A&NZ Bupa Awards Nominees 2017

A&NZ 

Celebration 

Dinner 

30 June 2017

INTRODUCTION | BUPA AWARDS 2017 

Since I started my role earlier this year, I am 

continuously impressed by the extraordinary 

people we have across Australia and New 

Zealand. The passion demonstrated every day 

to deliver fantastic outcomes for our customers, 

residents and patients is inspiring. 

Today is a special event which allows us 

to celebrate these extraordinary efforts by 

honouring our Bupa Awards nominees and 

people who have achieved a significant service 

milestone in 2017. Every day each of you 

positively shape Bupa with your contributions 

and along with the Executive Team, I would like 

to thank you for everything that you do. 

Congratulations to all of you. 

Richard Bowden 

CEO, Australia & NZ 

“Congratulations to all of you.” 

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NOMINEES | EVERYDAY HERO 

NOMINEES 

Nicholas Beazley 

‘Everyday Hero’ 

Award 

Bupa people living our values every day 

Bupa Aged Care Australia 

Christopher Pegg 

Early this year, Queensland and Northern NSW experienced 

severe flooding which resulted in a lot of devastation for local 

communities. Our New Farm Aged Care home in Brisbane was in 

a high-risk area and during this time it was crucial to the residents’ 

safety that the home was prepared for the heavy rainfall. Living 

nearby, New Farms Maintenance Officer Chris Pegg also had to 

ensure his own home was protected. Staying up to the early hours 

of the morning sandbagging and assisting neighbours, Chris then 

began his journey to New Farm to do the same. On his way to 

work Chris came across a car accident due to the rain. A young 

lady was trapped inside her car and thanks to Chris smashing 

through her window she was freed. Fortunately, she had no 

serious injuries. 

When Chris arrived at New Farm he tirelessly spent the day 

securing the home to ensure the safety of the residents and 

staff. Chris has always been extremely dedicated to the residents 

and staff of New Farm but these potentially devastating events 

illustrated what a truly inspirational person Chris is. 


Johan Brentson 

Johan Brentson has been working at Bupa Woodville Care home 

for more than 20 years in various roles. She is currently a lifestyle 

officer and physiotherapist assistant. 

It will come as no surprise that staff look upon Johan as a mother 

figure who positively promotes a fantastic team environment. 

During Johan’s extensive career, she has contributed significantly 

to improving the lives of Bupa Woodville residents. 

From laughter yoga to implementing initiatives to reduce resident 

falls, Johan continuously enriches the lives of residents in many 

ways. By establishing a walking group, the local community 

residents now feel part of the community. 

In addition to this, Johan has also been key to implementing a 

range of employee initiatives through digital transformation, and 

embedding the Bupa Values within the home. 

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Aileen Sarkiss 

Keeping our Bupa Bexley Care Home clean and tidy doesn’t 

begin to describe the impact Aileen Sarkiss has within the home. 

Travelling a long distance every day to begin her shift, Aileen 

always arrives with a massive smile. The residents look forward to 

seeing Aileen, who always makes them laugh and puts a smile on 

their faces while ensuring they have everything they need. 

Knowing each of the residents, Aileen always goes above and 

beyond by making decorations for special occasions and cooking 

traditional dishes for residents and staff to try (her saffron and 

pistachio ice cream is a must). Aileen’s care and attention even 

extends to the resident’s families and visitors. If you have been to 

the Bupa Bexley Care Home you have most likely been treated to 

a cuppa made by Aileen. 

In her personal time, Aileen continues to positively impact our 

residents by knitting gifts for them and volunteering to help at 

events. Frequently receiving BupaThanks cards from residents, 

relatives and team members shows the amazing effect Aileen has 

within the Bupa Bexley Care Home. 

Bupa New Zealand 

Jerson Lat 

Jerson Lat’s culinary skills are renowned. Among his many internal 

and external accolades is the Bupa NZ Supreme Legend Award for 

2016. Beginning his Bupa career as a dishwasher, Jerson returned as 

a chef after finessing the art of fine dining and earning a distinction 

in the London Guilds Chef Qualification. Missing the relationships 

he built in residential care (“It’s like cooking the best for your own 

family!”), Jerson re-joined the Harborview team. 

Since then, residents have been delighted to experience Jerson’s 

culinary creations as he caters to their tastes and preferences, 

seeing the satisfaction rating for food increased by an impressive 68 

percent!! While making this improvement, Jerson still manages to 

keep costs under control, making Harbourview among the top two 

percent for Bupa New Zealand for cost effectiveness. 

Jerson has grown the kitchen team at Harbourview which enables 

him to travel to other sites and share his knowledge. Working 

alongside other cooks, Jerson helps them to achieve better quality, 

control and success in their kitchens. 

6 

Corporate Affairs 

Liz Anderson 

For almost six years Liz Anderson has gone above 

and beyond to help create a place our people love 

to work. Working in communications for both Aged 

Care and Health Insurance, and now an Organisational 

Development Consultant for Aged Care, Liz has 

consistently created a positive change throughout the 

business. Her passion to make a difference to the lives of 

our residents is always evident and infectious. 

As an advocate for the Person First approach to care, Liz 

supports our managers and people to feel empowered 

and fulfilled by the impact they are having on their 

residents’ lives. Liz is always focused on building the 

capability of our leaders and managers, and ensures their 

voice is represented throughout the business. 

Beginning her communications career at Bupa almost 

six years ago, it was her dream to support our Aged Care 

business to make a difference to the lives of our residents. 

Her passion and commitment to Bupa is extraordinary, 

but it’s how Liz goes about her work and the way she 

lives the Bupa values and our purpose that makes her an 

everyday hero. 

Acutely aware of the day-to-day priorities for our care 

homes, she ensures the way we interact with the leaders 

in our homes is considered. With all business initiatives, 

most recently Workday, Liz makes sure the Aged Care 

team is always supported and communicated to in the 

way they need. 

