Different paths, shared impact: Celebrating the 2026 Dean’s Alumni Award winners
9 October 2026
This year’s Monash Business School Dean’s Alumni Award winners have found very different ways to put their expertise to work.
Across seven award categories, the 10 recipients have helped people find housing, improved emergency care, influenced public policy, built new approaches to Indigenous health, and opened doors for the next generation of business leaders. All awards were announced at our annual Dean’s Gala Dinner on 8 October.
Professor Simon Wilkie, Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics and Head of Monash Business School, said this year’s recipients were an inspirational group of leaders, responsible for transformational change in Indigenous employment, health and business leadership, disability support, the circular economy, financial equity, healthcare access and more. “We are proud to honour them as members of the Monash Business School community", Prof Wilkie said.
L–R: Tony Dickinson, Jodie Conduit, Keeley Goldrick, Noah Yang, Maryann Ansey, Erica Xie, William Trewlynn and De Villiers Smit.
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Emerging Talent Award: Noah Yang
Noah Yang.
At 20, while most of his peers were trying to find their place in the world, Noah Yang was finding a new way to tackle homelessness.
His charity, We Are Mobilise, uses a direct giving model to help people overcome the financial barriers to securing a home.
The organisation has grown from a grassroots program into a national operation that has distributed more than $4 million and helped more than 1,500 people into housing.
The Bachelor of Marketing and Business graduate has applied that same drive to major fundraising campaigns, partnering with Nedd Brockmann on campaigns that raised more than $10 million.
This year he made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
“This started when I was a student at Monash, and to be recognised by my own university means something,” he said. “I’m proud of Monash and proud to have been there.”
Emerging Talent Award: Erica Xie
Erica Xie.
A few months after graduating, Erica Xie received a routine survey call from Monash asking whether she had found a job.
She hadn’t, and the conversation left her unsure about what came next.
Ten years later, Ms Xie is returning to her alma mater as the recipient of its Emerging Talent Award.
The Master of Professional Accounting graduate is co-founder of award-winning fintech Tanggram, an investment app designed to make wealth creation more accessible.
The business has expanded into Asia, connecting Asian investors with investment opportunities in Australia.
Ms Xie has also facilitated introductions between Australian investors and the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, helping them explore opportunities in global AI ventures.
Her work has earned her Young Leader of the Year at the Women in Finance Awards in 2022 and Emerging FinTech Leader of the Year at the 2024 FinTech Australia Finnie Awards.
“Receiving this award from Monash is deeply meaningful,” Ms Xie said.
“Monash gave me the confidence to embrace uncertainty and trust that I would find my own path.”
Professional Achievement Award: Dr De Villiers Smit
Dr De Villiers Smit.
The Alfred’s emergency department handles some of the country’s most complex and critical cases.
For Dr De Villiers Smit, improving how those patients are treated has been a career-long mission.
Dr Smit has led the department since 2009, developing the Timely Quality Care model and driving reforms that helped end hospital-initiated ambulance diversion across Victoria.
His work has taken him beyond the Alfred, with capacity-building and training programs in India, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, and DFAT-funded emergency care programs in Asia-Pacific.
A Global Executive MBA graduate, Dr Smit has published close to 100 papers, attracted $3.5 million in research funding, and leads Australasia’s most prolific emergency medicine research program.
“Receiving the Professional Achievement Award is just an incredible honour and one of the proudest moments of my life.”
PhD Achievement Award: Professor Jodie Conduit
A/Prof Jodie Conduit.
Professor Jodie Conduit has built an international research legacy spanning customer and collective engagement, with more than 60 publications and in excess of 8,700 citations.
Her work has informed the South Australian circular economy and food waste policy and St Vincent de Paul’s five-year volunteer strategy.
Now, as Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Business and Law at Adelaide University, she is helping shape one of Australia's newest universities while building a new college from the ground up.
“I know when I look back on my career, I’ll be incredibly proud to have been part of it,” she said.
Prof Conduit said being recognised by Monash was “incredibly special”.
“Monash remains an important part of my story. It was where I learned how to be a researcher and where I formed friendships and professional relationships that continue today.”
Impact Award: Keeley Goldrick
Keeley Goldrick.
In 2022, Keeley Goldrick took over a small NDIS support coordination business with quality staff, strong values and significant potential.
“The essence of a wonderful organisation was already there,” she said.
“We just needed to balance the heart with operational understanding.”
Since then, Future Focus Support Coordination has supported more than 3,300 people across three states, trained more than 120 Specialist Support Coordinators and connected participants with more than 12,500 providers.
