President Nick McKenzie

Nick McKenzie is an award-winning investigative reporter for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. His individual and collaborative work covers politics, business, foreign affairs, defence, human rights issues, the criminal justice system and social affairs. In his 18 years in journalism McKenzie has proven himself one of Australia’s most decorated journalists, winning nine Walkley Awards, countless Quill awards and taking out the Melbourne Press Club's Gold Quill three times alongside colleagues at The Age.

Vice-President Ashlynne McGhee

Ashlynne McGhee is an award-winning reporter at the ABC’s flagship television current affairs program 7.30. Over the past decade she’s been a Federal Political Reporter in the Canberra press gallery, travelled the country as a video journalist and broken major stories from Australia and abroad. Ashlynne was awarded the 2015 Holly Whisenhunt Stephen fellowship by the US-based Investigative Reporters and Editors group as well as the 2013 MPC Young Journalist of the Year award. She has been on the board of the Melbourne Press Club since 2013 and was instrumental in setting up the club’s mentoring and training programs for young journalists.

Vice-President Heidi Murphy

Heidi Murphy is executive producer of Neil Mitchell’s top-rating morning radio program on 3AW and a part-time Channel Nine reporter. She is a former news presenter, editor and award-winning journalist at 3AW where she spent eight years covering Victorian state politics. Heidi has won multiple Melbourne Press Club Quill awards and is on the Walkley awards judging board. In her spare time, Heidi is a mother of two young children.

CEO Cathy Bryson

Cathy Bryson is a highly experienced marketing, sales, sponsorship and membership professional with a proven history of success in large corporates, running her own small business and in the community not-for-profit sector. She has led teams and projects and provided guidance in strategy and at operational levels. Cathy Bryson joined the Melbourne Press Club after six years with the National Press Club in Canberra, where, as Marketing and Sales Manager, she worked closely with media, sponsors and news makers across Australia. Cathy has worked alongside senior journalists at the National Press Club, secured heavy-hitters from business and politics for agenda-setting events and ensured the club’s financial future through great relationships with sponsors. Prior to her role at the National Press Club, Cathy spent more than a decade providing extensive experience in the not-for-profit sector in leadership and revenue raising roles.

Treasurer Veronica Scott

Veronica is a senior lawyer specialising in media and privacy. After qualifying in England where she worked at London law firm Mishcon de Reya for five years, Veronica moved to Melbourne in 2000. She was Special Counsel in Minter Ellison’s leading media law practice for over 15 years and led its National Privacy Team. Veronica joined KPMG Law as a Director in 2019. Veronica has represented a wide range of media companies across all mediums. Her work focuses on digital content and covers defamation, FOI laws, court reporting, privacy and data protection, breach of confidence, pre-publication advice and reputation management. Veronica also serves on the Media and Communications Committee of the Law Council of Australia and is on the ANZ Advisory Board of privacy professional association IAPP.

Secretary Richard Leder OAM

Richard is a partner of the national law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth. He is the Melbourne office Litigation Practice Group Leader and has practiced as a media lawyer for over 25 years. He is the principal legal advisor to Channel Seven Melbourne. Other media law clients include The Conversation Media Group, The Big Issue and the Elliott Newspaper Group. He was named 2014 Melbourne entertainment lawyer of the year in the AFR Best Lawyers Peer Review. He also serves on the boards of community and charitable bodies, including the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation, Australian Friends of Asha for Slums and the Law Council of Australia Media & Communications Committee. He was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 2019.

Eileen Berry

Eileen Berry started in journalism at Leader newspapers in 1984. Five years later she joined The Age, assigned to the lifestyle features desk (day shift). From 1989-2007, Berry worked in editorial, administration, classifieds and new technology roles at The Age. Berry has also worked in Queensland (APN), New Zealand (FXJ) and South Melbourne (Metro Media Publishing). She is the founding editor of The Weekly Review, which she left in 2014. Her NFP organisation, Parenting Guides Ltd (PG), produces education publications for parents, carers, teachers and educators of teenagers. Her latest publication is called Teens 101.

Patrick Considine

Patrick is a senior lawyer with Minter Ellison specialising in media law and commercial litigation. He has worked in media law since being admitted in December 2010, and joined Minter Ellison’s media law practice as a Senior Associate in 2015. Minter Ellison has one of the longest-established media law practices in the country. Patrick has represented a number of media organisations in a broad range of matters, including Fairfax Media, Channel Nine, The New York Times, CNN, Bloomberg, Domain Group, as well as a number of authors, actors, government departments and insurers.

Rachael Dexter

Rachael is an award-winning journalist and a podcast/video producer with The Age. She previously worked as a radio producer for ABC Radio Melbourne. Rachael is convenor of The Edit, the MPC forum that provides training, networking and support for young journalists. She is a passionate advocate for young people in the media industry and has previously been President of the SYN (Student Youth Network) - the Melbourne radio station that gave her a leg up into journalism.

Jude Donnelly

Jude Donnelly is Head of Corporate Social Responsibility & Community at the Australian Football League. She has a background as a senior policy adviser and media adviser to federal government and was also General Manager of Media and Communications at the Richmond Football Club for 3 years.

