National Trust Board of Directors
The National Trust of NSW is governed by a board comprising of twelve elected directors and an Executive Director. The board elects a president, a deputy president and a treasurer.
Click here to view the Rules of the National Trust (NSW)
Click here to view the National Trust of Australia (NSW) Act 1990 No. 92
Click here to view the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2000 No. 53 for policy and procedure details.
President - Ian Carroll OAM
Ian Carroll is a former Partner of national law firm Clayton Utz. During his legal career, he specialized in mergers and acquisitions, revenue law, corporations law, insurance law and trust law, and was honorary legal adviser to a number of charities and other not-for-profit organisations. Now a company director, he is a Director of Zurich Financial Services Australia Limited and of its life and general insurance subsidiaries, Chairman of Zurich Australian Superannuation Pty Limited, a Director of Global Life Reinsurance Company of Australia Pty Limited and a Director of HDI-Gerling Australia Insurance Company Pty Limited. He has previously served on the boards of several other commercial corporations involved in the manufacturing, industrial and wholesaling sectors, and has also previously held positions in various not-for-profit organisations including President of UNICEF Australia, Member of the Council of Knox Grammar School, Chairman of Georgian Retirement Villages , President of Gordon District Cricket Club and State Library of NSW Ambassador to the Legal Profession for its Law and Justice Collections. He has a strong commitment to the preservation of Australia’s natural, built and cultural heritage, including our indigenous and ethnic heritage, and to the promotion of heritage values to governments and the community, including our younger and ethnic communities. He also has a strong interest in the governance, strategic management and risk management of not-for-profit organisations as essential factors in their ability to achieve their beneficial objectives.
Deputy President - Donald M Godden
Donald has been a member of the National
Trust for over 30 years and has served as a volunteer with the Industrial
Archaeology Committee and Trust Council. He has been an alternate
member of the Heritage Council of NSW, Chair of the IAC, Co-Chair
of the RTA Bridges Committee, Co-Chair SRA Heritage Committee
and Co-Chair Sydney Water Heritage Committee. He was the Director
of the Master of Built Environment (Building Conservation) degree at
UNSW, and Director of Godden Mackay Logan Heritage Consultants
from 1990-2002. Donald has had a lifelong fascination for conservation and
has presented many papers on industrial archaeology and proposed
conservation management plans for a wide variety of places.
William Holmes à Court - Treasurer
William Holmes à Court has nearly 25 years of management experience in information technology, business, finance and accounting. Currently, he is the Managing Director of Procuity, a company formed to assist forward-thinking finance and IT executives to drive additional value from their operations. He is also involved in a number of start-up organisations and recently established the Australian presence of Changepoint, a leading provider of internet based professional service and IT governance solutions. Previously, he was the Asia Pacific Regional Manager of Concur, a leading global Business Process Automation solutions provider. William Holmes a Court is a Fellow of the Australian CPAs (FCPA) and serves in several honorary positions.
John Neish
John Neish is the Executive Director of the National Trust of Australia (NSW). John brings to the National Trust 25 years’ experience spanning the private, not for profit and local government sectors, and a deep commitment to the view that economic prosperity is integrally linked to heritage, social and environmental values. John was General Manager of Parramatta City Council from 2003-2008 and during his tenure was instrumental in developing Parramatta as a dynamic cultural, heritage and economic precinct, steering the City’s ascendancy as Sydney’s second CBD.
Throughout his career John has woven protection of heritage into his various local government roles. As a community worker in the early 1980s, he conceived the Glenn Innes Main Street project which reinstated historic building colour schemes and developed heritage–appropriate public works. The scheme significantly boosted tourism and continues today. In his middle and senior management roles at Parramatta, John drove a series of heritage related innovations, including the establishment of the Parramatta Heritage Resource Centre and the conservation of George Salters Cottage, the second oldest European cottage in Australia; and led Parramatta’s role in the State Regional Environmental Plan which improved conservation zone protections and added additional zones.
Julian Bickersteth
Julian Bickersteth is a conservator and has extensive experience in the cultural heritage industry. He runs International Conservation Services Pty Ltd. and is currently on the Council of the International Institute for the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC). He was the Chair of the Organising Committee for the IIC biennial conference held in Melbourne in October 2000, national treasurer of the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material (AICCM) for 9 years, editor of the AICCM Bulletin for five years, and AICCM's conservator of the year in 2003. Julian is a fellow of IIC and a professional member of AICCM. He was a director of AusHeritage Ltd and a member of the Heritage Council of NSW’s Technical Advisory Group (TAG). He is also Honorary Vice President of the Australian Decorative and Fine Art Societies (ADFAS) and a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.
