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AGPN, as host of the 2012 Conference, has been working with an international advisory committee in identifying high-calibre keynote speakers for this year's event. As the biographies illustrate below, the speaker's are international leaders and innovators in their respective fields, bringing with them a wealth of knowledge and experience in health care network development, utilisation and effectiveness for the benefit of global population health.
Additional speaker biographies will be added as they are confirmed.
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UK & Europe
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Professor Jan De Maeseneer 
Professor Jan De Maeseneer is the current Chair of the European Forum for Primary Care, the Secretary General of the Network: Towards Unity for Health (TUFH), Head of the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care, Ghent University, Belgium (a WHO Primary Health Care Collaborating Centre), and Promoter of the Primafamed Network for the optimisation of family medicine training in eastern and southern Africa.
A qualified General Practitioner, he has been working part-time as a family physician in a community health centre in the city of Ghent, Belgium since 1978. Receiving his PhD in 1989, Jan has gone on to receive the "WONCA-award for excellence in health care: the Five-Star Doctor", and a "Doctor Honoris Causa" degree at the Universidad Mayor de San Simon in Cochabamba (Bolivia). He is the author of more than 120 scientific publications, eighty of which have been published in international peer-reviewed journals. From 2006 to 2008, Prof. De Maeseneer was a member of the Knowledge Network on "Health Systems" for the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, and is a member of the Scientific Committee for the Renewal of Primary Health Care at the WHO, Geneva.
See interviews with Jan here.
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Dr Judith Smith 
Dr Judith Smith is an experienced and widely published health services researcher and policy analyst. Before joining the Nuffield Trust in February 2009, Judith spent 14 years working at the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham where she was Senior Lecturer and Director of Research, and Academic Director of the NHS Management Training Scheme. Prior to that, she spent eight years as a senior manager in the NHS.
At the Nuffield Trust, she leads a team whose research focuses on the development and effectiveness of commissioning in the NHS, the quest for better integrated care, the role and potential of physician organisations, and the search for health system efficiency in the economic downturn.
See interviews with Judith here.
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Dr Johhny Marshall
Dr Marshall has been a GP in Buckinghamshire since 1992. Having previously served as Treasurer to National Association of Primary Care, Johnny served as Chairman from September 2008 to December 2011.
His practice was a first wave PMS pilot and works in ever closer collaboration with two other practices as the Westongrove PMS Partnership. Johnny has undertaken various roles within the NHS Buckinghamshire and is currently chair of United Commissioning, one of the Buckinghamshire pathfinder Clinical Commissioning Groups.
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USA & Canada
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Mr Hal Wolf 
Hal Wolf is Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of The Permanente Federation, which represents the national interests of the regional Permanente Medical Groups, which employ approximately 16,000 physicians across Kaiser Permanente.
Hal is responsible for the development and implementation of the Federation's strategic priorities and is the key liaison between Kaiser Permanente Information Technology and the Federation for the development of technical strategies. He also works with international health systems in end-to-end process evaluations, IT data design, and care delivery application enhancement.
Prior to joining the Federation, Hal served as vice president of medical group operations and health plan regional information officer at Kaiser Permanente of Colorado. Previously, he served as chief information officer for eBusiness, corporate services, and wholesale at Qwest Communications/USWest, and in business management positions with Time Warner Communications and MTV Networks.
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Dr Mark Boutros
Mark Boutros is a social strategy globalist with an academic background in public health, international affairs and education. Mark is an expert on communicating issues related to health promotion and disease prevention. He brings his scientific training, research methodologies, and international perspective to the private sector providing strategic and content guidance to organizations and companies. His expertise in behavior change communication and corporate responsibility programs helps companies translate their pro-social initiatives into memorable and successful campaigns. Mark’s extensive international contacts within the public, private and non-governmental sectors allow him to form creative and lasting partnerships that help brands build platforms that leverage their content strategies and assets competitively and productively.
Most recently, Mark worked with Interbrand to help them establish their global Corporate Citizenship practice. At Interbrand, he worked with major global corporations in defining and developing their pro-social and environmental business and branding strategies. Before Interbrand, Mark consulted with the Gates Foundation and PATH assisting them to build a knowledge framework for malaria prevention in sub-Saharan Africa. His work helped establish a communication network among public health practitioners within national Ministries of Health across the continent.
