Xavier Board

Xavier College is an incorporated entity with a Board that is responsible for the local governance and management of the school. It is the legal entity that conducts the College and is the employer of all the staff at the school.

The announcement of the change to the College governance structure was signalled by the Provincial in October 2017. The correspondence of Fr Brian McCoy SJ can be found in this PDF.

The Chair and the Directors of the Board are appointed by Jesuit Education Australia (JEA) taking into account nominations from the Chair of the Board and / or the Provincial. The Board is a non- representative body made up of Directors with an appropriate range of skills, experience and expertise including the ability to understand and competently deal with current and emerging issues in connection with Jesuit education. The Principal and the Rector are not members of the Board but report to the Board and attend all its meetings. They have the ability to speak at meetings but not vote on any decisions.

The Committees of the Board as follows:

  • Finance & Audit
  • Child Safety & Risk
  • Sustainability, Planning & Building
  • Technology & Communications
  • Educational Performance & Professional Growth
  • Nominations

Further information regarding the Board and JEA can be found here.

To read the Xavier College Ltd Constitution, follow the link.

Mr Tony Nunan (Chair)

Mr Tony Nunan (Chair)

B.Sc., B.Pharm FPS Director (XCL Board)

Mr Tony Nunan is a Melbourne based retired pharmacist, having previously owned a number of city and provincial community pharmacies. In 1998 and 1999, Tony was elected National President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) and was a member of the National Council of the PSA for 10 years. He has been a Director and Chairman of the Board of the Australian Medicines Handbook. Until early 2011 he was a director of the Monash University Victorian College of Pharmacy Foundation. He was previously a member of the Federal Government’s Expert Committee on Complementary Medicines in the Health System and was a founding board member of the National Asthma Council. He is also currently Chairman of several private company boards including RedZed, a leading lender in the Australian mortgage market. Tony and his wife, Genny, have had 4 sons graduate from  Xavier and currently have 5 grandsons at the College.

Mr Tim Dring

Mr Tim Dring

B.Com, CA Director (XCL Board)

Tim is a qualified Chartered Accountant with over 25 years experience in professional services having commenced his career at Price Waterhouse in 1994 and in 1997 joined Ernst & Young. He was admitted as a Partner of Ernst & Young in 2005. In that time he has worked across a number of countries and industries including North America, UK and Asia.
He is currently a Partner in Ernst & Young’s Melbourne office and is the industry leader of Ernst & Young’s Banking and Capital Markets sector for Oceania and also a member of the Melbourne Office leadership team.

He is highly experienced in dealing with Boards and management of listed ASX and unlisted Australian companies and highly regulated entities and has over 24 years’ experience in auditing and advising very large financial institutions, credit unions and non-bank financial institutions. His experience in the financial services sector includes specialising in retail banking, reviewing business processes, responsible lending obligations and internal control frameworks, financial markets and treasury operations, credit risk, due diligence, consumer remediation, securitisation and regulatory and prudential reporting.

Ms Geraldine Farrell

Ms Geraldine Farrell

B.Sc., LLB, LLM, MCorporateGvnce, GAICD, FGIA, FCIS Director (XCL Board)

An experienced non-executive director and senior executive, with a background in corporate governance, IP and commercial law, Gerry is ’s current directorships include the also a director of Hawthorn Football Club’s Foundation and a member of the Federal Government’s R&D Tax Incentive Committee. and a private biotechnology company developing cancer therapies. Prior to joining the Xavier Board in 2020, she had experience in the tertiary education sector, having served as a member of She was also on the Council of Swinburne University of Technology for almost 12 years.

Gerry’s current executive role is as General Counsel, Corporate, for Orica Limited. She previously held senior executive roles in an ASX-listed medicinal cannabis company and in a NASDAQ-listed biotechnology company. Before her executive roles, Gerry worked for almost two decades as a commercial & IP lawyer at several large Australian law firms.

Gerry has a Bachelor of Science, a Bachelor of Laws and a Masters of Law from Monash University, and a Masters of Corporate Governance from Swinburne University. She is also a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia.

Gerry has a current son at the College and her oldest son graduated in 2020.

Fr Eka Tanaya SJ

Fr Eka Tanaya SJ

B. Comm, Grad Dip. Fin., Grad Dip. Ed., MTS, Th. M. Director (XCL Board)

Fr Eka is a deputy principal at the new Jesuit-companion school in New Zealand, St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic College. He previously taught at St. Ignatius' College, Adelaide and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Melbourne. He has also worked as Assistant Parish Priest in Adelaide; and as a pastoral minister and a spiritual director throughout his Jesuit training.

Before joining the Jesuits, Fr Eka spent over a decade working in the commercial sector across the Indo-Pacific region, focussing on international sales and marketing, mergers and acquisitions, and project management. He graduated from universities in Australia and the United States. He is currently completing a master’s degree in educational leadership part-time.

Fr Michael Ryan SJ (OX 1965)

Fr Michael Ryan SJ (OX 1965)

B.A., B.Theol Director (XCL Board)

For the majority of his years as a Jesuit, Fr Michael's ministry has been in the Society's educational apostolate, though the last ten years have seen Michael's appointment to two of our Centres of Ignatian Spirituality.

After 12 years as a student at Xavier College, Michael entered the Jesuit novitiate. Subsequent tertiary studies saw him complete his B.A., B.Theol, and an educational administration degree after Tertianship.

