Leadership

Fiona Johnston

Principal

Fiona commenced as the thirteenth Principal of St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls in 2019.

Fiona believes that promoting clear alignment, transparency, trust and respectful relationships are key to growing and nurturing learning communities.  She is passionate about fostering personal growth opportunities for all students, young women and staff at St Hilda’s, ensuring that students are prepared for the transitions in life that lie ahead.

Fiona demonstrates a high-impact, open and inclusive leadership style that centres on social, emotional, spiritual and intellectual development. Fiona encourages youth and educators through the processes of personal discovery and education to actualise a better tomorrow.  Towards the top of Fiona’s list of responsibilities is student wellbeing and engagement.

Fiona’s passion is growing creative, independent, resilient and socially-adept young people.  As the leader of St Hilda’s, she encourages students and young women to “lean in” to their growth and future careers, through personal agency, preparedness and a commitment to fulfilling their academic and personal potential.

In progressing St Hilda’s culture of excellence and adaption, Fiona understands the power of collaboration and values the contributions of others.  She makes time and space, integrating lived experiences and fosters a deep rapport with the students, staff and broader community.

Fiona is committed to sustainable improvement and positive growth at St Hilda’s further promoting St Hilda’s unique position as the leading school in Perth.

Andrea McNally

Director of Senior School

Andrea, Director of Senior School, Deputy Principal, has served on the St Hilda’s Executive Team since 2014. Andrea demonstrates daily her ability to inspire and set direction through leading the Senior School in its implementation of the St Hilda’s Strategic Plan; St Hilda’s Reimagined, in line with our purpose, vision and values. She is highly respected and admired by all who work with her. She brings professionalism, warmth, humour and a commitment to personal excellence to the position. She is a compelling and excellent communicator. Andrea has a dynamic Senior School Leadership Team who operationalise the running of the Bay View Campus. She is committed to school improvement, reviewing all facets of the Senior School and is often heard using the tagline of “What went well, better if?”. She is adaptable, flexible and brings to the Senior School a growth mindset and an energised leadership style that engages and grows others.

Andrea also serves as a board member for Kidsafe, an independent, charitable organisation dedicated to the prevention of unintentional death and serious injury to children aged 0 – 15 years.  She is also actively involved in building professional network for Senior School Deputy Principals through AHISA (Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia) for schools in Western Australia.

Trish Jakovich

Director of Junior School

Since joining St Hilda’s, Trish has established a collaborative and dedicated approach to the education of young children. Trish is committed to remaining abreast of leading educational practices and brin­­gs to the position of Director of Junior School a Masters in Education and a Post Graduate Diploma in Counselling. She was the recipient of the St Hilda’s Council Award in 2018 in recognition of her outstanding commitment to teaching and learning at St Hilda’s.

Trish is a dedicated and visionary leader who strives for excellence and believes in the power of collaboration. Her interactions with others are built on the foundations of justice, care and respect.

She values every member of our school community and identifies and celebrates her colleague’s individual talents and expertise. Trish is committed to putting the needs of our girls and young boys first.

Trish brings to this executive leadership position the ability to communicate a vision and transform an idea to reality. This is evident through her introduction of parenting programs and exceptional attention to detail in all that she leads. She is renowned for her professional integrity, agility and reliability. Her beliefs are strongly aligned with our St Hilda’s values and she is committed to excellence in all that she does.

Kellie Hasluck

Director of School Development & Philanthropy

Kellie has a strong community focus, having raised funds for the State Library of Western Australia, the Ability Centre, Sensorium and many other local community groups. Kellie has sat on boards and committees to raise the profile and the financial position for organisations who need support. She brings substantial commercial experience, management, expertise, coaching skills, and communication and brand knowledge to the position.

