10 Influential Finance Leaders across Tasmania Today

Finance leaders in Tasmania work across banking, energy, public finance, education, infrastructure and trustee services. The people below are worth knowing because their roles show how financial judgement becomes strategy, stewardship, capability and community trust.

This is a practical starting point for anyone who wants to understand the people shaping finance conversations across the state. It includes leaders in organisations with different purposes, so the value is in the contrast: what changes when finance serves customers, students, citizens, assets or families?

1. Brett Morgan

Brett Morgan is Managing Director and CEO of MyState Limited, the Tasmanian financial services group behind MyState Bank. The organisation’s current company and foundation pages place him in that role and show his connection with the MyState Foundation, which has worked with community organisations for 25 years. That gives Morgan a useful place in any conversation about finance leaders in Tasmania: his work sits where banking, member service and community investment meet, rather than inside a finance function viewed in isolation.

For leaders, Morgan’s profile is a reminder that financial leadership is also about trust. A bank can be technically sound and still feel distant from the community it serves. MyState’s public focus on local participation gives Morgan a practical leadership lens: make the institution useful, explain the choices behind it and keep the wider community visible in day-to-day decisions. That combination of commercial responsibility and community attention is what makes his work worth following in Tasmania.

2. Rachel Watson

Rachel Watson is Chief Executive Officer of Hydro Tasmania, a role she commenced in April 2025. Hydro Tasmania’s current leaders page records her earlier work with OX2 and Pacific Hydro, as well as a background that includes finance and legal expertise. Her position places financial stewardship inside a large energy organisation, where investment, infrastructure, public value and long-term risk all have to be considered together.

Watson is worth watching because energy leadership makes trade-offs visible. Decisions about assets and new projects are never only numbers on a page. They affect customers, communities, the state’s future energy system and the confidence of partners. Her public profile gives Tasmanian leaders a useful example of finance-informed leadership that has to connect commercial discipline with a long horizon, clear choices and a willingness to explain why the choice matters.

3. Erin van Maanen

Erin van Maanen is Executive General Manager, Strategy and Commercial at Hydro Tasmania. The organisation’s current leaders page says she commenced in the role in 2023 and brings experience across corporate finance, strategy and governance. That is the part of finance leadership many organisations are trying to build now: a function that can read the numbers, understand the wider system and help leaders make decisions before the path is obvious.

Van Maanen’s work is a useful case study in making commercial thinking practical. Strategy can become vague when it stays at the level of ambition. Commercial work can become narrow when it only protects the next quarter. Connecting the two asks leaders to name the real trade-off, decide what good looks like and keep ownership visible. That is a helpful way to think about finance leadership in Tasmania’s infrastructure and energy economy.

4. Helen Galloway

Helen Galloway brings finance, technology and analytics experience to her work as Chair of Bank of us. Hydro Tasmania’s current leaders page also identifies her as a board director, while Bank of us describes its future as a Tasmanian customer-owned institution. That mix matters because financial leadership is not only about reporting performance. It is about deciding what the organisation is for, how it earns trust and how the board keeps those ideas connected.

Galloway’s profile is especially useful for leaders who want governance to feel more practical. A board can ask for more information forever, but better questions are usually more valuable than bigger packs. Her background points towards a disciplined approach: understand the signal in the data, bring the customer into the room and make the choice clear enough for people to act on. That is a strong example of finance leadership with a distinctly Tasmanian point of view.

5. Paul Ranson

Paul Ranson has led Bank of us as Chief Executive Officer since 2005, according to the organisation’s work-with-us guide. His current public profile also connects him with the Tasmanian financial support scheme and Bank of us’s long-running community role. A tenure of that length makes his work relevant to anyone studying finance leaders in Tasmania, because it shows how commercial stewardship and local identity can stay connected over time.

Ranson’s example is less about a single dramatic change and more about sustained responsibility. Long-term leadership asks a person to keep listening when the story becomes familiar, to notice when customer needs shift and to protect the organisation’s reason for being while the market changes around it. For leaders, that is a useful prompt: consistency is not standing still. It is making the next sound decision again and again, with the people affected by it in view.