He was appointed headmaster of St Ignatius College, Adelaide in 1986. He returned to his place of regency appointment, St Aloysius College, in 1994 as Rector. Appointment to a similar position at Xavier College came in 2001. In 2010, Michael was given a sabbatical spending most of it in Ignatian formation for adults. This led to ministry in our retreat houses in Sydney, Sevenhill and Melbourne.

At various times Fr Michael has been a member of four of our Jesuit schools.

Ms Lilian Topic

Ms Lilian Topic

BA (Hons), LLM Director (XCL Board)

Lilian oversees the work of the Legislative Council Standing Committees Office at the Parliament of Victoria. She also manages the Environment and Planning Committee’s inquiries on subjects ranging from climate resilience, to flood events, and planning matters.

She has worked on developing policy and legislation on a diverse range of issues such as infrastructure, end of life choices, child protection, homelessness, youth offending and public health and has worked extensively on rural and regional affairs. Prior to the Parliament she worked as a Senior Adviser in the Cabinet Office, Department of Premier and Cabinet Melbourne and as a researcher, lecturer and tutor at the University of Melbourne. Lilian holds a Master of Laws and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne. Her absolute passion is to ensure that legislation and policy is based on evidence, reflects the lived experience of the community and promotes the cause of justice.

Lilian’s Board work has focussed on the every expanding field of risk and compliance.

Mr Mark LoGiudice

Mr Mark LoGiudice

Director (XCL Board)

Mark LoGiudice has been in the property industry since 1986 and is the owner and Managing Director of Crawfords Group, a family owned investment company established in 1966.

Crawfords Group is involved in the investment and development of residential, commercial, industrial and retail property along the eastern seaboard of Australia and USA.

Further to his property interests, Mark has been a Director of Premier Fresh Australia since 2006, a national farming, marketing and logistics company which supplies fresh fruit and vegetables worldwide. Mark is also a Director of Assembled, a group of specialist agencies that delivers marketing and communication outcomes for its clients.

In February 2010, Mark joined the Carlton Football Club Board and was later appointed President in June 2014. He retired at the conclusion of the 2021 season.

Outside of his corporate activities, Mark is a long-standing member of RCH 1000, which actively raises funds for research at the Royal Children's Hospital.

Mark lives in Melbourne with his wife Eli and their sons Sebastian (OX2014), Marcus (OX2017) and Anthony (OX2020).

Penelope Lewin

Penelope Lewin

B. Eng, MEI; Director

Penelope Lewin is a successful tech executive having worked across startups and established firms across USA, Australia and the greater Asia region. Pen also is an experienced non-executive director, currently serving as director on a speech therapy tech start-up and previously on charitable funds, volunteer and peak body organisations.  

Pen currently works as Senior Director of Sales with Microsoft; with responsibilities of bringing new businesses to established and emerging markets across the Asia Timezone. Over her 20 plus years at Microsoft she has held many varied senior leadership positions across the organisation covering different technology and operations divisions including Microsoft 365, Cyber Security, Enterprise Contracts, Head of Enterprise Operations, Marketing and Digital & organisational Transformation.

She is a member of the Institute of Engineers and outside of work is an Angel investor in Australian Female Founded Start-ups through Scale Investors. Her impact beyond work has included being a mentor and coach for start-ups, coaching her boys’ basketball teams and volunteering with Habitat for Humanity to build 100 homes for those in need in Biratnagar Nepal.

Pen currently has one son at the college and two older sons who graduated in 2019 and 2020.

Gerard Dalton

Gerard Dalton

B.Comm; LLB (Hons); LLM Director (XCL Board)

Gerard Dalton KC is a senior barrister with over 20 years’ experience specialising in commercial law.  He graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1994 with a Bachelor of Law (Hons) and a Bachelor of Commerce.  He completed a Masters of Law at the University of Melbourne in 2002.

He became a barrister in 1998 and was appointed senior counsel in 2015.  He specialises in complex litigation across a range of law areas, including contracts, corporations, trade practices, property, construction, insurance, and intellectual property.  He has extensive experience advising public and private corporations and their boards in diverse industries.

Gerard lives in Melbourne with his wife, Sarah, and their four children.  Their youngest boy is a student at the college and their eldest son finished in 2020.  

KathleenDonnellon

Kathleen Donnellon

BA, LLB (Hons), Director (XCL Board)

Kathleen is a lawyer, non-executive director and board chair.  

Currently, Kathleen holds director roles with Presentation Association Limited and with the Diocese of Ballarat Catholic Education Limited (DOBCEL).  She has previously been director and Board Chair of Star of the Sea College, Brighton and Mercy Works Limited.  Mercy Works is an international and domestic aid and development organisation of the Sisters of Mercy in Australia and Papua New Guinea.  She was the inaugural Board Chair of Wellness in Infrastructure Limited - a company established by tier one contractors to address issues of poor mental health in the Australian construction/infrastructure industry.  She remains a Member of that company.  

Kathleen has extensive experience working with various Catholic congregations and organisations in relation to mission and governance.  Her book, Deep Governance Matters - the world of community, service and mission, was published in 2023.

Kathleen has worked in private practice, lectured at the University of Melbourne Law School and is a qualified mediator.

Kathleen’s husband and their two sons are alumni of Xavier College.
 

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