© 2018 DESTRAVIS | Design. Strategy. Vision.

Team

Our people are key to your success

The Destravis difference is our people; each specialised in their industry of choice and highly experienced in delivering quality outcomes for clients.

Our team represents decades of specialisation, industry leadership and active knowledge sharing and development.

As specialists in the early phase of project delivery, we do not require a large, production-focused team of support staff to deliver our projects. Instead, our team are strategists, planners, and conceptual leaders who will guide clients and project teams to achieve quality outcomes.

Gunther DeGraeve

Managing Director

Health Lead

Gunther De Graeve is an international health strategist with a reputation for delivering quality solutions for the complex issues facing health service providers.

He is recognised as a thought-leader within the industry for his innovation in operational models and infrastructure solutions, his sustainable approach to planning and for his attention to detail; promoting and enabling flexibility and future trends.

Gunther is Managing Director of Destravis, the specialist consulting firm he founded to bring expert advice to clients in the health, higher education and research industries. Destravis brings a cross fertilisation of expert skills through a diverse in-house capability including service planning, health planning, master planning, cost management, business cases,  economic assessments and operational optimisation. 

Gunther delivers advice to health service providers – both public and private – designers, and financiers and policy makers including Health Ministers and senior members of government.

Gunther is a proactive member of the health facility community, participating and speaking at international conferences and study tours. He is the Chief Executive of the International Academy for Design and Health (Sweeden).  He values the translation of research and frequently engages in research studies which realise system improvements.

He actively promotes new achievements in the industry.  

Renae Whiteside - Director Business Management

Renae Whiteside

Director

Business Management

Renae has a degree in Business Management and a decade of experience writing strategic reports for the planning and design of health facilities.  

She has delivered countless project reports which convey complex and highly technical content in a structured, comprehensive and concise format. 

Her strength lies in her strategic insight into business and strategic planning and the impact that has on structuring communication towards  a targeted audience ranging from, ministerial reports, board approval to steering committee reports of project design reports.

She has a strong business acumen and ability to guide the implementation of business strategy. 

Renae brings a personable approach to client relationships, maintaining that client satisfaction is the ultimate measure of success.

Andy Foo

Associate Director

Andy is a self-motivated professional with over 20 years’ experience as a Quantity Surveyor in the construction and building industry. The combination of consulting experience and estimating for building contractors provides Andy a thorough understanding of complete project costing, market capability, trade breakdowns and elemental pricing.

Andy has strong technical and analytical skills which assist in the production of robust, accurate cost plans.  He also has a detailed working knowledge of CostX and @Risk software which are implemented for detailed measures and further accuracy of project cost plans.

 

Natalia Salgues

Facility Planner

Natalia has a passion for design, and strong interest in applying her skills to build healthy communities with rapid growth in healthcare and health care facilities.

She is experienced with multiple disciplines including architecture, interior design and urban design, preparing architectural documentation, modelling with Revit, illustrative drawings, graphics with Photoshop Illustrator and InDesign. She has over 7 years experience with Revit at presentation, documentation and detailing level, including modelling complex structures.

Her vast technical skills and previous experience in architectural practices, allows her to deliver accurate floor plans, test-fits, room data sheets and space utilisation data.

Her skills in design process, problem solving, work sharing, project collaboration, design development and documentation including construction detailing drawings allows her to understand shareholder needs.

Peter Choi

Senior Project Associate

Peter has diverse experience in architecture from concept design to construction of residential, multi-residential, high-rise and low-rise, sporting stadia, aquatic centres, funerary complexes, and tourism projects such as hotels, water theme parks, zoological parks, and corporate towers.

His collaborative working style, ability to appreciate what is important to clients, construction knowledge and his meticulous eye for detail adds value to every project he works on. Through his extensive experience, Peter has developed a strong sense of independence in establishing and managing project goals with professionalism. In each endeavour, he consistently delivers high- quality architectural services and offers viable solutions that meet the needs of the companies he collaborates with.