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Marketing 

Natalie Gooding 

Alex Mitsopoulos 

We know one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to our 

customers. To help reach some of our customers better, 

Natalie Gooding and Alex Mitsopoulos have pioneered 

our presence on WeChat to help Bupa connect with 

Mandarin-speaking customers. WeChat is a social 

media platform that features instant messaging, voice 

and video calls, games, photo and video sharing, and 

e-commerce functionality. It is incredibly popular 

amongst Mandarin speaking people in Australia and all 

over the world. 

Natalie and Alex have overcome every legal hurdle 

and mitigated all risks under incredible time pressure, 

by working closely with relevant teams to ensure that 

Bupa remains compliant while securing a competitive 

edge as the only health insurer in Australia on WeChat. 

This means we are the only health insurer to connect 

directly in Mandarin with our new and prospective 

customers. 

In the next decade, we anticipate Chinese visitors 

will account for 43% of Australia’s arrival growth. Like 

most expats, our Mandarin speaking customers crave 

familiarity and often turn to their WeChat community 

for advice, local knowledge and guidance. Thanks to 

Natalie and Alex, Bupa is now in prime position to 

provide support to this customer segment. 

Health Experience 

Lisa Minchin 

When people think of Lisa Minchin the first words 

they share are ‘passionate’ and ‘authentic’. Since 

joining Bupa in 2013, Lisa has embraced and 

positively contributed to the culture within the 

Health Experience team and beyond. In her role 

as Executive Assistant to Paul Bates, Chief Medical 

Officer, Lisa is always available to help. However, her 

contribution to Bupa far exceeds the requirements of 

this role. 

Lisa is an exceptional example of someone who 

lives the Bupa values every day. She comes to work 

every day with energy, passion and commitment to 

Bupa, who we are and what we do. Always willing to 

help, she often takes on additional responsibilities in 

order to support other people in the team and the 

business more broadly. 

Lisa’s efficiency, organisation and her helpful nature 

makes her invaluable to the performance of the 

Health Experience team. She is extraordinarily 

responsive to people’s needs and frequently called 

upon to help team members navigate Bupa systems 

and processes. 

Perhaps even more important, although less 

tangible, is Lisa’s contribution to the smooth 

operations and wellbeing of the Health Experience 

team. She is outstanding at making people feel 

welcome, she greets everyone with a smile and 

ensures all people in the team feel included. Lisa 

makes everyone her concern and regularly checks in 

with people to see how they are going, making an 

extra effort to include people in social activities that 

support team morale and wellbeing. 

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NOMINEES | PEOPLE MANAGER OF THE YEAR 

NOMINEES 

People Manager 

of the Year 

Award 

Role models the Bupa values in all they say and do 

Delivers great performance through their team 

Builds amazing relationships and always 

encourages people to reach their potential, 

supports their development and promotes a positive 

working environment where each member of the 

team can be at their best 

Communicates well and supports their team 

through change 

10 


Stacey Hood 

Supporting innovative ideas and being there for your people is an 

important part of being a leader and Stacey Hood does just that. 

Since becoming the manager of Redroofs Care Home in Dunedin, 

both residents and staff have responded to Stacey’s outstanding 

leadership. The overall satisfaction of residents has risen from 77% 

to 100% in 2016, with NPS at a score of +45 and eNPS of +25. 

Premium room revenue has increased by 33% over the past 

two years and Redroofs Care Home has had the highest overall 

score for mystery shopping for the Southern region with a 

phenomenal 96% in 2016. The team at Redroofs loves the positive 

culture Stacey has created in which people feel they can be their 

authentic self and truly love coming to work. Embracing her 

innovative ideas, Stacey has been able to streamline systems and 

processes to gain efficiencies for staff and residents. 

Stacey has a unique ability to balance the demands of a busy 

home while also being available to provide support to staff when 

they are experiencing personal difficulties - something which her 

team has hugely appreciated. 


Melinda Hardy 

Melinda Hardy started at Bupa Waratah Care home in 2015 as a 

Care Manager and quickly was appointed to the role of General 

Manager where she hasn’t failed to impress. The team at Bupa 

Waratah has been inspired by Melinda’s approachable and 

supportive nature, balanced with an ability to get things done. This 

shift in staff morale has also been reflected in the home’s eNPS 

which has risen from +13 to +55. 

Shortly after beginning her role, the accreditation of the Care 

Home took place. An extremely important time for the team, 

Melinda’s professionalism carried the team through the process 

and gave them confidence that the home would achieve a 

positive outcome. Melinda and the team’s hard work paid off 

seeing Bupa Waratah accredited for another three years. 

Melinda has devoted her time to making positive changes which 

have seen positive impacts on the team, residents and families. 

The team at Bupa Waratah are looking forward to seeing their 

home continue to grow under Melinda’s leadership. 

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Vinney Joseph 

Vinney Joseph joined the Bupa Echuca team in 

March 2015 as a Registered Nurse. Since then, Vinney 

has shared his outstanding clinical skills and warm, 

generous personality within the care home, which saw 

him promoted to Clinical Manager in August 2016. 

In the Bupa Model of Care, the Clinical Manager is 

responsible for the clinical leadership within the 

home to support the residents to live longer, healthier, 

happier lives. This is something that Vinney is extremely 

passionate about and always goes above and beyond to 

provide outstanding results. 

Through his excellent communication skills, Vinney 

demonstrates knowledge and understanding of the 

needs of each resident in consultation with their 

families, their GPs and other relevant participants, 

facilitating resident choices and decision making 

where possible. His advanced capability enables him to 

evaluate complex healthcare needs of residents from 

entry through to palliative care, ensuring that residents’ 

preferences are respected. 

To continue to provide the best care possible to 

residents, Vinney is always seeking ways to enhance his 

skills and those of the clinical team at Bupa Echuca. 

