Ben Hall
CEO - Barossa Village
Barossa Village is a not for profit community owned aged care service provider, providing services to the Barossa Valley region and surrounding areas.
I have been CEO for 4 years of the Barossa Village organisation. We provide services to approximately 1,000 people on any given day across our Community Care, Independent Living and Residential Care Services which are loyally staffed by over 270 people, making us one of the regions biggest employers
I didn’t know it at the time, but my Aged Care journey began in the early 90’s through high school work experience, when I joined my mother who was an enrolled nurse at Yeltana Nursing home in Whyalla SA. From there, with a personal purpose of creating great places for people, I became a Landscape Architect and Project Manager, specialising in project and asset management but with a strong pension toward community outcomes. 20 years of work in community facing organisations led me back to Aged Care, as a place where I can have a meaningful impact, supporting the community that we serve doing the best with what I have available to me.
I joined the Aged Care Innovation Hub Board when I became the CEO of the Barossa Village replacing my predecessor. At the time of my first meeting I was nervous sitting at the table with so many people with a wider and deeper experience than myself, but the highlight was how welcoming the group was to new ideas, new ways of thinking and inviting that perspective – which are all, after all, synonymous with innovation.
The Aged Care Innovation Hub matters to me because it is the space where I feel that I can truly test ideas and assumptions with others that have the same pressures and challenges that I do. Being a CEO is a lone role with all the accountability and responsibility. It can be a challenge but having this space where we can come together and share has immense value and is always prioritised in my calendar.