DriveAbout has assembled a strong leadership team to carry the business
forward. Key positions are held by well-established professionals with
significant experience in strategy, advisory, and business development.
John Whitington
Legal
John Whitington joined Griffins Lawyers Adelaide Office as a Graduate Clerk in August 2004. He was Admitted to Practice in December 2004, and now works as an integral part of our Commercial Litigation Group.
Now, John specialises in commercial disputes and commercial dispute resolution.
Vanessa Beggs
Non-Executive Chairperson
Vanessa was previous head of Strategy and Innovation at CommBank when she first saw the prototype of DriveAbout. As a mother of teenage children as well as a person at the forefront of DriveAbout she joined the team based on her belief in this innovative product.
A strong communicator and leader with a focus on developing relationships and credibility to influence change and support performance across all organisational levels, Vanessa has the ability to listen, interpret and deliver outcomes that meet the needs of multiple stakeholders with diverse requirements.
Vanessa has held a number of executive roles, responsible for developing business strategies and leading complex change and cultural transformations and the development of an innovation strategy including new capabilities and most recently responsible for developing and implementing culture, diversity, talent, leadership and capability strategies, aligned to the people strategies of the Technology, Finance and Bankwest lines of business in the Commonwealth Bank Group.
Clinton Hoffmann
Founding Non-Executive Director
Clinton Hoffmann a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Clinton is an accredited Trainer with over twenty-eight years of experience in the assurance, tax and consulting fields; 10 years predominately with EY and nearly the rest with Ambrose Solutions.
He founded Ambrose in 2001 and drives change and achieves results by providing innovative solutions across many areas, including in the challenging cross-cultural setting of Indigenous Australia. He uses his skills and experience and aligns with international organisations to build poverty alleviation and empowerment models and focuses on solving problems worldwide through scalable education.
Clinton is a disruptor, a social entrepreneur and above all person who likes to get things done. His profile in the EdTech sector is growing as a result of his innovative products for business, governance, mental wellbeing and road safety. These products all have a common theme of mitigating risk at scale through EdTech, achieving his mission to empower people and save lives.
Clinton and his team won two Awards at the 2019 Australian Road Safety Awards for their innovative and highly accredited DriveAbout – road rule and road safety app.
Paul Rajan
Executive Consultant
Paul is a pragmatist and a risk-based realist and rates DriveAbout highly. In an interesting story first saw it as an idea in before seeing the idea come to reality in the App store some five years later. Paul has extensive senior executive experience both in Australia and the UK, in all levels of government, the not for profit sector and as a small business operator. He also has a broad background in transport, social welfare, community development, program evaluation and design consultancy, facilitation, negotiation and training in the UK and Australia.
Paul has occupied a range of senior positions in a range of government Departments, including transport, education, local government and the Department of the Chief Minister focused on policy and program development, community engagement, responsibility for remote services development and the leadership of large teams delivering core public services.
Most recently Paul was Executive Director, Transport Services in the Norther Territory, including the statutory role of Registrar of Motor Vehicles and responsibility for transport regulation, including registration, licensing and heavy vehicles, marine and road safety and public transport.
A number of these roles included national representative roles and primary interagency relationship management responsibility across jurisdictions. In addition, I have held a range of governance roles in non-government bodies including chairing state and national representative bodies and local service providers.
Chris Haywood
Education Technology
Chris is an educationalist in CALD and Indigenous markets. He has followed the path of DriveAbout and continues to add valuable EdTech strategy to its development.
He is a dedicated business professional and trusted leader with a proven decision-making capability, acknowledged for operational excellence and leadership throughout intricate transitions.
As a business developer and strategist that specialises in the development of sustainable social enterprises, Chris drove the Indigenous training and employment goals of Government-led initiatives across a number of program areas for both the Australian and Northern Territory Governments.
As a highly collaborative Executive Manager and proven team leader, Chris has a successful track record for proficiency in directing multi- site operations, developing business models, policy reviews and cost control with skillful management of cultural and organizational diversity.
Kaye Hall
Content Management
Kaye Hall is the head of content development for DriveAbout and was responsible for developing all the program’s educational content. This involved analysing the existing road rule books for four States and Territories and working with jurisdiction officers to translate this into program content, the creation of a bespoke learning management system, blended learning model production, all competency-based content, language version creation, animation interface and regulatory validation.
Kaye has also worked to create new content for the DriveAbout App, for the HVSI and has worked on the international language versions as well as overseeing the gamification prototype ensuring DriveAbout’s updating, continuing development and preparation for new markets and new applications.
Peter Ball
Strategic Consultant
Peter has seen DriveAbout since inception and is a key strategist in respect of helping DriveAbout achieve its social impact. Peter has dedicated his energy and focus to achieving similar outcomes with a focus on always achieving a blend of social and economic returns. The outcomes are often broadly recognised under a wider banner of ‘social innovation’.
Peter’s experience includes the design, development and distribution of impact investment products (debt and equity) and social
finance frameworks. Peter has worked extensively with non-profit organisations (medium and large) and social enterprise (start-up and early stage) on business model design, financial forecasting, corporate governance structures, stakeholder partnerships, securing the right resources and building organisational capacity.
Operating within this rapidly emerging field has meant working closely with the multiple levels of government, global corporate entities,
large academic institutions, non-profit organisations, peak bodies and industry associations. Peter also acts in the capacity of director, mentor and advisor for a growing number of very passionate and extremely capable social entrepreneurs.
Peter has worked throughout Australia and spoken internationally on the subject of incubating and scaling social enterprise, specifically through Social Franchising.