Sam has led OTA as Chief Executive Officer since 2018, and was appointed by the Board to steer and position OTA to represent, support, strengthen and resource the continually evolving occupational therapy profession. Over the past four years Sam has led, developed and grown a highly skilled team who have successfully achieved solid growth and increased awareness and representation of the profession with key stakeholders, agencies and government agencies and ministerial portfolios. Sam has over 25 years of experience as both a senior leaders and Board Director working across corporate, professional services and not for profit organisations. She has a breadth of experience collaborating with multi disciplinary teams across sectors and understands the nuances of complex and competing political environments. Sam strives to work with members, government and stakeholders to create collaborative solutions for an engaged and resilient profession. Sam is a natural communicator with high level business development skills demonstrating consistently strong growth, with a strong focus and belief in continual learning and development and looks for opportunities to develop her team to be inspired leaders and to be at the forefront of innovation in their sectors. In her spare time Sam is an enthusiastic but inconsistent golfer, sings in a choir, collects art and has her hand full wrangling office dog Rosie, the wild dog Poppy, and the real boss Kitty. She is the very proud mum of Tom.

Alex Reynolds is an accomplished executive and people leader with over 15 years of experience in management and executive leadership positions. With a background in operations, education and membership across both private and not-for-profit sectors. Alex’s most recent role was leading business transformation at the Australian HR Institute. During her professional career, Alex has driven change and transformation through a focus on organisational growth, this encompasses technology solutions and evolution, change management, process improvement and cultural shift to deliver agile and customer-centric organisations. With a proven track record of effective relationship building and communication to build individual, team and organisational capability Alex has also successfully fostered cultures of high performance and meaningful engagement. Alex is passionate about health and wellbeing, prioritising her daily run, sporadic attempts to practice yoga and ensuring her two active girls make it to their sporting, and many social, activities.

Michelle is a passionate and focused occupational therapist with extensive experience within clinical and professional leadership roles, working for over 15 years within the public mental health sector in South Australia. Michelle has a Master of Occupational Therapy from the University of South Australia. Michelle has been working for OTA since 2021 in several positions including Lead Mental Health Advisor and Manager, Professional Practice. As Chief Occupational Therapist, Michelle is the lead professional and clinical expert at OTA, leading a team responsible for the provision of professional practice. This includes professional standards, scope and endorsement programs, as well as being responsible for the learning and development program. Outside of work, Michelle is a mother of three children and enjoys playing netball, listening to podcasts and spending time with family.

Cynthia joined Occupational Therapy Australia (OTA) in 2018 as an Accountant and has since progressed into the strategic leadership role of Chief Financial Officer. With over six years of dedicated service to the association, she now leads the finance, risk management, and people functions of the organisation.