Fotis Kapetopoulos

Fotis Kapetopoulos has 35 years experience in the arts and multicultural media. He works for Neos Kosmos, Australia’s leading Greek Australian media, serving as English edition editor between 2007 and 2011. After a stint as Multicultural Media Advisor to former Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu Fotis returned to Neos Kosmos, where in 2020 he led a campaign to have multicultural media invited to state government press conferences. This was during the second pandemic wave in Victoria when over 140 Greek Australian elderly died. Neos Kosmos’ advocacy resulted in the Victorian government allocating $3.5m to the multicultural media sector. Fotis has led the development of the independent national Multicultural Media Association, heads multicultural communications and research consultancy Kape Communications, and has held leadership roles including CEO of Multicultural Arts Victoria. He is a Smithsonian Institution (short-term) Intern and an Asialink Arts Management Residency recipient. Fotis is a PhD Candidate at Deakin University looking at multicultural media and the role of Neos Kosmos.

Matilda Marozzi

Matilda Marozzi is an investigative journalist and radio producer at the ABC in Melbourne. She is also a regular guest on ABC News Breakfast and ABC Radio Overnights. She was named 2018 Melbourne Press Club Young Journalist of the Year for her investigations of underpayment in the hospitality industry and won a UK Gold aria award for BBC Radio 5 live’s coverage of the London Bridge Terror attack. As well as her work producing and reporting for ABC Radio Melbourne, Matilda has freelanced for Monocle 24, ABC Radio National and the BBC. Marozzi has served as director and vice-president of SYN Media in Melbourne.

Kate McGrath

As the senior chief of staff for the highest rating television news service in Victoria, Kate McGrath is passionate about telling stories, breaking news, and the people and pastimes of this great city of Melbourne. With 20 years’ experience in broadcast news, McGrath is a multi-award winning journalist and has been the news chief at both Nine and Ten’s Melbourne newsrooms. Through memberships on the boards of the St Vincent’s Hospital Foundation (2011-current) and the Unicorn Foundation (retired, now ambassador) McGrath has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for much needed healthcare & medical research.

Patrick O'Beirne

Patrick O'Beirne is a Director of leading strategic communication firm, Six O'Clock Advisory. Over a 20-year career, Pat has held senior corporate affairs and executive positions in-house and in-agency, including at Telstra, Cricket Australia and the Dentsu Aegis Network. O'Beirne joined the Board of the Melbourne Press Club in 2011 and has been a member and sponsor of the club since 2003.

Paul Paton

Paul Paton is a Gunai and Monaro-Ngarigo man from southeastern Australia who is dedicated towards the preservation, continuation and promotion of Aboriginal cultures. He is presently CEO of the Federation of Victorian Traditional Owner Corporations, and has previously served as Executive Officer at the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages and as a Director on the Board of First Nations Legal & Research Services.

Paul has broad experience in identifying, fostering and maintaining relationships across Aboriginal communities and like-minded organisations around Victoria. As FVTOC CEO, Paul is committed to building on the organisation's success as a key organisation that strengthens the voice of Traditional Owners in Victoria.

Justin Quill

Justin Quill is one of Australia's most experienced media law practitioners. Quill was a Partner with Corrs Chambers Westgarth and has practised in media law and general commercial litigation for more than 10 years. Quill has been the principal person responsible for providing legal services to The Herald and Weekly Times Pty Ltd for many years. In addition, Quill has provided legal services to Channels Nine and Seven, Radio 3AW, Nationwide News, Leader Community Newspapers, the Geelong Advertiser, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and a number of smaller or rural media clients. Quill is Deputy Chair of the Media and Communications Committee of the Law Council of Australia.

Tom Salom

Tom Salom is Editorial Business Manager at News Corp, providing a strategic and commercial link between editorial management an other parts of the News Corp business in Victoria. He has worked in the news media for over 25 years beginning at the Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper on the WA Goldfields. Following journalism roles in Perth, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, Salom was appointed to a management position with the Herald Sun. He also manages News Corp's national sporting partnerships with organisations such as the AFL, Tennis Australia, Cricket Australia and V8 SuperCars.

Lynne Scrivens

Lynne Scrivens is the Deputy News Director for Seven Network Melbourne. Scrivens has 25 years experience as a journalist in radio and TV, having started her career in regional radio and at 2UE before moving to Seven News in Sydney and later Melbourne.

Nicole Strahan

Nicole has more than two decades of experience in the media industry.

Nicole began her career in local newspapers as a cadet journalist, working her way up to become a senior reporter. She then spent several years as a reporter at The Australian newspaper. She joined Network 10 as a junior reporter in the Melbourne news room in 2001 and covered stories across Australia and around the world, including the Beaconsfield mine disaster, state elections, bushfires, the Bali bombings and the Christchurch terror attacks.

After leaving the network in 2014, Nicole worked as a journalism lecturer and tutor at Monash and Swinburne universities. She returned to the network in 2015 as a senior producer and reporter.
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Richard Willingham

Richard Willingham is state political reporter for ABC News. Willingham has been a journalist in Melbourne for 10 years, joining The Age in 2010 before moving to the ABC in 2017. He has previously spent time in Canberra as a political reporter. Willingham was a joint recipient of the 2017 Quill award for News Report in Writing for coverage of a parliamentary rorts scandal.