Ken Whelan

Ken Whelan has 40 years’ experience in the Health sector both in Australia and New Zealand for 18 of those years he has been a Chief Executive for a range of organisations from Regional Services to Major Quaternary teaching facilities. Ken has a Nursing background and is currently an Adjunct Professor University of Queensland, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Biomedical Sciences. He was also the Deputy Director General of Health Purchasing and Performance for NSW Health for three years Ken is a proven leader in the Health industry with a very strong values based approach.

He has often worked in organisations that have struggled with performance and culture and turned them into very high performing clinically engaged organisations. At Metro North which is a $2.7 Billion dollar Health service employing 18000 staff Ken provided: Leadership to re-engage staff, and transform Metro North, the largest health service in Queensland, into achieving or improving service agreement metrics whilst enhancing the quality of care patients expect. Despite ever increasing unfunded activity Metro North continues to operate with small surpluses and is an organisation which is deeply committed to the patient experience through ensuring patient flow across the care continuum whilst meeting all patient safety criteria.