Peter is passionate about sustainable design that has a positive impact on the environment and the people that use the space. Peter’s expertise includes strong technical skills in Revit, AutoCad and other design software, Photoshop, Illustrator, MS offices and Bluebeam.

Eldene Ross

Senior Project Associate

Eldene has over eight years project management and process improvement experience within a wide variety of health-related fields.

His primary focus was working towards delivering efficiencies across business processes most recently within a Global Company, delivering health services with patient safety software solutions.

Eldene has extensive experience working as a clinician, strategic planner, quality and safety representative, and project manager focused on implementation of new IT systems and improving processes.

He has developed a diverse skill set including leading teams, strong project management skills, exceptional communication skills that have been honed to communicate with influence, managing procurement processes and vendors and the ability to apply the right tools and frameworks to support delivery of the best outcomes.

Samita Chatterjee

Senior Project Associate

Samita has 16 years’ experience working on Healthcare Projects of varying sizes and complexity in Australia and New Zealand. As an architect by profession, she has an in-depth understanding of building services engineering and architecture with proven skills in coordination.

Samita brings knowledge of clinical requirements including infection control, well-being of patient and staff in a healthcare environment, and impacts on design and construction. Her recent focus has been on mental health facility design.

She is passionate about working in healthcare projects and making positive contributions to the health and wellbeing of our larger community through her work. She has been involved in leadership roles in large healthcare design projects. She has strong communication skills with various stakeholders including clients and contractors.

Phil Plant - Associate Director

Phil Plant

Lead Strategic Cost Planner

Phil joined the Destravis team in 2015 having spent over 20 years as a Brisbane based Director of a renowned global quantity surveying company (Davis Langdon). He brings unrivalled knowledge, experience and benchmarking ability to clients with complex capital works projects.

Phil’s expertise embraces  the full spectrum of cost management services across the property and construction industries. This includes strategic cost advice for project masterplans and feasibilities, detailed cost planning, cost reviewing/auditing, technical advisory services and procurement strategy advice as well as value and risk management services on a diverse range of projects.

In particular, Phil has gained significant experience in the health care sector during his time in Brisbane where he has worked on many complex facilities for public, private and not-for-profit sector clients across the country. He has developed an exceptional understanding of the procedures and requirements for health projects and has accumulated extensive cost and area benchmark data on many types of facilities.

Many of the health projects Phil has worked on have included complex refurbishment components involving extensive staging requirements and he is thus very knowledgeable about the cost premiums associated with these types of projects.

Dr. John Holm

Senior Consultant

John brings a unique perspective to the space planning process, focusing on how people work and interact with each other as a basis for planning, specialising in the higher education and health sectors.

He is particularly interested in how to support multi-disciplinary teams who work across multiple locations, working on a wide variety of projects focused on teaching and learning, as well as research activities.

John draws on principles of Appreciative Inquiry and Complex Systems Thinking to develop strategies that enable the future strategic goals of an organisation, while ensuring their day to day operational requirements are not compromised. He brings a sociological approach to design problems, focusing on how to support communities of practice during time of change, be those changes in organisational structures, operation procedures or in the physical location; and frequently in all three simultaneously.

Eldene Ross

Senior Project Associate

Eldene has over eight years project management and process improvement experience within a wide variety of health-related fields.

His primary focus was working towards delivering efficiencies across business processes most recently within a Global Company, delivering health services with patient safety software solutions.

Eldene has extensive experience working as a clinician, strategic planner, quality and safety representative, and project manager focused on implementation of new IT systems and improving processes.

He has developed a diverse skill set including leading teams, strong project management skills, exceptional communication skills that have been honed to communicate with influence, managing procurement processes and vendors and the ability to apply the right tools and frameworks to support delivery of the best outcomes.

Georges Chedid

Design Director - Victoria

George has extensive experience in Architectural & Healthcare Design, Project Management and Planning which includes space utilization, master planning, conceptual work, phasing, brief development, client needs' analysis, design procurement and contract management.