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Dr Brian Evoy 
Dr Brian Evoy leads the Divisions of Family Practice initiative in British Columbia Canada. He has more than 15 years’ experience in health care and health service delivery. A key area of specialty has been community, partner and physician engagement to build regional, local and provincial strategies and programs. Through well-designed consultation processes, Brian enables and facilitates partnerships with a range of organizations and objectives. Network theory, community development, collaboration and consensus building factor heavily in his approach.
Brian’s clinical experience as a social worker includes work with various community and youth services organisations in Vancouver and Ottawa. He holds a Bachelor and Masters in Social Work and a Doctor of Philosophy focused on ethical decision-making.
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Asia & Western Pacific
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Dr Jason Cheah 
Dr Cheah is current CEO of the National Agency for Integrated Care (AIC), Singapore. He possesses a medical degree from the National University of Singapore which he received in 1991. After completing the requisite clinical training and residency postings in general internal medicine, Dr Cheah successfully completed his traineeship in Public Health Medicine in 1998 and obtained his Masters of Medicine in Public Health (with Distinction). He concurrently also completed his Masters in Health Care Management from Wales University (Swansea) and a MBA from Warwick University. In 2001, he was awarded the Fellowship of the Academy of Medicine (FAM) of Singapore.
Dr Cheah worked previously in the Ministry of Health Singapore for 8 years, dealing with a variety of health policy and planning, health regulation and accreditation issues, and spent a number of years working in senior management roles in the private acute care sector. He remains active in teaching in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine in the Yong Loo Lin (YLL) School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He also teaches post-graduate and advanced diploma students in the Nanyang Polytechnic School of Health Sciences and the Ngee Ann Polytechnic School of Nursing. He has published widely in numerous local and international peer reviewed journals on a variety of topics ranging from casemix management to clinical pathways, case management, chronic disease management, integrated care and health services research.
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Australia & New Zealand
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Professor Helen Keleher 
Professor Helen Keleher is a public health social scientist who is Head of the Department of Health Social Science, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University. She is the Current President of the Public Health Association of Australia and holds a Joint Chair in Health Equity with Inner South Community Health Service.
Her research interests are in primary and community health, the social determinants of health and inequity, building capacity for public health, population health and health promotion in health services/systems and policy, and women's health. Helen's first career was in nursing and her PhD topic was a social history of public health nursing in Australia.
Helen is course convenor of the Honours degree of Bachelor of Health Science. She is editor and author of several books on the determinants of health, health promotion and health systems, and dozens of journal articles and book chapters. From 1998-2005 she was National Convenor of the Australian Women's Health Network and was convenor of the 4th and 5th Australian Women's Health Conferences in 2001 and 2005. From 2005-8 she was a member of the Women and Gender Equity Knowledge Network of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health.
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Professor Philip Davies
Philip Davies was appointed as Professor of Health Systems and Policy in the School of Population Health at the University of Queensland in 2009. Prior to taking up his current position he worked for 6½ years as a Deputy Secretary in the Australian (Federal) Government Department of Health and Ageing where he was responsible for several key areas of health policy and financing as well as corporate management of the Department.
From November 2009 to June 2011 Professor Davies served as a Director of GPpartners, one of Australia’s largest and longest-established Divisions of General Practice. He was subsequently selected to join the Board of Partners4Health Limited which operates the Metro North Brisbane Medicare Local, one of the 19 ‘first-wave’ Medicare Locals established with effect from 1 July 2011.
Professor Davies has undertaken numerous consultancy assignments for AusAID and the World Health Organisation in areas such as human resources for health and development of national health plans.
In a health sector career spanning more than 30 years Professor Davies has also been a Deputy Director-General in the New Zealand Ministry of Health, a Senior Health Economist with the World Health Organization in Geneva and spent 14 years as a specialist health care management consultant with Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) in the UK and New Zealand. He became a Partner in the New Zealand firm in 1995.
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Ms Melissa Sweet
Melissa Sweet is a multi-award winning Australian freelance journalist and author. Formerly employed by The Sydney Morning Herald, The Bulletin magazine and Australian Associated Press, she specialises in writing about health and medical issues.
Melissa was awarded the National Press Club John Douglas Pringle Award in 2003, involving a travelling fellowship to the UK to research quality and safety in health care in England.
Since then she has been a freelance journalist, with a regular column in the Adelaide Independent Weekly until 2005, and adjunct senior lecturer positions at the University of Sydney and University of Notre Dame.
