Board
Responsibilities
The highest decision-making body within MEFL is the Board of Directors. The Board is responsible for ensuring good corporate governance and taking a strategic view to guide MEFL's activities.
Selection process
Board members are nominated in different ways:
- Moreland City Council has responsibility for nominating a Councillor and a Council officer to the Board.
- The members of MEFL elect another member.
- The CEO is a member of the Board.
- The additional four positions are filled by the Board based on a skills and qualities-based selection process.
Constitution
MEFL is a company limited by guarantee, which means that the Company Constitution provides the rules under which the organisation must operate.
Chair
Monique Conheady joined the MEFL Board in late 2010.
Monique is a co-founder and CEO of Flexicar. After graduating with honours from the University of Melbourne in both Engineering and Arts, Monique worked as an engineer/project manager in the infrastructure sector.
Her experience includes time in both the private and public sectors on projects as diverse as a renewable energy program for remote Indigenous communities and a new head office building for Sainsbury’s in Cairo, Egypt.
In 2009 Monique was selected for a Churchill Fellowship. She was also awarded the 2009 Victorian Winner of the Hudson Private & Corporate Sector Award in the Telstra Business Women’s Awards.
Monique is passionate about new ways of doing business that are financially, socially and environmentally sustainable, and she aspires to be a serial “eco-preneur”.
Board member
Rosemary is the Head of Sustainability Governance and Risk at the National Australia Bank (NAB).
Previous to her time at NAB, Rosemary spent two years at the Sustainable Energy Authority Victoria, as Board Secretary and part of the Executive team. She also worked in the water industry for ten years in areas including sustainability strategy, environment, trade waste management, cleaner production, customer and community education.
Rosemary is currently on a number of not-for profit Boards including the Moreland Energy Foundation and is a member of the RMIT’s School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning - Environment Program Advisory Committee.
Moreland council nominee
Biographical details coming soon.
Board member 
Scott is Director of Climate Change Strategy for the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE). His team leads DSE’s climate change policy agenda, providing the Department and Government with advice and solutions to the challenges of climate change. This has included leading the development of the Climate Change Act 2010 for Victoria.
Scott has 20 years experience working on environment and climate change issues, including a number of short assignments in southeast Asian countries. He has a Master of Applied Science and expertise in environmental engineering and public policy.
He spent ten years working in various roles for EPA Victoria, including managing EPA’s cleaner production partnerships program. After working at the Sustainable Energy Authority and on greenhouse policy at DSE, he spent three years working as senior advisor to the Deputy Premier and Minister for Environment and Climate Change.
Board member 
Andrew Hewett joined the MEFL board in late 2010.
Andrew became the Executive Director of Oxfam Australia following previous positions with Oxfam include leadership of the agency’s advocacy program and the direction of Oxfam International’s response to the crisis in East Timor from 1999 - 2001.
Andrew has extensive international advocacy experience, was a member of the World Bank-NGO Committee for four years and has participated in and observed numerous international conferences, including those of the World Trade Organisation and the World Bank.
Andrew is a member of the Executive Committee of the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID), the peak council of non-government development agencies. He is also Co-Chair of the Make Poverty History Campaign. He is a member of the BHP Billiton Forum for Corporate Responsibility.
Community member representative
Victoria McKenzie-McHarg joined the MEFL Board in 2011 as the Community Representative Director. Victoria has lived in the Moreland municipality since 2006, and is currently a Coburg local. Victoria is the Safe Climate Campaigner at Environment Victoria, the state’s peak non-government, not-for-profit environmental organisation. Victoria works with community members and local climate action groups across the state to press for action on climate change at the local, state and federal level. Prior to joining Environment Victoria, Victoria spent some years working in International Development both in Australia and the UK, and has experience working across the not-for-profit sector. Victoria majored in Communications and Politics at Swinburne University of Technology. When not campaigning for climate action, Victoria can be usually be found attempting DIY renovations on her Coburg home, or recovering from the process at The Post Office Hotel.
Chief Executive Officer
Paul took up the role of Chief Executive at MEFL in January 2008, and has been involved in MEFL (as a Board member, a community member and as a consultant since the establishment of MEFL in 2000). Paul lives in East Brunswick and has worked, studied and taught conservation and environment issues for over 20 years. He has worked for a range of organisations, including locally with Moreland City Council and the Merri Creek Management Committee. Paul spent over 9 years working for the State Government (most recently with Sustainability Victoria) and has also worked as an independent sustainability consultant.
Moreland council nominee
Moreland James is the Director Corporate Services at Moreland City Council, responsible for Customer Service, Finance, Governance and Information Technology. He is a Chartered Accountant and worked for commercial organisations in the airline and financial consulting sectors for 12 years before joining Council in 2002. He was appointed to the role of Director Corporate Services in July 2005. He was seconded to The Coburg Initiative as Project Director from April 2008 to February 2010 and worked closely with the MEFL project team at that time.
Board member
Biographical details and photo coming soon.
Secretary
In a meeting room at the Brunswick Town Hall, on the morning of Monday 18 December 2000, the nominated directors held the first Board meeting of the company to be known as the Moreland Energy Foundation Limited. At that meeting Ian Thomas was appointed as company secretary and public officer of MEFL.
As a senior officer of the Moreland City Council, Ian assisted in getting Council to seek State Government permission, under the Local Government Act, to form the company and had worked on the initial business case report. The then Council CEO requested that Ian keep an eye on things until the company found its feet and Council could relax in knowing that its investment in MEFL was a sound one.
Eleven years on, Ian Thomas remains as Company Secretary and a senior officer of Council, and with MEFL having achieved its eighth financial operating surplus in a row, is confident that the company has fully realised the intentions of those who initially created it.