He is skilled in instigating and directing planning at all stages of design ensuring delivery of purposeful, efficient, and comprehensive facilities. Incorporating the latest technological trends while constantly responding to new operational models, evidence-based design principles and sustainable practices.

With strong design and architectural experience as well as high technical background in engineering systems for a wide spectrum of facilities, allows him to manage multidisciplinary teams throughout all stages of the design process.

Jeff Soutar

Senior Health Architect

Jeff has a diverse health portfolio encompassing projects throughout Australia and internationally. It offers an International perspective through his vast design experiences in the UK, Europe, Middle East and Asia, where he has brought strategic vision to a wide variety of healthcare planning and design projects. 

Clients have benefited from his consistent involvement in the total design process, with a hands-on-approach to consultation, planning and design. Jeff embraces the challenges and complexities of each design, developing innovative, quality solutions that meet the client’s vision, always re-thinking to imagine space, environments and function. 

Jeff works collaboratively with health clients to translate their specific requirements and desired clinical outcomes into buildings that support their health service plan, and within environments supportive of the healing process. 

He has managed large-scale and complex buildings with multiple phases, involving the management of multi-disciplinary design teams often located across different continents. 

 

Karyn Hathaway

Senior Health Planner, NZ

Karyn is a senior clinician who brings leadership, management and operational knowledge to strategic planning and service design. As a clinician Karyn has spent over twenty-five years in a wide range of leadership roles including management of a busy tertiary ICU and over 180 staff.

She has recent experience in planning hospital facilities and service redesign to support major site reconfiguration and redevelopment, including involvement in steering groups, advisory and working groups at service, organisational and national level.

Karyn has proven success in developing service delivery models that meet the needs of patients and services within a large and diverse organisation. Improving patient flow, making use of capacity and ensuring organisational requirements are met.

Karyn has a genuine commitment to facilitate and advocate for equitable healthcare for patients, whānau/family and communities.

Dr. Richard Ashby

Subject Matter Expert

Subject Matter Expert

Dr Ashby is one of Australia’s most experienced clinician executives. For  two decades he occupied a number of senior health executive roles including Executive Director of Medical Services at both the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Executive Director of the Princess Alexandra Hospital and Chief Executive of the Metro South Hospital and Health Service, the latter serving a population of 1.3 million with an operating budget of $2.3 billion.

In 2017, Dr Ashby was appointed by the Minister for Health to the position of Chief Executive of eHealth Queensland, responsible for an operating budget of over $400 million and a capital portfolio of over 100 IT projects with a combined value of over $1 billion. The largest of these projects - the $612 million ieMR Program - has now successfully rolled out to 16 hospitals covering 60% of Queensland Health clinical activity with over 50,000 users undertaking 18 million transactions per day.

Dr. Ashby joined Destravis in 2020 to provide specialist advice, underpinned by extensive benchmarks and lessons learnt from the development and implementation of digital technologies and systems in health facilities.

Sue Priebe

Senior Health Planner

Previously a practising clinician, Sue has spent the past 10 years focussing on clinical planning for hospital redevelopments including client-side roles for the Sunshine Coast University Hospital PPP project in Queensland.

Sue is an experienced health infrastructure and services Commissioning Manager with demonstrated capabilities in the design, building and service commissioning of hospital and health care facilities. 

Her knowledge of the health care industry, from government policy to direct patient care, comes from extensive clinical experience in critical care nursing and organ donor coordination. 

She has developed an expertise in managing diverse stakeholders to collaboratively develop fit-for-purpose healthcare solutions that meet both clinical and patient needs. 

 

Kay Toshach

Director of Health Infrastructure

Kay has over 30 years of experience in public healthcare. She has been responsible for leading a range of broad change initiatives including workforce and performance models, critical service partnerships, planning frameworks, corporate governance models and innovative infrastructure planning projects.

For the past decade, Kay has focused on strategic health service planning and the delivery of major capital projects for Metro South Health Service; one of the largest in Queensland.

