference in people’s lives and has been fortunate enough in her career to have impacted children, young people and adults right across Western Australia.

Brooke has worked in the community services sector most of her working life and more recently across social enterprise businesses and commercial operations who have a social conscious. She was the Regional Leader and Acting State Manager at Mission Australia supporting business operations across Western Australia and South Australia in community services as well as the NDIS. She’s also been the General Manager Perth Metropolitan Region for YMCA and the General Manager for WA Disabled Sports Association as well as the General Manager for Social Enterprise at Ability WA, a large disability service provider in the Perth Metro area. 

Brooke is currently the Head of Strategic Operations for Activ Foundation overseeing a number of services across the metro and regional areas of WA, and leading Activ’s strategic vision for people living with disability in our community.

A Chartered Accountant with over 10 years’ strategic accounting experience across a diverse range of industries, Amanda specialises in developing and implementing financial strategies to support and develop commercially viable and financially sustainable organisations. With a personal connection to the disability sector, Amanda is passionate about the not-for-profit sector and having a positive impact within the community.

Ashley has a professional services background, working across several industries, helping his clients solve their most important problems. Ashley has extensive experience in human services, working with both government and not-for-profits on their strategies, and in recent years has been actively involved in a number of engagements focusing on homelessness, social housing and the provision of education and needs-based services to vulnerable children and young adults.

His main areas of experience are in financial modelling, data analytics and program evaluation, utilizing data to help organisations drive continued improvement and identify and assess the likely outcomes of making strategic decision.

He is passionate about supporting TUC to grow, be sustainable, and to support as many women and young people as possible who are experiencing or are at risk of homelessness.

Chandra is an entrepreneur and outcomes-focussed leader with two decades of experience in diverse sectors across the social enterprise, not-for-profit, retail, renewable energy, carbon markets and manufacturing sectors in India and Australia. Chandra has a personal commitment to social equity and is constantly looking for innovative solutions to foster sustainability and social inclusion through entrepreneurial activity. 

Chandra has managed teams with diverse skillsets and built long-term relationships across industry, government and academia in Australia, Singapore, USA and India. Having founded and operated startups, Chandra has a deep understanding of the needs of early and growth stage startup business and projects. His work on innovation projects with government, industry and tertiary education over the past decade makes him acutely aware of the challenges and the opportunities in driving innovation in large organisations and jurisdictions.

Jeff has had an extensive career in business and marketing in Perth and Sydney.  He’s spent time in advertising agencies, small business (including running his own small marketing business Monkey Logic, and NFP Give Write), large corporates and not-for-profits.

He has worked in, and volunteered with a range of not-for-profit organisations and comes with a range of skills, interests and experiences that are incredibly valuable to TUC.

Matt is a Regional General Manager at Westpac leading a team of 100+ retail bankers and has a background in consumer goods, education and the financial services sector. He graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce (Marketing and Management) and Asian Languages, an MBA from UWA plus speaks Indonesian and Japanese!

He is passionate about lifelong learning currently undertaking a law degree, and has a strong track record in sales, coaching, marketing and people leadership.

Matt’s specialities include: Sales management, people leadership, strategy execution, campaign management, local area marketing, business development, training and employee development, career planning and people development.

Founder, and at the helm of Known Associates Events, Tamara is an experienced Events Director, Public Relations Professional, Podcast Host/Producer, and Copywriter with a long career behind, and ahead of her. Her passion is delivering first-class customer service via bespoke events through creativity, strong relationships and clever brand awareness, simultaneously paying it forward in her community and beyond.

In 2020 Tamara and her husband Troy launched Known Associates Australia, partner company to KAE. The direction of 100% Indigenous owned Known Associates Australia is to assist Indigenous people on their journey to Professional Event Production and work with other Indigenous businesses, strengthening the positive impact Known Associates can bring to the community through incredible events, education and mentoring.

As a senior executive and leader, Tania has worked across the public and not for profit sectors, specialising in post compulsory education, training and employment. She is motivated by improving the workforce participation of vulnerable groups in society, particularly women’s participation.

She was CEO’s For Gender Equity‘s first executive officer, and successfully shifted the conversation in WA from fixing women to fixing organisations. She has brought a game-changing proposition and strategy that ensures all CEO members assume responsibility and accountability for creating an inclusive and gender diverse culture.

Tania is absolutely committed to leading transformation, improving organisational and individual performance, working cross functionally, developing high level networks and attracting resources to get things done.

When she’s not doing the work she loves, she’s on the tennis court playing socially (and taking much-needed lessons), entertaining friends and family at home when not at the beach. And, reading! She working with others who share similar values, ‘walk the talk’ as authentic leaders and share a similar commitment to creating long term impact.