SAID Practice Advisory Group

Gregory has served as a Salvation Army Officer for more than three decades in Australia and the United Kingdom. His ministry has included frontline leadership of local church and community work, several education and training roles (including leading the formation of a National College and serving as the first Head of College for The Salvation Army Australia), and other senior leadership roles. Currently, he serves as Governance Lead for The Salvation Army Australia leading a portfolio of departments primarily focused on ensuring good governance for all mission and ministry of The Salvation Army in Australia. He has a passion to see people’s lives transformed in holistic and multidimensional ways, both within Australia and internationally. Gregory holds postgraduate qualifications in mission, education and leadership and is a Fellow of the Institute of Manager and Leaders (Australia and New Zealand).

Major Judith Soeters has held a variety of appointments throughout her 31 years of service as a Salvation Army Officer. These have included seven Corps appointments in city, country and the outback. Other appointments have been at Divisional and Territorial Headquarters, as well as being on staff at the Officer Training College. Judith has also served in the Eastern Europe Territory as the Training Principal for the Institute for Officer Training, the Territorial Education Secretary as well as being a member of the Eastern Europe Territory Cabinet. Judith took up leadership at the State Social Command in Victoria, followed by the position of Area Officer for the Melbourne Metro West Area before being transferred to her current position as Head ofThe Salvation Army International Development department.

Completing his formal education in 1979 in Brisbane, Gary Masters commenced an apprenticeship in Catering.  He entered The Salvation Army Training College in Sydney from the Carina Corps in 1987.  Following training he served in Corps appointments until his marriage to Karen Redwood in 1991, where upon they served together as Corps Officers for ten years in the former AUE.  In 1999, Gary was appointed to the Public Relations Department leading the Red Shield Appeal for 13 years.  During the last decade, Gary has served as an Aged Care Manager and in the Legal Department, most recently as Territorial Estates Manager based in Melbourne.  He is pleased to re-join the Communications Team in this new leadership role.

Arbin comes to our Practice Advisory Group with 15 years’ experience as Financial Accountant for The Salvation Army, managing financial accounting and taxation reporting. He also brings high-level networking capabilities and 17 years’ team-building expertise.service design and strategy.

Jackie Perkins has been involved with Quaker Service Australia firstly as a volunteer, and in a paid capacity since 2004. Her role has included management of projects in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India (Tamil Nadu), Uganda and with First Nations Peoples communities in Australia. In recent years, her role has been more one of administration and compliance, and has successfully secured and maintained DFAT accreditation for Quaker Service Australia as a full level agency.

Roger came to the previous governance system, serving on SAID Council in 2018 with 26 years’ experience in corporate senior management and a decade spent helping aid agencies gain and maintain Australian government accreditation.

Steph has over 16 years’ experience in aid and development in a range of contexts in Australia, Africa and the Pacific. During this time, she has worked primarily with faith -based organisations to support the delivery of development and humanitarian programs. She has a Master of International Social Development from the University of NSW and was awarded Honours for her thesis on “The integration of ni-Vanuatu Indigenous philosophies into the practice of sustainable community development in Vanuatu” from the University of Western Sydney in 2007. Steph is passionate about locally led development that leads to meaningful, long term change in the lives of the communities we seek to serve. Steph joined SAID as the Program Manager in January 2022.

Uma Komalan is Manager- Safeguarding Policy and Practice (Inclusion & Participation) at The Salvation Army. She has over 17 years of development sector experience in program quality and safeguarding technical specialist roles in many leading international development and humanitarian organisations in Australia and overseas. Uma brings deep expertise in developing and embedding program management and safeguarding systems across diverse and complex settings and has extensive experience in policy and standards development and practice leadership in these areas.