Chief Executive Officer

Dr Sonja Hood has been our CEO since 2015.

In that time, she has focused on building a funding coalition of national, state and local governments as well as garnering philanthropy and business to continually grow the network across Australia.

Sonja is passionate about enabling women through building community connection. She leads national partnerships with schools, government, corporates and philanthropy to provide assistance to improve social cohesion and build stronger communities across Australia.

Sonja has over 20 years of social policy and program experience in the US, UK and Australia. She holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, and a Master’s degree from Penn State University.

She was appointed as President of North Melbourne Football Club in February 2022.  

Head of Operations

Bec Kotow is our Head of Operations.

Bec’s focus is to make sure the National Community Hubs Program has the systems and tools that it needs to run well now and into the future. Part of this has been the development of an online community for our network of hub leaders and support agencies so that they can collaborate and share best practice with one another.

Bec has a background in marketing, consulting and corporate responsibility and brings more than 20 years of leadership experience from the likes of NAB, Australia Post, MYOB and Telstra. Bec holds a Bachelor of Business in Marketing and Human Resource Management from the University of Southern Queensland.

Head of Program

Hiranthi Perera is our Head of Program.

Since 2017, Hiranthi has supported hubs to expand the breadth of programs and services offered nationally by creating opportunities for networking and sharing knowledge, skills and experience among the hub network.

Hiranthi has over 10 years of experience in the community development sector. She holds a Masters of Business Administration from RMIT University.

Reporting and Analytics Manager

Maurice Syber is our Reporting and Analytics Manager.

Program Manager

Julianne Gardiner is our Program Manager. 

Jules (as she prefers to be called) joined the CHA team in 2023 as Program Manager, to support the network of community hubs across Australia.

Jules has worked in the not-for-profit sector for more than 18 years, and has a background in teaching English as a second language. Jules holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Linguistics from Macquarie University.

Program Officer

Data Analyst

Nathan Carter is our Data Analyst.

Nathan joined the team in 2023 to make sure the data we collect from community hubs is clean and something we can play back to our funders in a meaningful way. Nathan also supports our network of hub leaders and support coordinators with any day-to-day data requests they have.

Nathan’s background lies in software development, data analytics and electronic engineering. He holds a Bachelor of Computer Science from Swinburne University of Technology.