As past Board Secretary and Health Service Executive, Kay has strategic capability to identify and align health service need, investment planning and capital requirements in organisation and project planning.

Her extensive career underpins her ability to bring value to clients in a range of areas from strategic advisory to operational-level implementation.

Michael Molloy

Associate Director

Senior Designer

Michael Molloy is a lead designer with decades of relevant industry experience. Michael is a former Senior Lecturer in Design at QUT where he lectured for over 20 years. The combination of academic and practical applications of his expertise ensures he keeps abreast of current design trends, technologies and products.

His extensive experience is most valuable when applied to critical points of decision making such as project definition and briefing, early concept creation, or design reviews.

While his ideas are innovative and move boundaries, he keeps the clients vision as his central focus. His inspiration is a reflection on the clients objectives and budget.

Michael has professional and academic experience in North America, UK, South East Asia and Australia and has spread his ideas across many industry sectors. He is proficient in all aspects of the project, which makes him an excellent strategic player in origination, delivery and peer review.

Ann Allenby

Cilnical Lead / Senior Health Planner

As an experienced health professional, Ann has a rare combination of skills including executive, strategic, planning, operational, leadership, project management and research skills.

As a natural collaborator she have a track record of successful strategic development and project management particularly in the implementation of innovative models of care and workforce roles.

Her diversity of qualifications and experience brings a broad and comprehensive knowledge of the Australian Health system, including the enablers, challenges and policy contexts.

Ann is able rise to the challenge and in collaboration with partners help solve complex problems that benefit the consumers of healthcare – the patient and their carers.

Sandra Surkamp

Director

Senior Health Facility Planner and Designer

Sandra is a highly experienced facility planner and architect specialising in high technology buildings including healthcare facilities, research centres, laboratories and educational facilities.

With great communication ability and close client interaction, Sandra ensures that her project planning and design achieves high efficiency and high quality finish within client’s budget and performance expectations.

Sandra’s maturity and leadership are evident in her commitment to project establishment, management and development, ultimately achieving the best possible solution for clients.

She is able to rapidly define the client’s requirements and needs and translate it into facilities that reflect a clear logic, relevant connections and layout flexibility.

Kirsten Wech

Senior Data Analyst

Kirsten has over two decades of experience in analysis and policy roles within the New Zealand health and government sectors She produces insights for management and clinical leads on key health topics to support health planning activity and analyses large data sets to identify factors driving health demand, long term trends and opportunities for service improvement.

Advanced skills in specialist tools of the trade provide Kirsten with a capability to develop dashboards and reports that highlight emerging trends and provide pertinent insights to clients She is also adept at developing excellent relationships with stakeholders and, through those relationships, gaining an in depth understanding of stakeholder needs

Brett Hallas

Kirsten Wech

Senior Data Analyst

Anthony is a qualified town planner with executive management experience in the development industry.

His experience ranges from all aspects of development

projects from advice to completion inclusive of general town planning advice to assist with site selection and purchase, assistance with yield estimates, design advice and coordination of technical consultants, all undertaken with a strong focus on driving client value.

As an experienced town planner with executive experience in Local Government, Anthony is highly attuned to the need to seek development outcomes that achieve both client and community expectations. Anthony is aware that striking the balance between the client and lawfully expressed community needs assists in driving timely site selection, approval, construction and commissioning, all key factors to realise the benefits expressed by development and to grow strong, well planned communities.

Jodi Hallas

Health Service Planning Director

Jodi is an effective, results-driven leader with a diverse career portfolio spanning the disability, mental health, community and acute health service areas in Queensland and Victoria.

As an expert health service planner she has a proven ability to design, analyse data, plan, monitor, consult, evaluate and manage complex programs and projects that support best practice, clinical quality and patient safety. She prides herself on developing health service plans that are implementable and deliver strategic and operational outcomes.