6. James Craigie

James Craigie is Deputy Secretary, Budget and Finance at Tasmania’s Department of Treasury and Finance. Recent Tasmanian public documents place him in that role, while his public professional profile identifies him in Hobart and records a FINSIA fellowship. His work sits close to the choices that turn public priorities into budgets, forecasts and delivery expectations, which makes him a useful person to understand when the topic is finance leadership in Tasmania.

Public finance leadership has a particular pressure: the numbers belong to a community, not just an organisation. Craigie’s role therefore offers a clear example of why good finance leaders need to make trade-offs understandable. They have to connect policy with capacity, show what a decision will require and keep the conversation honest when resources are limited. That is not just technical work. It is the everyday practice of making ownership and consequences visible.

7. Mark Bowles

Mark Bowles is Dean and Head of School for the University of Tasmania’s Tasmanian School of Business and Economics. The university’s current academic structure page names him in that leadership role, and his public professional profile places him in Hobart. His work matters to the finance conversation because universities shape the people, research and questions that influence how Tasmania’s organisations understand markets, money and leadership.

Bowles’s role also highlights a quieter kind of finance leadership. Education leaders create value over a longer timeframe than most quarterly reports can show. They have to protect standards, support good teaching and keep the institution connected to the region around it. For business leaders, that is a useful reminder that the strongest financial decisions often build capability first. The payoff arrives later, but the ownership begins now.

8. Maria Yanotti

Maria Yanotti is Discipline Leader and Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Tasmania’s Tasmanian School of Business and Economics. The university’s current page places her within the finance and economics leadership team. That makes her relevant to this list for a reason that is easy to miss: finance leadership is also shaped by the people teaching, testing and explaining the ideas that future practitioners will carry into Tasmanian organisations.

Yanotti’s position connects technical knowledge with the needs of students and the wider community. Good economic thinking is not useful when it stays behind specialist language. It becomes useful when people can see the choice in front of them, understand what might change and act with better information. That is a practical leadership lesson for finance teams too: clarity is not a soft extra. It is part of the work.

9. Jorrick Chivers

Jorrick Chivers is Chief Financial Officer of Stadiums Tasmania, according to a current Tasmanian Government business page. His public professional profile also connects him with the CFO Track podcast and conversations about the finance leader’s role in scaling Tasmanian organisations. Stadiums are a useful setting for that work because they bring together assets, events, community expectations, commercial partners and long-term maintenance decisions.

Chivers’s profile points to finance as a connector. The numbers have to help people decide what an asset can support, what it will cost to maintain and which opportunities are worth pursuing. That requires more than control. It needs good questions, plain explanations and the courage to surface a problem early. For leaders in Tasmania, his work offers a grounded example of finance supporting growth without losing sight of the public place around it.

10. Todd Kennedy

Todd Kennedy is Chief Executive Officer of Public Trustee Tasmania. The organisation’s CEO message and leadership pages identify him in that role, while his current public professional profile connects him with the Hobart-based organisation. Public trustee work makes finance personal and practical: assets, estates, trusts and decisions all touch people who need care, clarity and dependable process.

Kennedy’s role shows why technical finance leadership has to be joined to human judgement. A sound process still needs to be explained in a way that a client or family can understand. A careful decision still needs someone to own it. For leaders, that is a strong reminder that trust is built through small, repeatable acts: clear information, respectful conversations and decisions that match the responsibility the organisation has been given.

Related reading.

For a wider finance conversation, read CFO thought leaders globally. For an Australia and New Zealand view, see finance and accounting leaders in Australia and New Zealand. You can also explore influential leaders in the Northern Territory and real estate leaders in Australia.

A final thought.

The most useful finance leaders make the hard choice easier to see. They connect numbers to people, explain the trade-off and help the next person take ownership. That is the thread running through these Tasmanian profiles.