Recently Vinney conducted a full assessment of the 

entire clinical team to understand where he can 

provide educational opportunities to ensure the team 

skill base is aligned with the care needs and preferences 

of our residents. 

Vinney is extremely dedicated to his team and is 

always available to provide caring support, which has 

established a warm and trusting environment for his 

team to flourish. 

Finance & Strategy 

John Rizzo 

John Rizzo is described by his team as someone who is “tough 

on deadlines and outcomes, yet manages to find time to 

discover the human being hiding in every employee”. Everyone 

that works with John describes him as an inspiring leader who 

enables his team to succeed to the best of their ability. 

This year through John’s continuous guidance, drive and 

encouragement, Edward Scott secured an exclusive partnership 

deal with Nest Private Maternity to deliver Australia’s first nogap 

private maternity experience. This is a significant result for 

Bupa as customers were not seeing value in Bupa’s maternity 

proposition, and thus choosing the public system. 

As a people leader, John demonstrates the importance of 

investing in each individual to build a high-performing team. 

He takes the time to work with each team member to provide 

feedback on their areas for improvement. 

Empowering his team is key to John’s leadership. Rather than 

himself, he ensures his team represents their own work to senior 

stakeholders, enabling them to flourish. 

Not only has John provided stellar support to his team, he 

has also guided certain team members through some truly 

challenging personal times, which has allowed them to return 

to health and to work with confidence. 

People Team 

Jess Conradie 

Jess Conradie exemplifies the Bupa Values, creating an open and 

authentic culture within her team. Jess’s authentic leadership 

allows her team to have honest conversations about what they 

are feeling. Promoting a culture of collaboration, Jess inspires 

peers and team members throughout the recruitment team. 

Supporting innovation to enhance efficiencies, Jess challenges her 

team to bring a fresh outlook to how things are traditionally done. 

Jess is passionate about building a place where all people love 

to work and she channels this through her contributions to key 

initiatives within the People Team. 

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Health Insurance 

Sisi Dong 

Beginning her Bupa career as a Sales and Service Consultant in 

2013, Sisi Dong has showcased her astute business and analytical 

outlook in her role. In 2015, Sisi took on people leadership for the 

first time when she began the role of 2IC in our Swanston St Store. 

In this role Sisi cultivated her leadership skills, appreciating the 

value of people and the importance of engagement to deliver on 

outcomes. 

In 2016, Sisi took on the role of Store Manager at the newly-built 

Box Hill Store. Implementing skills she obtained in the Customer 

Growth Future Leaders program, her true leadership capability 

began to shine. Not only producing exceptional business results, 

Sisi created a culture of support, trust and connectivity that is 

focused on delivering the ultimate customer experience. By 

inspiring her people to think beyond limitations and create their 

own legacies, the team became the number one performing store 

nationally (percentage to target) within Customer Growth. Each 

team member successfully achieved over $1 million in revenue. 

Sisi’s people, customer and business focus is exceptional 

and she continues to demonstrate her phenomenal drive and 

passion in 2017. 

Health Services 

Tamarin Noble 

Tamarin Noble, Senior Area Manager, leads more than 40% of our 

Bupa Dental business in Australia. With such a vast responsibility, 

Tamarin understands the importance of connecting with her 

people, the broader Bupa Dental network and A&NZ businesses. 

Tamarin’s positive, professional and personable attitude inspires 

her peers and team, giving our dental practices a sense of 

security knowing that she has their best interests at the forefront. 

Embracing change, Tamarin enables her people to adapt to any 

environment that presents itself. 

Understanding the importance of being One Bupa, Tamarin has 

worked closely with the One Bupa Cross Referral Program team to 

bring the program to life across more than 10 Bupa Dental Clinics. 

This has seen over 200 referrals into the Health Insurance business 

and a huge volume of referrals into our Bupa Dental business. 


Emma McMullan 

Emma McMullan is an extraordinarily passionate role model 

not only to her direct reports but to the wider Bupa community. 

Her consistent everyday examples of how to act professionally, 

particularly under pressure, while ensuring a safe working 

environment for the delivery of astonishing results, undertaken 

with a kind heart, never ceases to amaze all. 

Emma always encourages others to reach their potential, 

supports their development and promotes a positive working 

environment. She partners closely with her direct reports to 

continually assess opportunities for individuals at all levels and 

team growth, actively supporting courageous decisions. With 

a 2016 eNPS of +100, it is clear that Emma’s team mirrors her 

leadership. 

Having a strong understanding of BMVS both operationally 

and strategically, Emma constantly seeks to drive efficiencies by 

championing initiatives and business improvements. Through 

this, Emma empowers her people to grow within their roles. 


Sharon McLaren 

When Sharon McLaren took on the role to lead the Brisbane 

Contact Centre Team, the team were disengaged with poor 

morale. After receiving her first eNPS score in this role, Sharon 

used the commentary to drive open feedback and change. 

Sharon has not only listened to what her people say, but she 

acknowledges their questions and concerns. For example, there 

was often a view that there were limited career opportunities in 

Brisbane, and that they were the poor cousins of the Melbourne 

team. Sharon has worked hard to turn around those perceptions - 

highlighting success and championing her people every day. 

Sharon’s results have steadily improved throughout 2016 and early 

2017. Her eNPS result has exceeded expectations and continues 

to grow each quarter. In the Q2 survey in 2016, Brisbane had an 

overall rating of +16. This increased to +44 in Q3, and is now at an 

all-time high of +57. 

Sharon’s honest and supportive feedback brings out the best in 

her team. 