Melissa currently runs the popular health blog Croakey, for Australian online outlet Crikey, and contributes to Australian Rural Doctor, Australian Doctor, Australian Worker, the British Medical Journal, The Medical Journal of Australia, Australian Prescriber, Australian Nursing Journal and other professional publications.
In 2008, she was awarded the Obesity Society Media Award.
Melissa is one of the founders of YouComm News, an Australian open-source community journalism project which began in 2010.
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Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite
Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite is Foundation Director, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Director, Centre for Clinical
Governance Research and Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Australia. His research examines the changing nature of health systems, particularly patient safety, leadership and management, the structure and culture of organisations and their network characteristics, attracting funding of more than AUD$36 million, chiefly from researcher-initiated National Health and Medical Research Council and Australian Research Council grants.
Jeffrey has long been interested in the culture and structure of health services, and the use of strategic management techniques to enhance health care. Most recently his research interests have centred on the social structure of clinical services, particularly in terms of quality and safety, the interests and concerns of clinician managers and time constraints and other influences on health sector managerial performance.
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Mr Mick Gooda
Mick Gooda is a descendent of the Gangulu people of central Queensland. He is a senior executive with 25 years experience and a record of attaining high-level goals and leading multi-million dollar service programs and organisational reform. Mick has extensive knowledge of the diversity of circumstance and cultural nuances of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples throughout Australia. He has been actively involved in advocacy in Indigenous affairs throughout Australia and has delivered strategic and sustainable results in remote, rural and urban environments. Mick has played a leadership role in a range of areas including: Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and Senior Consultant to the Aboriginal Legal Service (WA).
He is highly experienced in policy and program development in the public and community sectors. Mick is also currently a Board Member of the Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health Queensland, and is the Australian representative on the International Indigenous Council which focuses on healing and addictions. He also has an interest in the Lateral Violence Program in Canada and has been working closely with the First Nation people of Canada on the relevance of this program to Australia.
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Ms Fiona Thomson 
Fiona is the current CEO of General Practice New Zealand (GPNZ) and has a background in management accounting, financial services and information systems. Industries she has worked in include financial planning, pulp and timber, meat processing, local government and primary health care.
Fiona was managing regulatory systems within local government in Rotorua in 1999 when her GP talked her into developing an information platform for the newly formed Rotorua General Practice Group (RGPG). She went on to become the CEO of RGPG prior to joining GPNZ. Fiona is a proud advocate of NZ primary care networks and attributes their success to a combination of strong clinical leadership, patient focus and professional management.
The application of Information Systems within clinical practice remains a passion of Fiona’s and she is an active sponsor and participant within the Patients First Programme (quality and information programme for primary care).
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Dr Bev O'Keefe
Dr Bev O'Keefe is current Chair of General Practice New Zealand. Earlier in her career Bev was a partner in a three-doctor urban general practice in Rotorua from 1980 until 2009. This was interspersed with a year in general practice in rural British Columbia, Canada in 1987-88.
During her time in Rotorua she was very active in local general practice organisational activity and was chair of the Rotorua General Practice Group IPA from 2001 to 2004. She was responsible for founding multidisciplinary general practice clinics within local secondary schools, some of the first such clinics in New Zealand.
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Dr Emil Djakic
Dr Djakic is current Chair of the Australian General Practice Network, and a general practitioner working in the north west region of Tasmania. A graduate of the University of Tasmania, Emil has shown his commitment to general practice over the past ten years, working as a full-time GP, practice principal and owner.
At the state level, he has served on the Board of the Tasmian General Practice Divisions for three years and was the Board representative on the Information Technology/Information Management Systems Sub-Committee.
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Ms Feyi Akindoyeni – Conference Facilitator – Kreab & Gavin Anderson
Feyi has over 15 years experience as a leading corporate strategist with expertise in public affairs, market and social research, and marketing strategy specialising in the health, education, IT and social media sectors. Over the last three years as head of Kreab Gavin Anderson’s Canberra office, Feyi has worked closely with some of the most senior Ministers in the Federal Cabinet and is highly regarded at the adviser level.
Since joining Kreab Gavin Anderson in 2006, Feyi has worked with clients including, the Commonwealth Department of Health & Ageing, Australian General Practice Network, St Lukes Care, Aged and Community Services Australia, the Pharmacy Guild, Medicines Australia, Google and Apple.
Prior to joining KGA, Feyi worked as an external consultant on milestone campaigns for Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (AFAO) and ACON, NSW Department of Health, Commonwealth, NSW and Victorian Education Departments and a number of major universities.
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