Board of Directors
The Board comprises 5 Directors who bring to the Board relevant experience and skills, including sector and business knowledge, financial management and corporate governance experience.
Board of Directors
John Murphy
John brings over 25 years’ experience in the accounting profession with Arthur Andersen & Co specialising in insolvency, turnarounds and reconstructions. He held management positions in the Sydney, Australian, Asia Pacific and Global practices.
Since 1999 John has been the founder and Managing Director of various private equity funds including Investec, Wentworth Private Equity Limited and Adexum Capital Limited.
He was a director of Investec Bank Australia Limited from 2004 to 2012 where he was a member of the Audit, Remuneration and Investment Committees. Investec had assets in Australia of more than $5 billion.
John brings extensive public company experience over the last 20 years, being a Non-executive Director of Southcorp Limited, Specialty Fashion Group Limited, Vocus Communications Limited, Ariadne Limited, Gale Pacific Limited, Redflex Limited, Kids Campus Limited, Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, and Vita Group Limited.
Will Creedon
840 Hunter Street, Newcastle, NSW 2300
+61 2 4047 9987
[email protected]
With over 30 years of entrepreneurial hospitality and tourism sector experience, William Creedon has successfully operated multiple styles of vacation and leisure businesses across the globe.
Born and bred in Ireland, William settled in Australia over 20 years ago and was immediately recruited by the Roche Group to develop and operate the Harrigan’s Irish Pub portfolio. Following this success, William’s next major project for the Roche Group was to assist in the development and operation of the leisure district known as Hunter Valley Gardens (HVG). As General Manager of HVG, William was responsible for integrating the southern hemisphere’s largest commercial attraction garden into numerous associated hospitality businesses.
Over the course of the past decade, William established a number of successful iconic hospitality venues, and was instrumental in attracting large events to the Hunter region of NSW. William is the former Chairman of Hunter Tourism and currently serves on the Business NSW – Tourism Industry Council.
Christopher Sneddon
Christopher is a Chartered Accountant who co-founded Maxim Advisors in 1997. Maxim Advisors is an accounting and advisory firm based in Newcastle. Chris is also a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Over the last 25 years Christopher has delivered strategic advice to a multitude of SME’s in a broad range of industries, and also served as a Director of Newcastle Permanent Building Society between 2006 and 2010.
Karen Howard
Karen brings over 40 collective years’ expertise as a respected businessperson, leader, Non-Executive Director and Board Chair. Recognised as a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Karen has for over two decades served on Not-for-profit, charity, State and Federal Government boards in NSW and the ACT, and across the business advocacy, professional services, health and education sectors.
Matthew Keen
Matthew has over 20 years of broad-based commercial experience across the engineering, finance and corporate sectors and is currently employed as the Chief Investment Officer of Fitzpatrick Group, sharing responsibility for the day to day running of its investment portfolio.
Previously Matthew held roles including General Manager of Corporate Development at Whitehaven Coal, Managing Director of MHM Metals and Queen Street Capital, Wealth Advisor at UBS and General Manager of Switchgear and Instrumentation Hong Kong. During his career Matthew has been heavily involved in M&A activities both inhouse and as an external advisor as well as facilitating and setting corporate strategy for listed companies Whitehaven Coal and MHM Metals. Matthew is currently a Non-Executive Director of publicly unlisted Ronin Resources Ltd.