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NOMINEES | A TRUE CUSTOMER CHAMPION IN HEALTH AND CARE 

NOMINEES 

A True Customer 

Champion in 

Health and Care 

Delivering outstanding, personalised 

customer experiences 

Delivering value for money, providing exceptional care 

Advocating for our customer’s health and wellbeing by 

promoting healthy lifestyles and workplaces 

Taking a leading position on good quality, medicallyevidenced 

treatment and care, and aligning provider 

interests with those of our customers to create shared value 


Claire Baker 

Beth McDougall 

Creating a Dementia-Inclusive Business 

Becoming a dementia-inclusive business that acts as the 

catalyst in creating a New Zealand that is truly dementiafriendly, 

Bupa New Zealand hopes to help people living 

with the stigma of this condition. 

Within one year Beth and Claire have worked with people 

throughout the business and community to achieve a 

series of firsts. 

1. Establishing a partnership with Rotorua Lakes Council 

has resulted in the creation of a dementia-friendly 

Rotorua steering group. 

2. Launching ‘Dementia Commitment’, an online 

dementia awareness course that allows users to learn 

what dementia is and how they can help build a 

dementia-friendly community. Among other topics, 

it explains how you can reduce your risk of dementia 

through a healthy lifestyle. The course is available for 

free to other organisations’ employees and the public, 

after 41% of New Zealanders said they want employers 

to do more to help them stay healthy as they get older. 

3. Bupa NZ receiving a dementia-friendly award for the 

Bupa Fergusson Retirement Village – the first officially 

recognised dementia-friendly retirement village in NZ. 

4. Partnering with Dovetale Press to produce a series 

of adapted classic books for people with cognitive 

impairment including dementia. With large font, 

shortened chapters and summarised story lines, the 

series are the first of its kind in New Zealand. 

Focusing on gathering and applying data, 

particularly outcome data 

• A trusted partner, helping our customers to 

navigate their health and care needs. 

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Health Experience 

Judith Ngai 

Ornella Care 

Emma Green 

Francesca Meijer 

mummatters 

With over 300,000 births in Australia each year, it may 

come as a surprise that as many as one in every ten 

women experiences depression during pregnancy, and 

one in seven experience it postnatally. 

Research supported by the Bupa Health Foundation 

found that over 50% of cases of perinatal (during and 

after pregnancy) depression are missed in primary 

healthcare settings if there is no routine screen in place. 

Women in the private sector are also less likely to be 

screened during pregnancy. 

In response to this, the Health Experience team created 

a digital tool, mummatters, to support women who are 

pregnant or recently had a baby (up to one year after 

birth) to help reduce the impact of perinatal depression 

on them, their children and families. 

To date half of the users have either been found to have 

symptoms or risk factors of depression. Some evidence 

shows that the tool is helping change behaviour, with 

36% of category one users (the highest risk category, 

who report current symptoms of depression) reporting 

they visited a health professional due to prompting by 

mummatters. More than two thirds of respondents of a 

voluntary feedback survey say they would recommend 

mummatters to a pregnant friend. 


Christine Pollicino 

Donna Shotton 

Rachael Droy 

Palliative Care program 

According to the Grattan Institute, in the next 25 years 

the number of Australians who die each year will 

double. In Australia 70 per cent of people want to die 

at home, yet only about 14 per cent do so. Considering 

how best to improve end-of-life care to give people 

dignity, respect and choice is extremely important. 

The Health & Benefits management team set out to 

ensure the delivery of quality, specialist palliative care 

services that better meet Bupa’s customers’ expressed 

preference of care pathway and location of treatment 

delivery. This sustains meaningful quality of life and 

supports family and carers. 

Commencing in August 2016, Bupa and St Vincent’s 

Private Hospital Brisbane initiated a two-year pilot 

program called the Bupa Palliative Care Choices 

program to deliver an innovative model of homebased 

palliative care that improves end-of-life care 

and offers greater choice. 

The program aims to improve access to highlyspecialised 

and comprehensive palliative care services 

so people can die at home, if that is their choice. This 

program represents a Queensland first where the 

private sector has collaborated to deliver this model of 

home-based palliative care. 

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Susannah Throsby 

Bupa Medical Chatswood’s Senior Administrator, 

Susannah Throsby, is a true customer champion 

in health and care. Susannah began working as a 

receptionist at Bupa Medical’s George St. clinic when it 

first opened in 2014. 

From day one, Susannah’s exceptional customer service 

skills have contributed to the growth and retention of our 

customer base and have been a significant contributor to 

our maintenance of an overall average NPS of +44. 

The reception staff of a medical clinic are the first point 

of contact for patients where they are provided with 

advice and support, both over the phone and in person. 

They are the face of our business and the customer 

experience that they provide is essential to the success 

and reputation of the clinic. Susannah consistently 

displays genuine empathy and care for our customers 

and is blessed with a natural ability to make them feel 

safe, comfortable and heard. Susannah has accepted 

responsibility for ensuring the customer’s voice is 

heard in every team meeting by leading the regular 

fortnightly discussion on our customer satisfaction survey 

results. Her attention to our customer feedback has 

allowed us to gain a rich and ongoing understanding 

of our customer pain points and opportunities for 

improvement. 

Legal 

Moana Weir 

Sean Wroe 

Stan Goldstein 

Karin Calderisi 

Brodie Restall 

Jonathan Rose 

Matthew Stopford 

Dwayne Crombie 

Andrew Ashcroft 

Rebecca Cross 

Ali Madden 

Pre-Existing Conditions 

During an internal review, Bupa identified that certain health 

insurance customer claims from January 2011 through to May 

2016 had been rejected by company claims assessors without 

review by a Bupa-appointed doctor. Medical review of pre-existing 

conditions (PEC) is required as part of this process. 

Given the seriousness of the matter, the risk of customer concern 

and reputational damage to Bupa was high. A decision was made 

to take a proactive, ‘customer-first’ communications approach to 

managing this issue by announcing it publicly and issuing a formal 

apology to our members. Demonstrating that we self-reported, 

apologised and put measures in place to fix the situation on behalf 

of our customers gave us the best possible chance of managing 

the issue, protecting our reputation and avoiding regulatory action. 