Jodi brings valuable strengths to her clients through:

  • An industry reputation in design, development and monitoring of innovative and implementable population, facility and clinical services plans and frameworks including influencing infrastructure and workforce plans,
  • Collaborative approach to driving improvement, innovation and safety, with a proven track record leading significant change through people across the system,
  • Highly effective people management, communication, consultation, negotiation, advocacy and facilitation skills with experience at building culture and rapport,
  • Influencing large scale service improvement and clinical change projects through the development of frameworks, tools and systems incorporating minimum standards, clinical governance, clinical policies, and mitigating risk management strategies.

Deborah Page

Senior Health Planner

Deborah is a driven, focused and resilient leader with public and private sector experience in supporting the delivery of some of South Australia’s most iconic health projects. 

She has  a strong understanding of end to end process design, in particular shaping and transforming health services at a directorate, hospital and state-wide level. 

Deborah has a deep understanding of industry best practice across the Australian Health Infrastructure landscape, builds strategic relationships at all levels, characterised by a high level of stakeholder cooperation, communication and mutual respect, influences others to act in support of ideas.

A senior transformation and change manager, with success implementing both financial and operational IT business improvement strategies. 

She draws on a unique background blending clinical, accounting and project management experience.

 

James Stephenson - Senior Architect

James Stephenson

Senior Architect

James is a Senior Architect with over three decades experience in his profession.  He undertakes project roles including  Project Architect or Project Team Leader roles of building projects specifically in the aged care, and health care sector.

James’ areas of expertise include:

  • Leading briefing and consultant teams
  • Developing and directing productive project teams
  • Coordinating and managing design of complex buildings
  • Troubleshooting problem areas and developing effective solutions, including advising on council legislation and policy,
  • Negotiation and mediation between stakeholders, clients and contractors,
  • Investigative assignments and expert reporting in relation to insurance claims,
  • 3D CAD sketch modelling for developing design concepts,
  • Specification writing and scheduling, documentation review,
  • Heritage and character building projects

Tony Giammichele

Senior Health Architect

Tony has been responsible for the briefing, planning and design of a number of major hospitals and health related projects.  He has a unique perspective to healthcare architecture having completed a 3-year nursing course at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane after completing his Diploma in Architecture. This provided him with good insights, understanding and working relationships with hospital staff and users. Tony has a compassionate and caring nature and a dedication to this very special aspect of architecture.

Tony is experienced in leading stakeholder engagement to develop a well defined project brief and concepts for functional, well-designed health spaces.  He has a very broad skill base across all aspects of architecture, and strong technical and inter-personal skills.

Anna Davis

Senior Service Planner

Anna is a strategic thinker and leader; project management, governance, risk management and stakeholder engagement specialist; and a skilled communicator.

Over the past 10 years within the Queensland Department of Health, Anna has been a significant contributor to ongoing reform of the mental health, alcohol and other drug (MHAOD) sector.

Anna has led state-wide strategy and planning for Queensland and has delivered large scale, complex state-funded projects, including high value infrastructure projects. 

John McGuire

Director of Strategy, Sustainability and Innovation

John is a highly experienced senior executive who has spent the past decade in C-Suite and Executive roles of some of Australia's largest professional services firms.

An engineer by qualification, John has over 30 years of experience in leading teams to deliver outstanding results in the health sector. He is known for his capabilities in strategy, leading transformation and embedding innovation as a differentiator in health and other sectors.

He has a passion for helping clients navigate the complexities of transformation and operational optimisation in a way that brings people on the journey and takes a lasting design-led approach to sustainable operations and sustainable healthcare. 

In Destravis John broadens our focus on sustainable healthcare with a focus on environmental, financial and workforce sustainability, strategy and innovation.

 

Glenn Hokin - Senior data analyst

Glenn Hokin

Senior Data Analyst

Glenn is a health care specialist.  His career in health spans over 20 years and ranges from clinician, management, researcher, analyst and planner.  For more than 10 years’ he has been specifically involved in service planning, activity mapping, planning and reporting.