Kellie Hasluck is one of Perth’s leading communications professionals with over 25 years’ experience in the industry. She is well networked and has engaged with St Hilda’s as an external communications consultant in previous years. Her experience, contacts and business acumen are second-to-none. Kellie has an excellent record in leading and inspiring a team through change. Her skill set and experience is a powerful mix that will assist St Hilda’s to build profile and commercial performance.

David Scanlan

Director of People and Culture

David joined St Hilda’s in 2020 as the Director of People & Culture.  In this role he drives the people development, cultural direction, talent acquisition and compliance functions of the School.

Prior to joining St Hilda’s, David worked in private practice as lawyer. He spent much of his career at international law firm Ashurst in their Perth Employment and Industrial Relations team, starting there as a graduate and leaving as a Senior Associate.  Immediately before joining St Hilda’s, he worked as Special Counsel at Bartlett Workplace Lawyers and Consultants, heading up its Perth office.  He has broad commercial legal experience, primarily in industrial relations, general employment, occupational health and safety, privacy, matters relating to discrimination, harassment and workplace bullying as well as various other commercial areas.

David also spent several years working in the not-for-profit sector as the Employee Relations Manager at St John Ambulance WA.  In this role, David was responsible for providing strategic advice and guidance to the organisation on all employee relations and human resources issues. This included employee engagement issues, leadership training, change management, enterprise agreement negotiations, recruitment and managing performance and disciplinary issues. Given David’s legal background, he was also involved in managing the organisation’s needs regarding legal and compliance matters.

David brings to the role significant experience in the private commercial sector as well as a strong understanding of modern ER, IR and HR practices.

Luke Callier

Director of Business Operations

Luke leads innovation projects across the School, which includes researching, developing and delivering new programs and driving key strategic projects, including the ESSTEAM program, Beyond St Hilda’s, whilst also bringing a lens of reflection, where he leads reviews of past strategic initiatives to ensure they are delivering on the intended outcomes and identifying ongoing improvements. Key to the role is developing the School’s capability and capacity for innovation, and evolving the School’s relationships with external partners to ensure that St Hilda’s continues to be a global leader in girls’ education.

Luke cohosts the Edleaders Australia podcast and is well connected to innovative leaders and schools across the country, keeping up to date with the latest trends in education. Luke is a connector of people and ideas, which when combined with his clear understanding of the academic and business needs of a school and his strategic lens, makes him a valuable member of the St Hilda’s executive leadership team.

Luke has a Certificate in School Leadership and Management (Harvard University), Masters in Business Administration (UWA) Advanced Not-for-profit Governance Certificate (AICD) and a Bachelor of Engineering.

Nicole Adams

Director of Teaching and Learning (JK-12)

Nicole is a passionate educator, pedagogist, innovator and leader. Nicole started with a country posting and moved to single-sex education at Trinity College and Hale School. She then gained international experience at the Australian International School in Singapore before returning to Perth to take on system-wide pedagogy and technology work with the Catholic Education Office. Throughout her time in education, Nicole has nurtured a passion for education technology and how it can transfer teaching and learning. This particular passion continues to thrive today as her company, TalentIn, is a Global Training Partner with Microsoft.

In 2021, before appointed to Director of Learning Re-imagined, Nicole implemented learning opportunities for all staff in relation to the new one-to-one devices and growth of sustainable, ongoing professional learning plan that ensures our technology always supports pedagogy.

Doug Loader

Director of Information & Learning Technologies

Bringing over 15 years of experience working in Australian secondary education, Doug has a broad range of leadership and technical experience. Doug bridges the gap between pedagogy and technology bringing solutions to the school that drive innovation and have a positive impact on the outcomes of our students. With a focus on security and infrastructure Doug leads a team that has already modernised I.T. operations at St Hilda’s.

With a passion for data analytics and data governance, Doug is comfortable leveraging machine learning to draw valuable insight from any type of large data. His expertise was further solidified in 2023 when he obtained a degree in Information and Data Analytics, enhancing his proficiency in this field.

