QCA Board and executive team

Flavio Menezes is a Professor of Economics at The University of Queensland. He is a former president of the Economic Society of Australia (Queensland), was a member of the advisory board of the federal government’s Deregulation Taskforce and was an elected member of the University of Queensland Academic Board and its Standing Committee.

Professor Menezes is a fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, a member of editorial boards, associate editor of a number of international journals and co-editor of the Economic Record journal. He has published extensively on the economics of auctions, competition and regulatory economics, industrial organisation and market design.

Professor Menezes has extensive consulting experience. His experience in Australia includes advising the federal government, the AEMC, the ACCC, IPART, the QCA, and the ACT and Victorian governments on market design issues in regulatory environments. He has also provided economic advice to various private and public organisations on competition and regulatory issues in defence, fisheries, gambling, energy, banking, health, aged care, disability care, transport, ports, water and telecommunications.

Madeline Brennan is a barrister practicing in the State and Federal jurisdictions primarily in the areas of taxation and revenue, administrative and competition and consumer law. She has worked for a broad range of clients in the private and government sectors.

Madeline holds a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) Bachelor of Arts (History Hons) and Diploma of Education. She was called to the bar in 1996 and took silk in 2015.

Madeline has long provided service on school, hospital and professional committees and boards. Most recently, she served for eight years on the Human Research Ethics Committee of the QIMR.

Warren is the Managing Director of Bluestone Consulting that has provided advice to investors, regulators, providers, and users of a wide range of infrastructure services since 2003. Past and present clients include rail operators, airports and ports in Australian and New Zealand, the Board of Airline Representatives of Australia, the Australian Airports Association, the Australian Council for Infrastructure Development and the Essential Services Commission of Victoria.

He was a Commissioner at the Australian Productivity Commission from 2009 to 2015 and also served as the Australian Competitive Neutrality Commissioner. He has held executive roles in airport companies in Australia and Europe.

He served on the board of Airservices Australia for over five years from 2008, over four of which he was the Deputy Chair. He was a member of the Steering Committee for the joint NSW-Commonwealth Governments’ Sydney Aviation Strategy and continued to advise the Australian Government on Sydney’s second airport until the creation of the company to build the airport. He has also been a director of Vicforests, the Western Community Legal Services, James Watt College for Higher and Further Education, the United Kingdom Airports Operators Association and the National Health Co-operative.

He is currently a director of the Sydney Desalination Plant and Transgrid.

Fiona is currently the chief executive of Financial Counselling Australia. Financial counsellors provide advice and support to people with money and debt problems.

Fiona has 30 years’ experience in consumer advocacy, including a number of years on the executive of the Consumers Federation of Australia. She first became involved in issues affecting consumers, particularly people on low incomes or in vulnerable circumstances, after volunteering as a financial counsellor at Caxton Legal Centre in Brisbane in 1989.

She has held directorships on Energex Retail, the Insurance Ombudsman Service and the Financial Ombudsman Service and was previously Chair of ASIC’s Consumer Advisory Panel.

Fiona is currently a member of the ACCC’s Consumer Consultative Committee and is a member of the boards of Choice and Way Forward Debt Solutions. She has a B.A., LL.B and M.B.A.

She was a recipient of an Order of Australia in the 2017 Queen’s Birthday honours for significant service to the community through social welfare and financial counselling roles.

Charles has broad experience in policy analysis and economic regulation. He commenced his career at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, focusing on energy market analysis and assessing the impacts of trade, investment and climate change policies.

Since 2001, he has worked in the area of energy market regulation in roles at the QCA, Ergon Energy and the Australian Energy Regulator.

Charles joined the QCA in 2010.

William’s diverse experience encompasses roles at Queensland Treasury, Queensland Treasury Corporation and Deloitte Economics.

As Director of Peer Review, his role is to provide accuracy of material and assurance of quality for the Queensland Competition Authority. He has delivered economic regulation, analysis and policy development in both the public and private sector. In particular, William has worked extensively in the Queensland water industry.

William joined the QCA in 2010.

George has nearly 20 years’ experience in economic regulation.

As Director of Business Performance his role involves the monitoring and implementation of regulation across all firms regulated by the QCA.  Prior to this role, George was extensively involved in the economic oversight of water and local government sectors, as well as rail access regulation in the QCA.

George started his career with the Bureau of Agricultural Economics before moving to Queensland and working on sugar industry policy, water sector policy and Queensland’s first review of irrigation water price paths.

George joined the QCA in 2000.

Sharon brings with her extensive experience in senior and executive roles in the tourism, banking, and local government industries.

As Director of Corporate Services, her role is diverse in managing the provision of a range of corporate services, including governance, financial management, information technology, human resources and corporate administration.

Sharon’s previous roles included business strategy, risk management, corporate and operational planning, cultural change and leading and managing multi-disciplinary teams to deliver major projects.

Sharon joined the QCA in October 2020.