Future Focus has also acquired and integrated four other support coordination organisations, becoming a trusted choice for agencies seeking an organisation to carry their participants, staff and work into the future.
Beyond Future Focus, Ms Goldrick has become an active contributor to national NDIS policy and reform. She has brought frontline practitioner evidence to Royal Commission processes, developed evidence-based work on NDIS pricing and, through leadership roles with Disability Intermediaries Australia, advocated nationally on reforms affecting participants and the intermediary sector.
“I am proud of the ground we have covered, the organisation we built, the people I have worked alongside and the opportunities I now have to contribute to conversations about the future of the NDIS,” Ms Goldrick said.
“At the same time, the award has reinforced how much work remains.”
Impact Award: Karinda Taylor
Karinda Taylor.
When Karinda Taylor joined First Peoples’ Health and Wellbeing, the whole team would have fit around one table. Six years later, it has grown to more than 80 staff.
As Chief Executive Officer, she has overseen that growth while developing new approaches to health, parenting and employment.
She led the creation of Baluk Balert Barring, Victoria’s first Aboriginal Early Parenting Centre, developing the service model in partnership with Monash.
She also founded Blak Fig, a social enterprise tackling barriers to Aboriginal employment, and was appointed to the inaugural Bayside Health Board in 2025.
“Awards like this are also recognition of the work the whole team and Board at First Peoples’ Health and Wellbeing do, and of the community that has trusted us to walk alongside them,” Ms Taylor said.
“I hope receiving this award helps shine a light on what Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations can achieve when we’re resourced and trusted to lead.”
Community Award: Tony Dickinson
Tony Dickinson.
For the past four years, Tony Dickinson has provided Monash Business School undergraduates with the kind of practical guidance and industry insight that helped shape his own career.
As a Senior Advisor to the Monash Centre for Financial Studies, pro bono lecturer and mentor, he has shared his experience with hundreds of students and guided dozens each year through one-on-one mentoring.
“Mentoring, like leadership, is less about having all the answers and more about listening, asking thoughtful questions and helping others find their own path,” he said.
The Bachelor of Business graduate said receiving the Community Award was a great honour, but not what drives his involvement.
“Being able to contribute to someone's growth and confidence at such an important stage of their life is incredibly fulfilling.”
Indigenous Award: Maryann Ansey
Maryann Ansey.
When Maryann Ansey began working to improve Rheumatic Heart Disease care in the Torres Strait, treatment compliance was just 16 per cent. She lifted that figure to 80 per cent.
Ms Ansey has spent more than two decades working across Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and community services, from frontline care to research, education, governance and executive leadership.
She helped develop a culturally responsive COVID-19 vaccination response in Cairns and implement the nationally recognised Birthing in Our Community model across Brisbane and Logan.
Now Chief of Family Services at REFOCUS, the Master of Indigenous Business Leadership graduate said the award recognised the people and communities behind that work.
“None of us achieves anything entirely on our own. There are always people who opened doors, challenged us, encouraged us and sometimes pushed us when we needed pushing.”
Indigenous Award: William Trewlynn
William Trewlynn.
The best advice William Trewlynn ever received was two words: talk last.
It’s an approach that has served him across business, community advocacy and First Nations governance.
The Nucoorilma, Anaiwan and Dunghutti man is the co-founder and Director of Creative and Culture at YarnnUp, a First Nations-led business spanning Consulting, Creative and Capability that applies First Nations knowledge to leadership, governance and strategy.
In 2019, he co-founded BlaQ Aboriginal Corporation to give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTQIA+ communities a stronger voice.
A Master of Indigenous Business Leadership graduate, he serves as Deputy Chairperson of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council and chairs Koori Radio.
Mr Trewlynn said the award was a reminder of what can happen when commitment turns into action.
“If you put your heart and mind to something, you can do it. Hard work does pay off,” he said.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Professor Robert Chenhall
Prof Robert Chenhall.
When Professor Robert Chenhall returned to Monash in 1989, some of his new colleagues were once his teachers.
The full-circle moment came early in a career that has spanned more than four decades and generated a body of research that helped establish contingency theory as a major approach in management accounting.
His work has earned international recognition, including the American Accounting Association’s 2011 Lifetime Contribution Award for Management Accounting Research and induction into the Australian Accounting Hall of Fame in 2014.
In 2018, he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
A Monash alumnus and Emeritus Professor, Prof Chenhall said recognition from the Business School was particularly meaningful.
“I have always thought how much I have received from Monash, first as an undergraduate all those years ago, and since 1989 as a professor in the Department of Accounting and Finance,” he said.
“Somehow, the achievement of the Award provides a validation that all the support was worthwhile.”