EAPAA Executive

Margaret Reid
CEO
Margaret Reid
CEO
Margaret Reid Pty Limited was founded in 1977. Margaret's company organises conferences and trade exhibitions both locally and internationally, providing administrative support, the coordination of suppliers, venues, speakers' programs, online registrations, caterers, accommodation and travel advice. Additionally, she handles all the logistics related to staging trade exhibitions or special events worldwide. The company’s repeat business comes from the strong relationships between them and Margaret Reid's long term client base and their multi-year contracts.
Earlier years Margaret spent several years in Nth America working in diverse areas such as Advertising (Canada), Project Hope Medical Ship, Australian Embassy, and The World Bank/International Monetary Bank in Washington D.C..
Margaret is also the CEO of the Employee Assistance Professional Association of Australasia. EAPAA is the Peak Australasian Body representing provider and user members that supply Employee Assistant Programs in the workplace. (EAP) is a work-based intervention program designed to enhance the emotional, mental and general psychological well-being of all employees and includes services for immediate family members.

Lana Schwartz
President
Lana Schwartz
President
Currently working with a diverse client base for Converge International providing Employee Assistance programs, training and consultancy, Lana is able to apply her previous experience in effective relationship and account management. With over 12 years’ experience in developing and delivering individual and organisational wide strategies, Lana is committed to understanding how organisations stay healthy and maintain high level performance. Lana’s areas of expertise and research include: mental health in the workplace, building resilient people and organisations, human behaviour risk management and developing high functioning teams.
Lana has extensive experience managing relationships for workplace heath programs in national and international clients. She partners with organisations to develop and build innovative programs that allow the organisations to improve their well-being and enhance performance. With a background in Sport and Performance Psychology she loves motivating and challenging others to succeed to their potential. Lana was an executive member of EAPAA for two years before taking over the President role, and has been President since August 2019. She has overseen numerous EAPAA events, research projects and more, leading to continued recognition of EAPAA as a reliable third party regulator of the EAP industry.

Julie Cressey
Treasurer and New Zealand representative
Julie Cressey
Treasurer and New Zealand representative
As a passionate advocate for Mental Wellbeing I am proud to lead the Benestar Team in making a difference on a daily basis to the lives of the people and organisations we assist in New Zealand. Benestar is the Catalonian word for "Wellness" which is the essence of our business. We champion the unlimited potential of good health and the clear link to great performance.

April Jones
Executive Member, Clinical Expert and Public Speaking Master
April Jones
Executive Member, Clinical Expert and Public Speaking Master
With over 20 years’ clinical experience as a psychologist, April has worked in a number of leadership roles to grow and develop businesses within the corporate mental health sector. A strong advocate for best-practice service delivery, April’s current role includes responsibility for the clinical quality of the Assure’s clinical staff as well as responsibility for the framework, clinical governance and delivery of EAP services and related products. April’s extensive experience includes delivering counselling, coaching, organisational workshops and psycho-educational sessions, leadership briefings, critical incident support and pro-active mental health solutions.
April’s passion and strengths are in developing and fostering strong and genuine relationships underpinned by integrity and loyalty, these focal points aligning with her core value that “people matter”. Supporting the Assure team through a commitment to continuous professional development, innovation and the use of evidence based interventions, April leads a team renowned for delivering excellent outcomes to clients and organisations alike. Similarly, April’s strong understanding of the first-hand challenges of leaders and organisations and her participation across industry bodies have provided her with a clinically informed, balanced and commercial perspective valued by leaders looking for strategies that can increase productivity and engagement of their people.
As part of the APM Group, April works collaboratively with the extended business leadership team to form partnerships and synergies further benefiting Assure’s customer portfolio.

Melita Griffin
Secretary
Melita Griffin
Secretary
Melita Griffin is the Director Customer Relationships at AccessEAP and Director for Newport & Wildman. Located in Tasmania, Melita is passionate about nurturing great customer relationships. With over 20 years of management experience in the for-purpose sector working throughout Australia and New Zealand in mental health, wellbeing, health, the arts and medical research. Melita holds a BA in Public Relations with a major in Journalism, a Diploma of Management, Cert IV in Governance and Business, Mental Health First Aid Certificate and is Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Trained.
Melita is an experienced and successful businesswoman and has been recognised as an outstanding relationship builder, being awarded the 2013 Tasmanian Telstra Young Businesswomen's Award and the 2014 Fundraising Institute of Australia's Young Fundraiser of the Year Award. These two awards recognised her dedication, commitment, and passion for working and volunteering in the for-purpose sector.
Prior to AccessEAP, Melita worked at Lifeline Tasmania overseeing communications, marketing, media, fundraising and events and played a leadership role in the establishment of A Tasmanian Lifeline. During this time Melita has developed a deep insight into the mental health and challenges for the Tasmanian community.

Katie Milne
NSW Representative and Marketing & Engagement Specialist
Katie Milne
NSW Representative and Marketing & Engagement Specialist
Katie is currently Head of Sales & Marketing at Veretis Group, focused on delivering exceptional mental health services at affordable rates. With a background in psychology and marketing, she has been overseeing Veretis’ growth and expansion as an organisation and has a deep understanding of the nuances of the industry.
Katie graduated from UNSW with a Bachelor of Psychological Science and Marketing. She worked in marketing for hospitality organisations for 3 years prior to joining the mental health industry, and has experience in partnerships, business development, content creation and distribution and data analysis.
She is the current NSW Representative and Marketing and Engagement Specialist for EAPAA. Katie has been on the executive committee since September 2020, and in the first 6 months saw a 40% increase in Linkedin engagement. She is excited to be involved in the mental health industry on a different level, and see EAPAA continue to solidify their position as the regulatory body for all Employee Assistance Professionals across Australia and New Zealand.

John McManus
Ethics Advisor
John McManus
Ethics Advisor
John is a Partner and Senior Psychologist in Mind & Matter Consulting which is a consulting firm involved in the provision of a range of psychological services to organisations and to the broader community. The services to the community include individual counselling and therapy, assessment, group therapy and training. The range of services to organisations includes provision of Employee Assistance Programs, coaching and consulting.
He is the past President of EAPAA which is the peak body for EAP professionals in Australia and New Zealand. EAPAA is dedicated to the support of all parties involved in the provision of high quality, ethical, employee assistance services. John earned his PhD from the University of Queensland. His thesis focused on the psychoanalytic study of organisations and established that psychological interventions do provide significant health benefits to employees and their families.
In his career as a Psychologist he has worked in schools, colleges and hospitals. John specialises in consulting to a wide range of organisations, assessment and measurement, research, mediation and conflict resolution, couple counselling, substance abuse, coaching and supervision whilst remaining committed to an ongoing diverse therapeutic caseload. His way of working is regularly described as open and participative.
EAPAA Conference
30-31 October 2023
Sydney Hilton Hotel
ADDRESS
Chief Executive Officer, EAPAA
2/88 Victoria ave Chatswood 2067
CALL
Phone: 61 (0)2-9882-2688