Our Leadership.
Our Board
Uniting Housing board.
Chairperson
David Cant
David has over 40 years of experience in providing housing for people in need. David is an independent director of PowerHousing Australia, a membership organisation for 35 of the largest community housing providers in Australia. David is Co-Chair of Under 1 Roof, a consortium of housing
Deputy Chair
Gabrielle Waters
Gabrielle has over 25 years of experience in property development and corporate operations in Australia and overseas, having held executive roles with RMIT University, Affordable Housing Solutions, Primelife, Hamton and Jones Lang LaSalle. A property development and corporate strategy
Board member
Tess Lye
Tess is a corporate and commercial lawyer who has worked in the healthcare, banking and mining sectors. Throughout her legal career, Tess has undertaken a range of pro bono and Board roles with community legal services and community service organisations. Tess is currently the Deputy
Board member
Heather Watson
Heather is an experienced non-executive director and specialist charity lawyer with broad experience in the areas of aged care, health and community services, affordable housing and Indigenous communities. Heather is the current Chair of Uniting in NSW.ACT, a director of Uniting Vic.Tas
Board member
Rev. Jenny Hayes
Jenny is currently the Minister of the Highlands Cluster and Chair of the Presbytery Western Victoria. Jenny has wide and varied experience in organisations within the church and community, including: 15 years as a Prison Chaplain, Founding member and 12 years as Chair of Werribee Housing,
Board member
Robyn Batten
Throughout the past 9 years Robyn, has held leadership positions in some of the Uniting Church’s largest community and aged care agencies. These include her roles as Executive Director of Uniting Aged Care (Vic/Tas), Executive Director of Blue Care and Executive Director of Australian Regional
Board member
Andrew Opie
Andrew is a chartered accountant at National Australia Bank (NAB). He is a senior finance professional with extensive experience in risk, governance, and audit across the banking and financial services sector. He has worked in the UK and Australia overseeing the interpretation and implementation
Our Staff
Executive team.
General Manager, Housing and Property
Kristie Looney
Kristie is an experienced leader within the not-for-profit, social enterprise and social service sectors working at the forefront of cross-sectoral collaboration to drive positive change.
Head of Project Delivery
Heidi Dixon
Heidi is a collaborative and strategic senior executive with a demonstrated track record of developing successful partnerships between
She has a wealth of expertise in community engagement, stakeholder management and place-based funding partnerships between government, community, industry and business sectors. She is experienced in recruiting highly skilled people and developing multi-disciplinary teams, delivering city revitalisations, growth area community precincts and affordable housing programs.
Head of Housing Strategy & Asset Planning
Jan Berriman
Jan has extensive experience in executive positions within not-for-profit organisations in urban, regional, rural, and remote contexts within Australia.
She brings a wealth of experience to her role, most recently as the Director National Housing for YWCA Australia group and previously Chief Executive Officer of YWCA Victoria and CEO and Company Secretary of the YWCA Housing group. In December 2020, Jan was awarded the Sector Leader by PowerHousing Australia, in recognition of her long-term dedication and commitment to delivery of community housing for people experiencing homelessness or housing stress.
Jan is leading the preparation of Uniting Housing’s bid in response to the Victorian Government’s Big Housing Build program and development of our asset management strategy for the housing portfolio as part of implementing the joint Making Housing a Priority strategy.
Senior Manager Property Development
Mary Lacson
Mary is a property development professional focused on renewal of precincts and creating opportunities for affordable housing.
Her previous experience in Sydney and Western Australia was in mixed-tenure social, affordable and private housing developments. More recently, Mary was a Senior Development Manager (Melbourne) focused on revitalising significant urban renewal precincts.
Mary has a deep passion and understanding of front-end property and precinct development, the opportunities of commercial arrangements and, balancing the social, economic and environmental outcomes of projects.
Senior Manager Commercial Properties
Mark Karutz
Mark has 26 years of experience in real estate and has worked across the private, government and not-for-profit sectors.
Mark has extensive experience in developing, project managing and successfully completing building projects.
Manager Housing Practice & Policy
Robin Zakharov
Robin is a housing policy and practice specialist with expert knowledge across a range of regulatory performance standards related to
Robin has worked in the social and affordable housing sectors for most of her career, as well as in the disability services sector.
She has worked in policy and program roles in state government in Victoria and Queensland, and as an independent housing consultant.
Manager Finance & Compliance
Susan Howell
Susan has extensive experience across the corporate and community services sectors in ICT, finance, governance, compliance and risk.
Before joining the Housing and Property team in 2020 when the restructure for the new partnership took place, Susan was the Operations Manager of Uniting Housing Victoria.
Susan has worked for Uniting Church community service organisations since 2008 and brings a wealth of corporate and governance knowledge to the role. Susan specialises in social housing sector regulation and is integral to ensuring the regulatory compliance of Uniting Housing.
Susan is a member of the Uniting Church in Australia.
Senior Manager Asset Management
John Stewart
John has 20 years of facilities management experience in both the corporate and not-for-
He specialises in all areas of proactive scheduling of maintenance for life cycle efficiencies with a strong background in HVAC, plumbing, electrical & essential services across a property portfolio including, residential, commercial, retail & warehouses.
John has extensive experience managing a team of inhouse maintenance staff and specialised contractors. John has a background in merging organisations’ property departments within the community sector.
Development Analyst
Sheng Lin
Sheng is an experienced development manager with proven success managing residential and commercial property developments of various
He has managed complex development projects from initial due diligence stages, the creation and updating of feasibility models, and site acquisition/purchase, execution of development agreement, through to design development and consultant engagement for development delivery.