Glenn has well-developed expertise in interpretation of health information, demographics data analysis and report writing.  His skills lie in developing and maintaining data sets to capture services delivered, and includes marrying activity and acuity into a useful information to inform decision making.

He is adept at collating data from existing sources, and creating purpose built solutions to provide for evidence based decision making. The ultimate outcome is cost effective, efficient and safe healthcare.

Glenn was on the statewide working party for Nurse Patient Ratio project, and sits on a number of statewide groups and forums.

His various analyst positions utilise his extensive clinical nursing background and informatics knowledge to improve patient centred outcomes and develop evidence informed practice by presenting technology based solutions.

Anthony Colwell - Senior Project Associate

Anthony Colwell

Associate Director

Anthony is experienced in providing consulting services to health services and state health departments in Australia.

He has assisted organisations through analysis of data for service planning, workforce planning, benchmarking,  systems monitoring and modelling of process improvement initiatives.

He brings a high level of analytical skills coupled with a proven ability to synthesise data, interpret results and prepare communication to a variety of professional areas.

Anthony’s recent deliverables have included Detailed Business Cases, Option Studies and Feasibility Reports.

As an experienced project leader, Anthony has highly developed project management skills including the ability to scope and plan projects, manage task delivery, and to liaise and negotiate with clients, interested and periphery stakeholders to deliver high quality products that meet or exceed expectations.

John Williams

Design Director

John is a highly experienced and respected leader in the design and delivery of complex health and research projects. He has been the project director for many of Australia’s Public Private Partnerships hospital projects and has achieved award winning and highly functional and sustainable design solutions.

John’s approach to design is collaborative and inclusive to gain a holistic understanding and consideration of the complex health and research requirements for the client.  He has an in-depth understanding of health facilities and the master planning and architectural and health planning requirements including project co-ordination and team management.

John successfully led a large architectural practice in Melbourne, Victoria and is now part of the Destravis team to provide expert knowledge and design services to deliver high performing, health facility design outcomes.

Dr Kate Johnston - Executive Consultant

Dr Kate Johnston

Executive Consultant

Kate is a progressive healthcare business operations leader, researcher and academic who excels in rapidly changing environments requiring smart decision-making. She has distinguished herself through performance leading and establishment of efficient operations in start-ups and high-growth research organisations.

Kate has extensive skill in biomedical and translational research institute environments for enhanced healthcare outcomes, including prevention, diagnosis and therapies and is recognized for astuteness in operations, finance and technology solutions with experience in three successful biomedical institutes.

Her current leadership portfolio includes:

  •  Leadership: grew a strong operations support team from 2 to 53 in less than 3 years with excellent talent retention.
  • Finance and budget: successfully designed, implemented and delivered start-up operations, streamlining services and processes to provide support within tight budgets.
  •  Risk mitigation: established risk framework for Board of Directors: Audit, Risk and Finance Committees.
  • Capital  Infrastructure:  Oversaw all operational and research aspects of the AUD$354M build and post-completion operations of new facility.
Megan Whyte - Strategic Cost Advisor

Megan Whyte

Senior Cost Planner

Megan has 17 years experience in Quantity Surveying.  

Megan has an understanding of the complexities involved with creating a project that must satisfy a tight budget, but still, deliver functionality with affordability.

Her extensive experience in various procurement methods provides our team with cost control methods regardless of the contract chosen including GMP, Two Stage MC, D&C and Traditional.

Megan’s key attributes include:

  • Advanced identification, measurement and costing experience including managing contractor contracts,
  • Proven ability to cost manage projects within 2% of the project budget with repeated success,
  • Understanding of the work processes and methodologies required on site to complete works in a ‘live’ and restricted environment,
  • Ability to cost in detail the FF&E and AV components,
  • Leader in cost management methodologies allowing project challenges to be methodically assessed without impacting programme.
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Join the team

Enquire now

Want to join the Destravis team? We would love to hear form you!

For enquiries relating to careers at Destravis please contact us via email at HR@destravis.com

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