Nicole has been Executive Director of TNA since 2009, a role that has grown with the organisation’s expansion from a Victorian program to a small but influential national peak body. Nicole is a passionate advocate for arts and culture, and a champion for equity and justice for First Nations people, people from culturally diverse backgrounds and Deaf and disabled people. As the former Co-Convenor of ArtsPeak, the confederation of 37 national arts peak bodies, she led the sector through the #freethearts campaign (2015 – 2017), which contributed to her receiving the 2017 Sidney Myer Facilitator’s Prize. Nicole has held key advisory roles for the Victorian government such as the Minister’s inaugural Creative State Advisory Board and the Creative Industries Advisory Group of which she was Co Deputy Chair. She is currently a member of Creative Victoria’s Respectful & Mentally Healthy Workplaces Working Group and a member of Industry Reference Groups for research projects at the University of Queensland and the University of Melbourne.
Nicole has worked in social policy in two local governments, and has worked as a consulting facilitator, strategic planner and policy adviser since 2005. Previous arts CEO positions include Back To Back Theatre (1996-1999) and Arts Access Victoria (2000-2005). Nicole has a Masters of Public Policy and Management (MPPM) from Monash University (2013).

Joshua is a business leader of creative and not-for-profit organisations, and has been the General Manager of TNA since 2021. He is currently studying an MBA part-time at Melbourne Business School. Until late 2020 Joshua was the founding CEO and Artistic Director of DRILL, a non-profit dance organisation specialising in working with young people, based in Hobart. Between 2007 and 2020 he led DRILL’s artistic programming, and secured federal and state funding to grow the company into a nationally significant organisation. He was awarded the Premier’s Young Achiever of the Year Award for his work with DRILL. Between 2018 and 2019 Joshua was also the Artistic Director of Melbourne’s pre-professional dance company, Yellow Wheel, previously working as the founding Company Manager since 2012. Joshua has a Bachelor of Dance from the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne), and is an alumni of Asialink (2014), The Australia Council Future Leaders Program (2019), and an Australian Progress Fellowship (2022).

Steph Speirs is an accomplished creative producer who has worked over the past decade with artists and festivals across Australia and the UK. Steph is also a composer and performance-maker, creating works in experimental theatre and live art spaces and composing music for stage & media.

Steph is passionate about advocating for the value of arts workers to society, and about innovating to build sustainable arts careers and equitable pathways from education to industry. Recently Steph worked with Circus Oz as Producer of Artform & Industry Development, where she was dedicated to facilitating opportunities for artists and cultivating a thriving Australian circus sector. 

Steph holds a Bachelor of Performing Arts and a Master of Arts & Cultural Management.

Yuhui Ng-Rodriguez is a Geelong-based, Singaporean performance-maker. Fuelled by a preoccupation with how transient places and people are, her work attempts to find a connection between home and inhabitant, country and citizen, body and culture. Projects include Baby Cake (Next Wave & Darebin Speakeasy 2018), Museum of Me (Darebin Arts 2016), Neighbours (Big West Festival 2015), Uncommon Places (Melbourne Fringe Keynote 2015) and Geelong Sweats (Geelong Arts Centre development 2020). She has worked across various arts administration roles for organisations such as Back to Back Theatre and the National Arts Council in Singapore.

Wen-Juenn writes and edits poetry on unceded Wurundjeri land, and her writing has been published or is forthcoming in Meanjin, Antithesis, Landfall, Southerly, Scum Mag, and Going Down Swinging. She previously served as poetry editor at Voiceworks.

Christy has been working for over 15 years as an artist, facilitator, director and manager of community arts projects ranging from circus, physical theatre, visual arts, storytelling, community publishing, flash mob dances and film.

Christy co-founded circus and physical theatre company Asking for Trouble with Luke O’Connor in 2008 and has since created, performed and produced various award-winning works, which have toured regionally, nationally and internationally.

She loves connecting people with opportunities and helping make inspiring things happen, she is passionate about the kinds of transformational processes that artists can deliver in communities and the many different ways they approach this work.

Lauren Swain is a proud Dabee Wiradjuri person with English, Irish and Norwegian heritage, based in Naarm (Melbourne). She grew up in a rural town in the Mountains of Ngarigo Country (Cooma, NSW), an upbringing that underpins an artistic practice grounded in: community consciousness, care, inclusion and working with what you’ve got.

Lauren is an emerging multidisciplinary theatre maker and weaves between performer, collaborator, facilitator and producer, holding the process and interpersonal connection at the centre of her practice. Lauren is a 2022 VCA graduate (BFA Theatre) and is interested in theatre that is led by physical play and movement.

Charice is Co-Artistic Director and performer for contemporary circus company One Fell Swoop Circus, through which she cultivates her passion for combining innovative physical expression with considered ideas. Charice also works as co-producer for One Fell Sweep Circus developing her creative producer practice alongside her acrobatic practice. Recent performance highlights include the Xintiandi Festival in Shanghai, Hawkes Bay Arts Festival in New Zealand, the CIRCa Festival in Auch, France, and extensive regional touring throughout Australia.

She is passionate about growing her producing practice to support the careers of circus artists and companies.

Christian is a circus professional. After 20 years in the industry, he has a degree in circus arts, has run a small circus company touring across the world, and worked for many Australian circus organisations and a variety of international companies.

He loves collaborating on unique and exciting projects, supporting the sector, touring to bizarre out of the way places and watching things grow in the garden.