Our management team

Gerard is a former member of the Australian Army and has extensive strategic leadership experience, both as an Executive and Company Director. Gerard was CEO of Defence Health for nine years until November 2022. He returned to the role in an acting capacity in August 2023 when the CEO, Joanne Kadlecik, took extended leave for a health condition. Joanne resigned from the position in March 2024 and Gerard remains in the acting role while an executive search is undertaken.  

Tanya has worked at Defence Health for 10 years and prior to her current role was the Chief Risk Officer and Head of the Project Management Office.  Tanya has 25 years' experience in the insurance industry, predominantly in health insurance, gained through leadership roles in risk management, marketing, product and project management.

With over 25 years’ experience, Philippa is a lawyer specialising in financial services, commercial and corporate governance matters. Her extensive legal expertise, in-house experience and practical skills guide her legal and governance solutions.

Tania has more than 20 years' experience across a range of service-based industries, supporting organisations and focusing on improving the customer experience. Her passion drives the delivery of better outcomes for Defence Health members.   

Kelly has been with Defence Health for the last seven years and brings extensive HR experience having performed in various leadership roles in finance and fast moving consumer goods over the past 18 years. She is passionate about building a high performance values-based culture where our people feel motivated to perform at their best and are able deliver great results to our members.  Kelly believes HR plays a key role in enabling our people to deliver through giving them the skills, experience and capabilities to be successful in their roles.

Bryan has more than 20 years' experience in technology operations and delivery, with a passion as an enabler for business optimisation and growth.

Christine accelerates company performance through cohesive strategy planning. Her deep data, analytics and management experience has driven sustainable business growth across a variety of industries. Christine is passionate about all elements of strategy from creation to execution, project management and implementation. Christine joined Defence Health in December 2019.

John has been with Defence Health for eight years as the Financial Controller and recently appointed as Chief Financial Officer. He has 15 years' expertise in chartered firms, financial services, and the private health insurance industry. With his extensive background in the private health insurance sector, John is deeply committed to the industry and excels in setting business goals and performance indicators that clearly define organisational success.

Justin is responsible for leading the risk and compliance functions and driving a strong risk culture at Defence Health. He most recently held the position of Head of Risk and has held a range of leadership roles over the last 10 years in the financial services sector.