The response included developing a set of actions to address the 

situation such as appointing a new team of doctors to review all 

7,740 rejected PEC customer claims from the relevant period and 

writing to all potentially affected customers to advise that their 

cases were being reviewed. Where cases were incorrectly assessed, 

customers were appropriately reimbursed. 

This was an excellent cross-functional approach to solving a 

problem for our customers and the organisation which involved 

Legal, Health Insurance and Corporate Affairs. 

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NOMINEES | DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT 

NOMINEES 

Digital 

Transformation and 

Continuous Improvement 

Human-Centred design – always starting with the 

customer and delivering solutions to meet their needs 

Focusing on how processes can be made simpler, and 

capturing and using data to drive improvements 

Driving a cultural shift in customer focus, pace, continuous 

improvement and connectivity across Bupa 


Deborah Witheford & 

Sandy Turnwald 

Transforming medication management 

Medication errors are one of the most common causes 

of unintended harm or potential harm to our residents. 

To minimise errors in our care homes, an electronic 

medication management (EMM) was piloted in Bupa 

NZ. The challenge was to eliminate time-consuming 

manual processes, reduce errors, improve efficiency 

and enable greater coordination between the multidisciplinary 

team. 

From 2013 to 2015, Bupa NZ supported the 

development of an EMM solution in one of our care 

homes. 

By the end of 2015 the Bupa NZ Executive Team agreed 

to commit to the rollout of an EMM platform to all our 

63 care homes in 2016. All care homes have reported 

a significant reduction in the time taken to complete 

medication ‘rounds’. This is because the dashboard only 

presents the administrator with profiles of residents 

who have medications due. The administrator does not 

have to check every single chart during every round, 

and the system alerts the user to any medications 

missed. An hour saved is an extra hour for resident 

care. The rates of medication incidents and significant 

medication incidents have decreased nationally. 

Building powerful partnerships with leading companies 

in the digital space to drive innovation and digital 

experiences 

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Daryl Niemandt 

Jimmy Tzimopolous 

Transforming customer experience 

in a digital age 

With ageing technology, the Bupa Service Contact 

Centre was not well-placed to meet the growing 

expectations of our customers. Together with IS, 

the Customer Service team partnered with leading 

companies to deliver a program of work to stay 

relevant in the marketplace. This has included turning 

on social media and webchat as new channels and 

digitising the management of work across both front 

and back office, through the removal of paper and the 

use of the IWD Genesys routing tool. 

The team has seen 400 process improvements 

resulting in an eNPS increase from +15 in 2016 to 

+51 in Q1 2017. The team has also seen a significant 

reduction in attrition from 72% in 2014 to 25% in 2016. 

The customer outcomes have also been significant. 

Customers offered webchat during online claims 

submissions have a 90% satisfaction rating. 

Average speed to answer (ASA) in the Contact Centre 

has reduced from an average of 92 seconds in 2015, to 

44 seconds in 2016 and is currently 34 seconds for 2017 

YTD. The improvement was most noticeable during 

the rate peak, where the team achieved an ASA of 

35 seconds during March 2017, as compared to 200 

seconds in March 2015. This was delivered with 12 less 

FTE whilst maintaining best practice occupancy levels. 

Information Services 

Brent Crump 

Jonathon Silver 

Boris Dimitrov 

Heath Dunkley 

Vera Maria 

& the A&NZ Service Desk Team 

IS Service Desk transformation 

In Australia & New Zealand, we have operated separate 

IS service desks for different business units for several 

years, using different incident management systems and 

different teams. Over 2016 the team has progressively 

integrated the different service desks and systems to 

create a more efficient, flexible and high-performing 

market unit-wide service desk. This has resulted in a 

customer satisfaction rating of 98%. 

The team works with passion and care to process 

approximately 80,000 requests and incidents per 

annum to keep their colleagues up and running. The 

team resolves an impressive industry-leading 75% of all 

these cases within team before escalating remaining 

cases to other areas. In addition, since the new team 

was established, they have improved each year in every 

measured category for effectiveness and satisfaction while 

seeing significant growth in demand over that period. 

The A&NZ Service Desk is a leading example of 

continuous service improvement, with strong team 

leadership directly delivering extraordinary service to our 

colleagues daily which enables Bupa to provide even 

better service to our customers. 

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Marketing 

Nicole Flinton 

Katarina Mucic 

Adam LaSpina 

Shiva Boinala 

Alyce Elia 

Natalie Gray 

Emmanuel Karaminas 

Sergio Carnevale 

Juliana YimChris 

Tristram Martin 

Patrick O’Shannessy 

Customer Engagement 

Our legacy customer engagement capabilities were 

restricting how we target and interact with customers on a 

personal level through our content and communications. In 

2015 the Marketing team embarked on a pilot designed to 

test how Marketing Automation could benefit our business 

and our customers by delivering triggered communications 

with relevant, personalised and contextual information at 

the right time via the right channel. With the success of 

this pilot, in 2016 the Customer Engagement team went 

above and beyond to deliver on the ambition to enable 

the delivery of personalised experiences through triggered 

communications and present contextually relevant content 

across channels. 

This resulted in the implementation of our strategic future 

state communication platform, Adobe Campaign, using 

customers’ extras usage in the context of their limits to 

personalise the Cover Check-Up campaign and using 

product level detail to personalise, meaning customers 

receive information that relates to their specific level of 

cover and how they’ve been using their cover. 