Robyn Christie
Robyn Christie is a heritage consultant specialising in the preparation of historical reports. She is a member of Australia ICOMOS; the Museums Association; an associate of the Professional Historians Association; and a student member of the RAIA. She has a strong academic and practical background, first working with the National Trust as a curator at the S.H. Ervin Gallery and then the Museum of Australian Childhood over a period of 10 years. Heritage contracts have included work at Susannah Place, Elizabeth Bay House, Juniper Hall, St Mary’s Cathedral and Central Railway Station. She is a member of five Trust committees and actively involved with her local community through the Hunters Hill Trust and represents the National Trust on the Council’s Conservation Advisory Panel.
Janine Kitson
Janine Kitson is an educator whose duties have included teaching, writing learning materials and consulting for the Samoan government. For the past two years she has been the coordinator of the National Trust’s Heritage Festival in Ku-ring-gai. From 2000-2004 Janine was an elected councillor on Ku-ring-gai Council and was a member of its Heritage Advisory Committee. In 2004 she completed the Heritage Law and Policy course at Macquarie University. Janine is currently involved with the Blue Gum High Forest Group to ensure the critically endangered forest at St Ives is conserved for future generations.
Helen Lochhead
Helen Lochhead is an architect and urban designer and a graduate of the University of Sydney and Columbia University in New York. After working for a number of years in the United States she returned to Australia and established Helen Lochhead Urban Projects (HLUP), a multidisciplinary design practice. She recently joined the Sydney Olympic Park Authority. As Executive Director, Sustainability, her responsibilities include planning, design, building approvals, sustainability and capital projects.
She has also combined teaching with professional practice for over 20 years and was Director for the Graduating Urban Design studio in Architecture at UTS from 2000 to 2005. She is widely published and has received numerous design awards and has been appointed to a number of Boards and Advisory Panels.
Peter Lowry OAM
Peter Lowry LLB is a Company Director involved in property investment, urban planning, restoration of heritage buildings and housing development. He is a Member of the Board of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, the Planning Research Centre of the University of Sydney and is a Director of the Ensemble Theatre and the Seaborn Broughton Walford Foundation (a charitable trust to assist the performing arts.)
Maureen Pike
Born in Kent, UK. After business college she worked at Australia House in London for the Commonwealth Bank. Being an adventurer
she came to Australia in 1962, married Daryl and had three boys. She moved to Bathurst in 1976. She has been involved in voluntary work during most of her life. She has held the positions of Secretary and Chair of the Cathedral Parish Council. She and has served the Trust as Vice President, President and Inspection Secretary of the Central West Women’s Committee. She has also been the Executive of Friends of the ABC. In a working capacity she has also worked with disadvantaged youth in Sydney .
Professor Ross Griffith, BSc, PhD, C Text, FTI, MAAFS
After completing a first degree in Textile Engineering at UNSW, and working for several years in the local textile and clothing industries, Ross commenced an academic career at UNSW lasting 34 years, including the completion of Doctorate studies at Leeds University, and retiring as Professor of Wool Technology and Head of the School of Fibre Science and Technology.
He established a consultancy which continues to this day, including forensic investigations, technical service to a number of industry sectors, and textile research and development. For 18 years, Ross was a Director of The Smith Family, and helped in the establishment of a highly successful fibre recycling and reprocessing business. He is currently a Director of the Bardwell Valley Golf Club, and maintains involvement in a number of local community activities. Ross is married to prominent artist Pamela Griffith; their daughter Selena is an academic at UNSW; and their son runs an R&D company in San Francisco.
Ross is passionate about the natural environment and watches with trepidation the destruction of much that is essential for the survival of the planet. He hopes, through involvement with likeminded people at the National Trust he can make a contribution to preservation of that which defines us, socially, culturally and environmentally.
Mr Alan Ivor Terrell
Alan’s 40+ years experience in civil aviation culminated in his appointment as Qantas General Manager - Operations, with responsibility for more than 10,000 staff and an annual budget in excess of one billion dollars. He has already used his considerable organisational and business skills to serve the National Trust by founding the Friends of Harper’s Mansion - a
threatened Trust property in the Southern Highlands. Alan’s Committee has demonstrated that dedicated local branches can make heritage properties viable, and recently secured a government grant to support this work.
Alan has a keen interest in promoting heritage and sustaining the principles under which the National Trust was first established and to retain and preserve Australia’s heritage for the future. He believes this is best achieved by ensuring that, by whatever means possible, the Trust’s properties are made financially viable.
Maisy Stapleton
Maisy Stapleton is the inaugural CEO of Museums and Galleries NSW, the peak museum development agency supporting around 500 museums and galleries throughout NSW. She has long-term experience in arts and cultural organisations. Prior to her current role, she was the CEO of Regional Arts NSW. Previous positions have been with the City of Sydney, the National Trust of Australia (NSW) and the Historic Houses Trust of NSW. She is currently a member of the state government’s Museum Advisory Committee; a member and former chair of Arts Training NSW; and a recent member of the Arts Advisory Council advising the NSW Premier on the arts. She has written extensively on architecture, design and museum issues.