Our Team
Our team is made up of qualified and skilled people who are passionate about early childhood development, supporting families and building communities. Our leadership, management, operational and program teams are highly experienced and driven by the values of respect, integrity and openness.
At Playgroup NSW our people are at the heart of what we do. We pride ourselves on our inclusive and engaged organisational culture. We value work-life balance, are family-friendly, flexible and inclusive, which makes us an employer of choice.
Our experienced and dedicated team is comprised of staff based at the Playgroup NSW headquarters, as well as support and development staff working in the Greater Sydney and regional areas.
Supporting current and prospective Playgroup NSW members to help them establish and manage community or supported playgroups is the major focus for the majority of our team. This includes providing information and guidance to playgroups, facilitating our supported playgroup sessions and promoting early childhood development with families and professionals.
Our focus and leadership is built around quality service delivery and sees our staffing resources focused firmly on playgroup development, excellence in service delivery, member support and engagement, and continuing our business and digital transformation.
Playgroup NSW also relies on the generosity and passion of our wonderful volunteers. Our community playgroups are run by volunteer committees who dedicate their time to ensure their local playgroup thrives.
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Chief Executive Officer
Nadene Lee
Nadene holds over 15 years’ experience in senior executive roles in Australia and overseas, with commercial and not for profit national and international organisations. In addition to her role as CEO for Playgroup NSW, until recently, Nadene was Chair of an international body for one of the world’s largest addiction science-based treatment programs.
Nadene maintains a long-term commitment to leading organisations that create positive change and equitable outcomes at scale. Through Non-Executive Director roles, Nadene has also applied influence and expertise to benefit a range of targeted programs and services for individuals and communities globally.
Nadene has a values-based, outcomes focused leadership style, with a future focus that aligns vision and strategy with innovation an impact. Nadene holds a Master in Business Administration, Bachelor International Business and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
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Leadership and Management Team
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Steve Moore, Chief Operating Officer
Steve Moore specialises in general management across multi-site operations with large multi-disciplinary teams. Steve has successfully led large scale strategic and operational transformations with a focus on maintaining the highest possible customer service standards and quality of stakeholder relationships.
As the elected President of the Greater Narellan Business Chamber, Steve works with a diverse Board of Directors to advocate for the needs of over 200 local member businesses in the Southwest of Sydney. Steve's emphasis in the workplace is on establishing and maintaining a supportive and productive culture, to enable individual, team and organisational growth and success. This aligns well with our strategic priority to attract, support, develop and engage our teams and volunteers; and that our people create and enable our success.
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Maria Cignarella, Chief Social Impact Officer
Maria Cignarella is an early childhood educator with over 15 years’ experience, beginning her career supervising long day care and moving into management of supported programs with Playgroup NSW. This includes the coordination and delivery of MyTime peer support and PlayConnect Playgroups for families of children with autism, developmental delays and behavioural concerns across the state of NSW.
She also takes an active role in business development for the organisation, sourcing and creating opportunities to broaden reach and additional programs and resources to support families and children in the community. She has a special interest in supporting children to reach their potential and enjoys developing strategies tailored to children’s individual needs and interests to support them in their ongoing development. This includes supporting language acquisition, behavioural support, self-regulation strategies and physical health and well-being.
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Tammy Collins, Chief Communications Officer
Tammy is a seasoned marketer with 19 years experience in the Australian media industry. With a penchant for insight led marketing and content, Tammy has held executive roles with eBay, Nine Entertainment, Fairfax Media and Australian Radio Network. A cross platform specialist, Tammy is well versed in radio, digital and print media.
Tammy enjoys helping brands define and tell their story. Tammy has joined Playgroup NSW as the Digital Strategist to assist the business in their digital transformation journey and to lead the marketing function in 2020.
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Kellie Murray, Chief First Nations Officer
Kellie Murray is a Wiradjuri woman from Wagga Wagga and a mother to three boys. She has been in Wagga since she was born, and loves working in the community. Kellie has always been in Aboriginal community services and education roles and it is a great passion of hers. At Playgroup NSW we run Aboriginal Supported Playgroups in the Wagga community. We provide not only early education but a full holistic approach to social and emotional wellbeing for our families. We work with a range of services who come out to our playgroups and provide not only outreach services but build connections with our families.
We also work with our local schools to provide support and connections for our families with children who are getting ready to transition into kindergarten.
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Natasha D'Ambrosio, Program Development Manager, Community & Education
Natasha is an experienced Operations Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the NFP sector, local government and education space. Natasha is skilled in team mentoring, coaching, team building and facilitation. She is a strong business development professional, having obtained an Advanced Diploma of Community Sector Management. Natasha has practical skills in high quality service delivery, as well as change management and is passionate about continuous improvement as well as a passion for adult education and mentoring.
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Natalie Lenton, Manager, People & Culture
Natalie leads the end-to-end employment life cycle activities of the People & Culture function, including recruitment, engagement, wellbeing, performance, and learning and development. Nat has experience in the not-for-profit sector.
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