Transformation 

Michael Polis 

Guneet Sawhney 

George Mihailides 

Jeff Fairbanks 

Ian Pearce 

Ben Szonyi 

Narelle Howard 

Karen Mulraney 

Sonja Ruddock 

Richard Allen 

Michael Monaghan 

Steve Curley 

Jimmy Kralevski 

David Jenkins 

Kevin Keane 

Kain Nunn 

Hisham El-Ansary 

Sami Yalavac 

Naomi Attwood 

Connecting our people, processes and 

systems across Bupa A&NZ to enable 

functions and business units 

The Functional Transformation Program kicked off in January 

2016 with the goal of transforming our enabling functions, 

with a focus on connecting our people, processes and systems 

across Bupa A&NZ. Given the goal of the program, the team 

knew collaboration would be critical. With this in mind, team 

members were recruited based on their mindset first and 

foremost – people who truly lived the Bupa Values and focused 

on delivering tangible outcomes for our people and customers. 

The team delivered a huge range of successful outcomes such 

as delivering $5.6M in bottom line savings and a further $6.4M 

cost avoidance by renegotiating contracts across Bupa A&NZ for 

the same or similar services. Reducing A&NZ vendors by 29% 

and implementing key procurement controls across Health 

Insurance / Health Services (excl. Dental Corp) and Functions 

such as “No Purchase Order No Pay” policy and closing out 

outstanding APRA audit items (procurement stream). The team 

also migrated the Bupa Aged Care Australia (BACA) General 

Ledger from a standalone system (Epicor) onto PeopleSoft with 

no major issues and launched an online expense management 

for BACA (ExpenseMe) to make it easier for BACA leaders to 

submit expenses and create better visibility and controls around 

spending (Single View of Finance stream). They connected our 

15,000 “unwired” employees across A&NZ to Bupa emails for the 

first time rolled out Service Now (online IS Helpdesk ticketing 

system) to BACA, Dental Corp and NZ so all A&NZ are now 

connected and integrated. 

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NOMINEES | PEOPLE LOVE WORKING AT BUPA 

NOMINEES 

People Love 

Working at Bupa 

Finding ways to provide the right tools, training, 

information, reward and recognition so that our 

people love working at Bupa 

Great leaders and managers who engage and 

empower our people to deliver for our customers 

Our people working together giving and receiving 

ideas and solutions 

Our people are healthier because they work at Bupa 

Our people embodying and advocating for Bupa’s 

brand promise and purpose. 


Deborah Witheford & 

Sandy Turnwald 

Shining a light on aged care work 

in New Zealand 

Literature supports an historical perception of aged 

care nursing as being a haven for those hoping to be 

professionally invisible - narrow in skill and lacking ambition 

– a perception in part perpetuated by an ageist culture. In 

reality, the opposite is true. 

Aged care nursing requires strong clinical leadership 

without immediate medical support, as well as the ability 

to manage complex needs and multiple comorbidities to 

bring balance to clinical and quality outcomes. 

To attract and retain high calibre nurses to a growing sector, 

Bupa looked at four key areas with the intent to shine a 

light on aged care nursing by building a benchmark for 

excellence: 

1. The 2015-2018 Nursing Strategy 

2. The Clinical Manager Framework published in 2016 

outlines the key roles and tasks of the Clinical Manager 

(CM) as never before. 

3. The Mastering Clinical Leadership (MCL) Program was 

developed with a pilot group in 2016 and is being rolled 

out to the five remaining cohorts, with the first cohort 

graduating in March 2017. The program emphasises skills 

required to lead oneself, lead the clinical team, and work 

in partnership with the care home manager to lift clinical 

practice. 

4.The Registered Nurse Framework is the next area of 

focus. The intention is to cascade the benefits of the CM 

framework by better describing the role of the registered 

nurse in the context of aged care, as never before. 

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29




Stewart Ballard 

Diane Dyka 

Natalie Previtera 

Vivienne Stokes 

BupaThanks 

#BupaThanks is Bupa Aged Care Australia (BACA)’s 

new Reward & Recognition program. BupaThanks 

enables peers, managers and residents, including 

their families, to nominate an employee for Reward & 

Recognition via the use of a BupaThanks Card. Each 

nomination briefly explains how the individual has 

demonstrated the Bupa Values and/or delivered the 

Bupa Promise. 

#BupaThanks replaced Personal Best and the Night 

of Legends Reward and Recognition program at 

BACA. After hearing from our people through the 

Global People Survey (GPS), national focus groups and 

General Manager surveys, BupaThanks was created. 

In our Care Homes, cards are hand-written and put 

into specially-designed heart-shaped containers with 

the cards distributed to staff members regularly. In 

the Corporate Office, staff can complete the cards 

electronically and send them to the staff member 

directly. Every month, both the Care Home and 

Corporate Office leadership teams review all the 

#BupaThanks Cards that were received for their 

respective Care Homes or Corporate Office teams. 

Leaders then decide which of the nominees would 

receive a High Five up to $50 in value. 

Finance & Strategy 

Kevin Keane 

Rachael West 

Diana Black 

Adelaide Office Relocation Team 

The Adelaide Office Relocation project provided a 

unique opportunity to achieve an improvement in the 

working environment for our people. It also provided 

an opportunity to advance the overall health and 

wellbeing of our people. 

The design and build of the new workspace has 

provided great spaces (new meeting spaces, wellness 

zone, collaborative café space) as well as a refreshed 

open office environment. The sit-to-stand desks have 

given everyone the opportunity to be less sedentary 

and this has been particularly appreciated by those 

teams who are focused on customer service activity 

and very much ‘tied to their workpoint’ due to the 

nature of their work. The relocation occurred over a 

weekend and went tremendously smoothly, with all 

our people able to work as normal on the Monday 

morning, with minimal disruption. 

Post-relocation, the Customer Service eNPS score 

rose 27 points, from +20 to +47 and with feedback 

indicating a new work environment was a major 

contributor to this. 