Cora Algie

Dean of Academics and Analytics (7-12)

Cora has been a member of the St Hilda’s community since 2016, enjoying her time teaching in and leading the Mathematics Department before becoming Dean of Academics & Analytics.  Cora taught for many years in the UK and held various leadership roles during this time. Prior to venturing into education, Cora majored in Actuarial Science & Statistics and engaged in data analysis whilst working in the finance sector. Cora is passionate about helping every student shine as they engage in their academic journey at St Hilda’s.

Jo Swain

Dean of Student Wellbeing (7-12)

Jo is a dedicated staff member, having served at St Hilda’s since 2004. Jo is a highly regarded educator and colleague who has been a Head of Year for 12 years and coordinated the Pilgrimage to Fiji for 13 years.

Jo managed the Wellbeing team which included the six Heads of Year, psychologists, nursing staff and Head of Community Service. This amazing team works closely to ensure each student is supported in their social, emotional and psychological development and wellbeing.

Jo is passionate about girls education and committed to ensuring all students are individually known, nurtured, advocated for and guided as a member of the St Hilda’s Community.

Rachel Stenslunde

Dean of Boarding (7-12)

Promoting a home away from home where staff and students share mutual respect, care, trust and concern; providing and managing the necessary expectations in terms of the girl’s behaviour, creating opportunities for boarders to develop personal responsibility and facilitating appropriate social, cultural and other activities both within and outside the school, are all areas of focus of the Dean of Boarding, Rachel Stenslunde. Rachel believes that providing an environment for the girls that acknowledges the incredible history and traditions of the St Hilda’s community while also being able to balance with a contemporary flavour equips the girls to thrive in our current landscape.

Rachel has been at St Hilda’s since 2018 and has held the Dean of Boarding position since 2019.  Prior to St Hilda’s Rachel has spent time in Karratha, Sydney and Brisbane working in both the resource sector in the North West and the Financial Planning Industry for NAB/MLC Funds Management.  She has managed large national teams where the development of the personnel within these teams was critically important to the deliverables the team was working towards. Her diverse experiences with a client focus have aided her ability to build strong relationships with people and ensure the girl’s personal development is at the forefront of all decisions.

Rachel Stenslunde lives on campus with her family.

Helen Thompson

Dean of School Operations and Cocurricular (7-12)

Helen is an accomplished Science educator with 25 years experience in the Senior School and is highly respected by both students and colleagues alike. She commenced at St Hilda’s in 2003 and has undertaken in that time the roles of Head of Year (2 years) and House Coordinator for 9 years. Through these roles and time in the classroom, she has developed a deep understanding of how St Hilda’s operates and will bring her energy for girls’ education to develop the varied co-curricular opportunities available to the students.

Helen engages closely with the House coordinators and Heads of Cocurricular including Sport, Outdoor Education, Music, Dance and Drama programs. She works collaboratively to ensure all students can shine in areas outside the classroom. She is empathetic and takes great pride in her relationships with students. Helen encourages all students to grow, develop and take advantage of all opportunities available to them.

Ryan Gowland

Head of Wellbeing and Operations (JK-6)

Rebecca Turkich

Head of Teaching and Learning (JK-6)

Karen Donnelly

Head of Academics and Analytics (JK-6)

Karen is a passionate primary practitioner with a strong understanding and vision of contemporary education. She advocates for all students to pursue academic excellence and to be prepared for future challenges by developing a global outlook, alongside collaborative and innovative problem-solving skills. She has been a staff member at St Hilda’s since 2014, originally as a Year 6 teacher and more recently as STEAM Coordinator and Maths Enrichment teacher at the Junior School.

Karen’s academic qualifications include a Masters in Education and Graduate Diplomas in Educational Leadership, Behaviour Management and Information Communication Technology. She has worked at schools in Western Australia for the past fifteen years as a teacher and curriculum leader.  She previously taught at a British international school in Bangkok, and at several schools in the UK.

Maylin Tai

Head of Academic Growth (JK-6)