VPS Women of Colour Network | Equal Pay Day

Oanh Thi Tran, Commissioner, Fair Work Commission

Oanh Thi Tran was appointed as a Commissioner of the Fair Work Commission – Australia’s national workplace relations tribunal – in July 2023. She is Deputy National Practice Lead for employee-like workers, assisting Vice President Ingrid Asbury as the National Practice Lead for minimum standards for regulated workers. 

Prior to FWC, Oanh was principal solicitor at the Young Workers Centre, a community legal centre. She has also been a Union legal and Industrial Officer with the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia and CFMMEU-Manufacturing Division. She was also an employment and anti-discrimination law lawyer in firms in the UK and Queensland. Oanh began her legal career as a judge’s associate and has also worked in retail, been a Christmas elf and shop fitter. Oanh’s family were outworkers, and she sews as a hobby. Oanh cares deeply about social justice and the dignity of all work.

Sharon Deano, Director, Compliance and Enforcement, Energy, Essential Services Commission

Sharon Deano has occupied various leadership positions in the Australian Public Service over the last 18 years.  She has led several high-profile investigations which have resulted in groundbreaking precedent and multi-million dollar penalties. In her current role, she advises the commission on setting the strategic direction of the compliance and enforcement functions, including establishing annual compliance and enforcement priorities.
Her past experience includes contributing to several international projects designed to fast-track skills acquisition for newly formed competition regulators in the ASEAN region. She has provided capacity building training to agencies in the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia.  She has also spoken at multilateral conferences with ASEAN member states on the topics of leadership, investigations and data-driven decision making.

Vanya Kumar, Executive Director, Innovation, Commercial & Investment Attraction, Energy Group, Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action

Vanya Kumar is the Executive Director, Innovation, Commercial and Investment Attraction in the Energy Group at the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action. Vanya is an experienced executive with expertise in commercial transactions, infrastructure development, project management, innovation and industry development . A lawyer by training, Vanya has worked across a range of industries including energy and utilities, banking and finance, construction, oil and gas, and transport in Australia and overseas. 

Throughout her career, Vanya has sought to improve the opportunities for CALD communities and women. At the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA), it was to advance the prospects of and connections with WOC, that she accepted the role of the inaugural Women of Colour Network Executive Sponsor in 2022.   

As a VPS WOCN Champion, Vanya is keen to support initiatives, evolve systems and advocate for the important role WOC play in the VPS and in building our State

Our host, Dr Bridie O'Donnell, Executive Director, Public Health Network and Programs, Department of Health

Bridie O’Donnell is a medical Doctor, Victorian public servant, former professional road cyclist, author and cycling commentator. She completed the Hawaiian IronMan World Triathlon Championships and represented Australia at three UCI Road Cycling World Championships. 

A medical practitioner and surgical assistant before taking up cycling, Bridie later returned to medicine to work as a behaviour change physician and breast physician for cancer patients at the Epworth Hospital. 

In 2016 Bridie broke the Women’s World Hour record at the Adelaide SuperDrome riding 46.882 kilometres, and in 2018 published ‘Life and Death: a cycling memoir’. She was the first woman to commentate the Tour de France for SBS Television in 2020 and continues to work with SBS Television to commentate the men’s and women’s Tours de France, spring classics and world championships.  

In her first role in Government, Bridie was appointed the inaugural Head of the Office for Women in Sport and Recreation in the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions (DJPR) in November 2017, and led significant policy change to support gender equality in sport, including the implementation of a 40% board quota for all funded sporting organisations in Victoria, the first jurisdiction in the world to do so.  

She completed the EMPA at ANZSOG and the University of Melbourne over 2019 and 2020, and in November 2021 she was inducted onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women. 

Throughout Victoria’s COVID-19 response, Bridie took on four consecutive leadership roles in two departments over two years: in the Industry Coordination Recovery Group, the Public Events Team (both in DJPR) and then on secondment to the Department of Health as South East Metro Area of Operation Controller and Executive Director of Case, Contact and Outbreak Management (CCOM). 

In 2022, she joined the Victoria 2026 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (OC), and 14 months later as the Chief of Strategy and Delivery Coordination, led on the OC’s response to the Victorian Auditor General’s Office and the Parliamentary Inquiry into the cancellation of the Games.  

In February 2024, she commenced a new role in the Community and Public Health Division of the Victorian Department of Health as Executive Director, Public Health Network and Programs.