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Sarah Cox 

Boost 

Beginning with Customer Growth, Boost has been 

adopted by Customer Experience, Strategy & 

Transformation, Corporate & International, Information 

Services and Digital; seeing the total number of users 

reach 2,022. The reward and recognition platform 

has embedded the Bupa Values within the culture 

of these teams and has revolutionised how our 

people are rewarded. For the first time ever, customer 

feedback has a direct impact on how incentivised 

teams are rewarded! The platform is also available on 

mobile and streams to a social shareable feed, staying 

well ahead of the curve when it comes to digital 

integration. This means the social stream of Boost 

is always engaging, ever-updating and constantly 

reflecting the best of our people and culture. 

By giving users the flexibility to ‘Boost’ a colleague 

based on any of the seven Bupa values or four 

customer-led behaviours, it also enables our people 

to understand their own performance and recognise 

where there is room for improvement, or where they 

are excelling. 

In 2016, Boost was awarded the Best Recognition 

Program award, part of the Circle of Excellence 

Awards, held under the Incentive Marketing 

Association (IMA), the body representing companies 

who are global leaders in the $90 billion incentive 

industry. 

People 

Carol Corzo 

Alisha Mete 

Stella Tilkeridis 

Josephine Gusman 

Joseph Newton 

Leigh Sellers 

Reconciliation Employment 

At Bupa, we’re deeply committed to making a meaningful 

contribution to our communities and creating a diverse workplace 

which reflects our customer base, and where all of our people love 

to work. 

As part of this commitment, Bupa is focused on closing the gap on 

indigenous disadvantage by improving employment opportunities 

and creating career pathways for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders 

in health and care. In June 2016, Bupa’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait 

Islander Employment Strategy was launched as part of the overall 

inaugural Reconciliation Action Plan which articulated how our 

leaders and our people can all contribute to establishing pathways for 

Indigenous people to grow their career prospects with Bupa. 

In a relatively short period of time, the team has made significant 

inroads in establishing both key partnerships with Aboriginal and 

Torres Strait Islander organisations and building greater awareness of 

Indigenous peoples and customers. There have been many successes 

to date such as the launch of the highly successful Student Trainee 

Program with Maxima, which is now a national Customer Growth 

program. Bupa is the first health and care company to partner with 

Careertrackers as a 10x10 corporate partner. This is a 10-year partnership 

commitment by Bupa to support Indigenous interns at Bupa. We have 

grown from hosting two interns in 2015 to eleven in 2017. 

The team has developed programs to onboard, train and retain our 

interns and trainees so that they thrive and stay at Bupa through 

specifically developed programs including a two-day onboarding 

immersive program for interns and specific onboarding for trainees. 

The internship program has a retention rate of 100%. 

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Natalie McCormack 

Fleur Nicholson 

Rinisha Christian 

Julie Lundgren 

Ying Ci Ng 

Aditi Dashora 

Amane Dunne 

Areesha Ateeq 

Asraf Saraidin 

Christina Brown 

Deepa Vineet 

Divya Mathew 

Gabrielle Temperton 

Gemma O’Brien 

Joanne Y. Smith 

Kate Conro 

Lida Benney 

Matthew Mulroy 

Natalie Law 

Patricia Barraza 

Priscila Rojas 

Roslyn Mustoe 

Sally Vischi 

Sonya Laidley 

Sue Bateman-Cooke 

Swe Zin Aung 

Thin Thin Han 

Zakirin Yoonus 

Perth Bupa Medical Visa Services Team 

Focusing on building an environment where people love to work, 

the Perth BMVS team has invested significant time in providing 

innovative team-building activities with each one incorporating 

a Bupa Value focus. To date there have been over 10 team 

building activities organised in which staff have participated with 

enthusiasm, openness and a sense of humour. The activities have 

enabled the team members to build their understanding of each 

other and customers. 

Achieving their goal of building an open collaborative environment, 

the team saw their highest eNPS score of +42 in Q1 2017. 

The team has also experienced a low turnover rate and has a 

highly flexible part-time workforce who are willing to increase and 

decrease their hours readily to accommodate operational demand. 

This has meant the team is able to have good work/life balance. 

Customer demand in Perth has at times been challenging in a 

difficult socio-economic environment, but having such a flexible 

workforce has enabled the team to allocate resources and balance 

revenue effectively. 

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Transformation 

Suzy Nixon 

Kirsty Ritchie 

Unearthing customer-led behaviours 

in Health Insurance 

In order to embrace a truly customer-led culture 

that consistently puts the customer at the heart of 

everything we do, the Transformation team unearthed 

behaviours to help the Health Insurance team achieve 

this. The goal of the team was to understand what 

behaviours are present in an interaction between two 

Bupa colleagues, or between a Bupa team member 

and a customer when the experience of those 

involved is truly extraordinary. To observe this, 40 Bupa 

colleagues were trained in behavioural observation, 

then went out into the Bupa ‘field’ to observe these 

interactions. 

Through 280+ hours of observations in more than 

90 sites and systematic synthesis of the data, four 

customer-led behaviours were revealed as being 

present whenever extraordinary customer and/or 

people experiences were delivered: 

1. I put myself in the shoes of our customers. 

2. I listen and I guide. 

3. I act on my word. 

4. We work together and I enable you. 

These behaviours are now being embedded across 

Health Insurance with Customer Growth and Customer 

Service embedding the behaviours in their reward and 

recognition platforms, Boost and Shout Out. 

NOMINEES 

Strong and 

Sustainable 

Performance 

Strong and sustainable revenue 

and profit growth 

Strengthening our market position 

and customer offer 

Improving quality, efficiency, safety 

and compliance 

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NOMINEES | STRONG AND SUSTAINABLE PERFORMANCE 



Janet Lester 

Karry Durning 

Parkwood and St Nicolas move to 

Parkstone Care Home 

In 2011 Christchurch, New Zealand, suffered a severe 

earthquake resulting in a significant loss of lives 

and destruction in major parts of the city. Bupa NZ 

Parkwood Care Home was extensively damaged in the 

earthquake. Despite this, the Care Home remained 

open and our wonderful staff delivered exceptional 

care to our residents, their families and each other 

under extremely stressful circumstances. 

