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CEO and Board of Directors

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Our CEO

Mark Painting

Chief Executive Officer

Mr Mark Painting joined NAATI as Chief Executive Officer in July 2015 and has overseen the organisational transformation of NAATI, including the implementation of the national Certification System.

Mark is the chair of the Australian Mirror Committee (CS117) to the ISO Committee on Translating, Interpreting and Related Technology (ISO TC37/SC5). He is also a member of the Judicial Council on Diversity and Inclusion, and the Industry Advisory Board for Monash University’s translating and interpreting program.

Prior to joining NAATI, Mark held several corporate and operational roles at senior executive levels in the Australian Public Service. In addition to his public sector career, Mark also has experience as Board Director and sat on several governance and audit committees. He has also been a lecturer/tutor at TAFE and university levels.

Mark holds a Master of Public Administration, a Graduate Certificate in Management and a Bachelor of Business. Mark is a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a Fellow of the Institute of Management and Leadership and an Executive Fellow of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG).

Board of directors

To contact our Board, please reach out via email at: board@naati.com.au

Magdalena Rowan

Chair

Magdalena Rowan was appointed to the NAATI Board from 1 December 2023 and appointed as the Chair of the Board from 1 July 2024.

Ms Rowan has been a practicing certified interpreter and translator for over 40 years. During this time, she has also been involved in most facets of the industry. She has provided services across all levels of interpreting and translating. She has been an educator in interpreting and translating since the eighties, both at university and vocational levels in Australia and New Zealand. She was a member of the Technical Advisory Committee for the T&I Public Service Training Package and has designed and implemented T&I courses as a senior lecturer at TAFESA, including courses for Indigenous and sign language interpreters.

Ms Rowan has worked extensively with NAATI since the 1990’s including being a member of the NAATI Regional Advisory Committee for many years. More recently she has been involved in the development of the NAATI Certification System and Continuous Improvement Program. She was a NAATI examiner for many years and also assisted in training examiners. Until recently, she was also a member, and then chair, of NAATI’s Technical Reference Advisory Committee (TRAC).

Ms Rowan is also a member of the Judicial Council on Diversity and Inclusion subcommittee, responsible for the development of the Recommended National Standards for Working with Interpreters in Courts and Tribunals. Ms Rowan regularly presents to professionals who work with interpreters and continues to be a practicing interpreter and translator in Spanish. In the past, Ms Rowan also practiced as an accredited Polish Professional Interpreter.

Ms Rowan has a Bachelor of Arts, a Postgraduate degree in Adult Education and an Advanced Diploma in Interpreting and Translating and has completed the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) Foundations for Directorship course. She is a fellow of the Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators and a member of the New Zealand Society of Interpreters and Translators.

Prof. Nicholas Farrelly

Deputy Chair
Professor Nicholas Farrelly was appointed to the NAATI Board from 1 December 2023, bringing to the Board significant academic, leadership and organisational change experience. Professor Farrelly was appointed as the Deputy Chair of the Board from 1 December 2024.
 
After graduating from the Australian National University with First Class Honours and the University Medal in Asian Studies, he completed his M.Phil and D.Phil at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.
 
Professor Farrelly was previously an Associate Dean in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, Deputy Director of its Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs, and the founding Director of the ANU Myanmar Research Centre.
 
For the past 20 years, he has published widely on Asian political, social and security issues, with a long-term focus on Thailand and Myanmar. He has also led a range of academic activities in Bangladesh, India, China, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.   
 
Professor Farrelly is currently a Pro Vice-Chancellor at the University of Tasmania and previously, from 2020-2023, he was Head of the University’s School of Social Sciences. He also works closely with many different government, community and industry organisations. Professor Farrelly maintains a keen interest in educational, technological and cultural change.
 
In 2024, he was the lead author of a report on Australia’s diplomatic engagement with Southeast Asia titled Comprehensive Strategic Partners: ASEAN and Australia after the first 50 years. In 2024 was also appointed by the Australian Foreign Minister to serve on the advisory board for the new ASEAN-Australia Centre. Professor Farrelly is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK).

Jeff McAlister

Board member​
Jeff McAlister was appointed to the NAATI Board from 1 September 2023. He was appointed by the Board as the Chair of the NAATI Audit and Risk Committee from 1 January 2025.
 
Mr McAlister is a senior government executive with extensive experience in trade, investment, and international relations across multiple jurisdictions including as Australia’s major overseas partners.
 
Since graduating with an MA (Hons) in Languages, Mr McAlister has had a lifelong interest in language and knows firsthand the value of quality translation and interpretation services to help business and migrants access services and reach agreements. Mr McAlister has worked on a range of Indigenous projects and is encouraged by the renewal of First Nations languages.
 
