The Australian government is now operating in accordance with the Guidance on Caretaker Conventions, pending the outcome of the 2025 federal election.
Our executive consists of our Chief Executive Officer, our National Medical Director and our Chief Operating Officer.
Chief Executive Officer
Lucinda Barry commenced as the CEO in 2017. Lucinda has extensive experience in health care, both clinical and policy. She has held senior leadership roles within government, the public service, and health service management and delivery.
Lucinda represents the Australian Government on a number of national and international committees, including the National Indigenous Kidney Transplantation Taskforce and the Commonwealth ‘Tribute to Life’ International Advisory Panel. In addition, she is a member of the Jurisdictional Organ and Tissue Steering Committee. Lucinda is the Australian Government’s national media spokesperson on organ and tissue donation and is an invited speaker at national and international conferences.
In the 2023 Australia Day Honours, Lucinda became a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her significant service to public health policy in executive roles and to medicine.
National Medical Director
Associate Professor Helen Opdam MBBS FRACP FCICM was appointed as the OTA National Medical Director in 2014. She is a Senior Intensive Care Specialist at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne and Director of Warringal Private Hospital Intensive Care Unit.
Helen is responsible for providing expert clinical advice to the OTA CEO, DonateLife Network staff, clinical organisations, the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care and other government agencies and key stakeholder groups. She is the current President of the International Society for Organ Donation Professionals. Helen participates both nationally and internationally on working groups and committees, as a conference speaker, and as an author for medical journal and guideline publications. Helen has been involved in organ donation since 1998, initially in developing an audit to determine the potential for organ donation. This process has evolved into the current DonateLife audit that provides key metrics for Australia’s donation performance and monitors the effective implementation of the national program within hospitals. Helen was the inaugural Victorian State Medical Director for organ and tissue donation at the initiation of the DonateLife program in 2009
Chief Operating Officer
Belinda Small commenced as the Chief Operating Officer of the OTA in 2021. She is responsible for ensuring corporate operations enable OTA to achieve its strategic goals. Functional responsibilities include finance, risk, governance, human resources, and analytics and technology.
Belinda has extensive experience in leading organisational strategy, complex transformation agendas and corporate teams. She is passionate about shaping positive workplace cultures, building sustainable capability in organisations, and collaborating to achieve positive outcomes for the community. Belinda holds a Bachelor of Commerce and is certified as a change management practitioner. She has previously held positions at the Bureau of Meteorology, the Department of Health and the Department of Finance. Belinda is also a member of the Cancer Australia Audit and Risk Committee.