Following the earthquake, the decision was made 

to build a new Care Home in Christchurch, to be 

called Parkstone Care Home to replace the severely 

damaged site. The staff were excited about having a 

brand-new Care Home. 

When this home was built, an extraordinary project 

team took on the task to unite the residents and 

staff from Parkwood Care Home and St Nicolas Care 

Home under the new roof of Parkstone Care Home. 

The relocation was hugely successful seeing 76 happy 

residents move across to the new home within 48 

hours. 

. 


Adam Longshaw 

Andrew Ashcroft 

Fabio Tiani 

Karin Calderisi 

Exceptional performance in the face of 

affordability concerns and a declining market 

The increasing cost of healthcare in Australia is contributing 

to an affordability challenge that has the potential to 

threaten the sustainability of the health insurance industry 

by reducing participation in the under 35 age group. 

In 2016, Bupa Health Insurance faced these challenges and 

put in place multiple strategies to address these issues on 

behalf of Bupa customers. 

Initiatives included enhancing customer value propositions, 

negotiating improved terms and rates with hospitals and 

ancillary providers, introducing retention programs and 

delivering the lowest premium increase in five years: 

1. Enhancing customer value propositions through new 

services, product offerings and reduced out-of-pockets 

without sizeable premium increases 

2. Negotiating improved terms and rates with hospitals and 

ancillary providers, seeing 98% of inpatient hospital costs 

fully covered while increasing the usage of our contracted 

Ancillary providers to more than 50% of all services for 

the first time. 

3. The Customer Growth team focused on new ways 

to grow our customer base through the Bupa Cross- 

Referral Program, combined with the development 

of innovative partnerships with third parties such as 

Compare the Market and Velocity, that resulted in Bupa 

Health Insurance outperforming its competitors and 

shifting Bupa to the largest health fund in Australia across 

customers, policies, revenue and profit. 

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Bupa Optical 

Karen Makin 

Ovidiu Chiuariu 

Sue Cashen 

Ali Tyson 

Creation of a private labelling offering 

The Visual family of contact lenses was created in 

response to the need for a quality product at an 

affordable and competitive price, available only from 

Bupa Optical stores or Bupa online. The aim was to 

fill a gap in the Bupa Optical product portfolio, create 

a recurring revenue stream and improve profitability. 

The range delivered embodies the latest in contact 

lens technology, exceeds the optical requirements 

of more than 90% of lens wearers, and is exclusive to 

Bupa. 

The Australian contact lens market has a low 

penetration by global standards. Contact lenses 

account for 20+% of eyewear sales globally, but only 

6-7% in Australia. Bupa Optical outperforms the 

national average with contact lenses accounting for 

10-12% of eyewear sales. 

Visual contact lenses were launched with a campaign 

in October 2016. Within two months Visual had 

become the highest-selling contact lens for Bupa 

Optical, with sales continuing to strengthen. In 

November 2016, Visual accounted for 6.5% of contact 

lens sales and in March 2017 this figure has climbed to 

14.5%. It is forecast that by December 2017 Visual will 

account for 20% of contact lens sales. 

Bupa Dental 

Lucy Vadasz 

Wendy Fairhead 

Jo Kelton 

Health Services - Rollout of Bupa Dental 

In the first 12 months’ post-rebranding, Bupa Dental 

practices have achieved an average 33% increase in 

monthly revenue and an average 20% increase in monthly 

EBIT. On average, the practices that were rebranded had 

an increase of 95% in new patient numbers. The practices 

have been working closely with our Optical, GP and Health 

Insurance businesses to offer the benefit of One Bupa to 

our customer. 

The speed of delivery has been noteworthy with the 

building/rebranding of 28 Bupa Dental sites in 2016 

bringing the total in under two years to 37 Dental Clinics 

at the end of 2016. The rollout was greater than one per 

fortnight, comprising negotiations, build/fitout, practice 

engagement, employee change management, marketing, 

safety and compliance, as well as system/operational 

changes. 

Bupa Dental clinics are now open in QLD, SA, NSW, VIC and 

TAS, with plans to continue the geographic spread through 

the duration of 2017 and beyond. 

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EXCEPTIONAL YEARS OF SERVICE 

Name Team Years of Service 

Gordon Barrett Health Insurance 50 

Sally Debrowski Health Insurance 45 

Barbara Dixon People Team 40 

Maria Digiorgio Bupa Aged Care Australia 40 

Debra Thorpe Health Insurance 40 

Jo-anne Avenell Finance & Strategy 40 

Anthony Harkness Finance & Strategy 35 

Sandy Victor Finance & Strategy 35 

Mavis Hyndman Bupa Aged Care Australia 35 

Jennifer Wilke Health Insurance 35 

Janys Hill Health Insurance 35 

Denise Guy Bupa Aged Care Australia 35 

Richard Bowden Bupa 35 

Andrea Froehlingsdorf Bupa Aged Care Australia 35 

Anne Stevenson Health Insurance 35 

Judith Wood Bupa Aged Care Australia 35 

Warren Macleman Health Insurance 35 

Irene Mouranga Bupa New Zealand 30 

Rosalie De Guglielmo Health Insurance 30 

Ross Bryant Health Insurance 30 

Joy Willson Bupa Aged Care Australia 30 

Jane Kendall Health Insurance 30 

Barbara Merson Bupa Aged Care Australia 30 

Darinka Topic Health Insurance 30 

Delilah Roach Bupa Aged Care Australia 30 

Christina Hare Bupa New Zealand 30 

Susan Clark Bupa Aged Care Australia 30 

Norma Tejero Bupa Aged Care Australia 30 

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A&NZ Bupa Awards Nominees 2017

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