Mr McAlister has set up a new statutory investment and economic development body for the Gold Coast, as Acting CEO from November 2024. This new body, Invest Gold Coast, will lead the attraction and delivery of major public and private city shaping investments into Australia’s fastest growing major city. He also does pro bono work providing migration advice for vulnerable migrants and sits on the Board of the Licensed Immigration Advisers Association of New Zealand.

Gulnara Abbasova

Board member​
Gulnara Abbasova was appointed to the NAATI Board from 1 July 2024.
 
Ms Abbasova brings over 20 years of leadership and contribution in public policy and strategy, governance and regulation across civil society, government and intergovernmental organisations. This includes over a decade of community sector leadership at the intersection of social policy, migration and settlement, and multiculturalism, with a particular focus on gender equality and health equity. 
 
Now Head of Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Prevention and Response at SSI, Ms Abbasova previously led the national multicultural peak body, and established and led the national migrant and refugee women’s alliance and Australia’s first national peak body on migrant and refugee health. Her role in government was in public health services where she led work on policy, strategy and governance. Prior to moving to Australia, Ms Abbasova’s experience was in the intergovernmental context, including working at the United Nations, with a focus on Indigenous Peoples’ rights and issues.
 
Ms Abbasova has been a trusted advisor to government on policy development, implementation and reform. Among her many contributions, she advised on the development of The National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 and served as a WHO’s leading issue expert in the development and implementation of a landmark global policy framework on migrant and refugee health.
 
Ms Abbasova brings extensive experience in health practitioner regulation and has held statutory appointments with the ACT Boards and national committees of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (2017-24) and the Medical Board of Australia (since 2019, currently as Chair), as well as the Dental Board of Australia (since 2024).
 
Ms Abbasova has a long-standing affiliation with NAATI through her work on improving access to language services particularly in the health sector, and her service on the NAATI Technical Reference Advisory Committee.

Andrea Creado

Board member​
Andrea Creado was appointed to the NAATI Board from 1 July 2024.
 
Ms Creado is currently the CEO of a multicultural organisation in Western Australia with over 18 years of executive experience working with varied ethnic communities in a community health setting.
 
Ms Creado is also a Councillor with one of the largest local governments in WA which has a high proportion of culturally diverse populations. She holds a Master’s Degree in Human Development, Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Psychology, is a fellow of the Australian Institute of Management and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Additionally, she has post graduate qualifications in Governance in Cyber Security and Managing Financial Resources. She sits on the board of the Centre for Women’s Safety and Wellbeing, on the council for John Septimus Roe High School and is a committee member and expert reference group member for various government and community organisations. She is often invited by government to sit as the multicultural voice on various advisory groups related to women’s health and family and domestic violence.
 
As a first-generation migrant from India and a professional working in an industry where interpreters are used daily, Ms Creado has an in-depth understanding of the importance of interpreting and translating services and champions the use of professional interpreters through her advocacy with various government bodies.
 
Ms Creado has been recognised by various organisations for her work. She has won the Zonta Woman of Achievement Award in 2012, the Soroptimist International Woman of Achievement Award 2023 and was the recipient of the Social Impact Leadership Australia scholarship in 2023.

Caitrin Dunn

Board member​
Caitrin Dunn was appointed to the NAATI Board from 1 January 2025.
 
Ms Dunn was appointed by the NAATI Board as a member of the NAATI Audit and Risk Committee from 1 January 2025, having been an independent member of the Audit and Risk Committee since August 2017.
 
Ms Dunn is based in Canberra with her husband and two children. A first-generation migrant, Ms Dunn feels extremely privileged to live and raise her family in Australia. She appreciates the benefits our multicultural community provides and views her work with NAATI as critical to support and contribute to Australia’s diversity and success. Ms Dunn’s interest in languages started with her mother’s Māori bedtime stories and continued to expand when her parents worked as teachers in remote Indigenous communities in Western Australia working alongside local Indigenous community members to record their traditional stories that were developed into educational resources.
 
Ms Dunn is a senior business executive with extensive experience in strategy, risk management and technology locally and overseas. She currently runs a boutique technology strategy business that supports state and federal governments to leverage technology to improve service delivery for the community.
 
Ms Dunn has designed and delivered complex, multi-jurisdictional programs to rectify issues or implement new technologies to improve operations. She focuses on establishing trusted relationships with clients and teams to ensure alignment and support mutually beneficial goals and outcomes. She has expertise across a range of domains including immigration and border, national security, environment and climate change, education and infrastructure. Prior to her work with government, Ms Dunn worked in investment banking around the world, helping to identify and assess opportunities in new markets.

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NAATI acknowledges and pays respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional custodians of this land and speakers of its first languages. In the spirit of reconciliation, NAATI acknowledges the richness that Indigenous, signed and all languages bring to Australia and the role interpreters and translators play in connecting us all.

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