Somnomed

Dr Peter Neustadt - Non Executive Chairman

Dr Neustadt is a management consultant and entrepreneur with more than thirty years experience in building and improving public companies within the hospitality, media, property and finance sectors. He has previously worked for the global management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company and was an executive board member of Kerry Packer's Consolidated Press Holdings (CPH).

Dr. Neustadt served on a number of public and private company boards including Cypress Lakes Group Limited, The Golden Door, CEL Limited, Network TEN, Advance Bank Limited, Trafalgar and Manboom Limited.  

Ralf Barschow - Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Barschow has more than twenty years experience in leading international dental materials and technology companies, performing high executive functions, managing sales and marketing budgets up to A$ 250 million p.a. as well as forging a network of business contacts in the dental industry worldwide.

Prior to accepting his role as Chief Executive Officer, Ralf came from the Australian subsidiary of Siemens AG, one of the world´s leading operations. Before joining Siemens he was heading the central European business as Managing Director of the US company Align Technology Inc., the NASDAQ listed inventor and maker of the Invisalign orthodontic product. He came to Align from his previous position as Global Sales Director of Ivoclar Vivadent AG, one of the leading international dental enterprises and prior to that as Export Manager and various positions he held for over ten years in the German Degussa AG, one of the top 3 dental companies in the world.

Mr. Barschow, a German citizen, studied international marketing and economics in Germany and England, lived in Germany, Liechtenstein, Singapore and Hong Kong and moved to Australia in 2006.

Neil Verdal-Austin - Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Verdal-Austin has more than fifteen years experience as CFO for various medical distribution companies, including systems development and implementation, business acquisitions, strategic planning, reporting and operations. Prior to accepting his role, Neil came from Lifehealthcare, the largest Australian Healthcare distributor of medical products and devices.

Before Lifehealthcare, he was the CFO for 13 years for Orthomedics, a large medical distributor in South Africa. During that appointment, he was a key figure in the leadership team and instrumental in all commercial aspects of that business, it’s processes, financial results and operational excellence.   

Neil completed his studies at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and is a Chartered Accountant (Australia).

Terence A Flitcroft - Company Secretary

Mr. Flitcroft has been a Director of the company from 1995 until May 2003. He is a Chartered Accountant with broad commercial and financial experience and has acted as a director and company secretary for a number of private and public companies.
 
Terry provides company secretarial and accounting services to the Company on a contract basis. He is a Director of Winchester Associates Pty Limited, a licensed investment advisor

Lee Ausburn - Non-Executive Director

M.Pharm., B.Pharm., Dip.Hosp.Pharm. (University of Sydney)  

Lee has had a long career in the health industry, beginning as a pharmacist before joining Merck and Co. Inc., a global pharmaceutical company. During this period, she progressed through a range of roles, beginning in marketing before becoming responsible for reimbursement and pricing of Merck products in Australia.            

In 1998 she moved into a regional role and was ultimately Vice President, Asia Merck & Co. Inc. responsible for the general management and strong growth of Merck organisations and their products across Asia reporting directly to the executive responsible for the geographic area in the US. During this time, Lee built businesses in a number of countries, often from the very beginning, planned and launched new products, liaised with regulatory authorities and government agencies and built and supervised management teams responsible for building Merck’s business in that part of the world. After leaving Merck in 2008, she has taken on a number of non-executive director roles.

She is a non-executive director of Australian Pharmaceutical Industries (API) Ltd, which distributes pharmaceuticals to pharmacies across Australia. API also has retail pharmacy operations through Priceline stores.  

In addition she is a member of two NSW government boards which are responsible for the implementation of the Garling recommendations to improve the quality of care in NSW hospitals- the Clinical Excellence Commission and the Agency for Clinical Innovation             

Robert Scherini - Non-Executive Director

Rob is a past Managing Director for Johnson & Johnson Medical Australia/NZ and has held senior management positions both locally and internationally. He was posted for a number of years in J&J international headquarter in Brussels before returning to Australia where he was directly responsible for J&J’s medical device business in the APAC region. He has a strong track record of growing businesses and brings to the Board a wealth of experience in Sales & Marketing, Business Development, Finance, Operations and Supply, Legal, Human Resources and Information Technology.   

Rob has a bachelor degree in Business and is a Certified Practising Accountant (CPA). He was a Member of the Board of the Medical Technology Association of Australia (MTAA) for nine years. He has been a strong advocate of Human Resources Strategy and was recognised as Best HR Champion at the 2004 Australian HR Awards. In 2007 was awarded a Rotary International Fellowship for his assistance to the community.

More recently Rob has devoted his time to consulting and mentoring. He is a senior partner of a healthcare consultancy focused on Asia Pacific and a member of the Board of a large privately owned medical device company. Rob is also a member of the Executive Advisory Council of Nursing & Midwifery at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS).