Our Board is appointed by Unitywater’s three shareholders: the Noosa, Sunshine Coast and Moreton Bay Regional Councils.
The independent skills-based Board guides our Executive Leadership Team to fulfil its vision to create a sustainable, industry-leading, community and customer oriented water and allied services business.
The combination of Board members' qualifications, skills and experience ensures a strong commercial focus, with emphasis on identifying efficiencies across the organisation and passing on costs savings to you.
Michael Arnett, Chairman
B Comm, LLB
Michael has significant experience in the corporate, commercial, mining and natural resources (including water), banking, finance and securities sectors. He was a previously a Board member of Unitywater (from 2009 to 2012) and of Seqwater (from 2012 to 2019). Michael is a Board member of, amongst others, NRW Holdings Limited, Queensland Energy Resources Limited.
Chris Hertle
MPhil - Bio & Env Sci, BE(Chem).
Chris brings to Unitywater over 37 years’ experience in municipal and industrial water, wastewater and solid waste management. His roles have spanned from concept design through to commissioning and operation, with the last decade focused on developing and implementing robust strategies for growth of water business.
He has worked extensively in APAC and North America for GHD and previously had a role developing new technology for the water sector in Perth for ESI. He has a deep understanding of the water industry across the globe and how water and solid waste is managed in the urban, rural and industrial space. Chris has a passion for challenging the norm and coming up with alternative approaches that are cost effective.
He has been an active member of various water associations globally (Fellow of IWA and EA) and on several technical and advisory committees. He has been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland’s’ Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology for the last 9 years.
Sarah Zeljko
LLB, GAICD, GAIST
Sarah brings to Unitywater almost 20 years' of extensive executive, operational, governance and advisory experience. In October 2022, Sarah was made Non-executive chair of Energy Queensland. Additionally, she is a Non-executive director of Millovate, Stockyard Beef, LogiCamms and holds several advisory roles. She has a record of delivering revenue growth in large corporations through developing and executing corporate strategy, negotiating commercial agreements, capital raising, M&A, construction, infrastructure and project management across complex multi-million dollar transactions.
Megan Corfield
B Comm, BA (Econ), GAICD
Megan Corfield is a strategic businesswoman and leadership coach with 25 years of executive and governance roles across utilities, sustainability, professional services, government, and major events. Megan serves on the boards of Unitywater, Altogether Group, Infrasol and the Brisbane Grammar School and has previously served on the Tourism and Events Queensland, GOLDOC (Commonwealth Games Organising Committee) and Urbis Boards.
Megan has proven record in delivering new business value from strategy development to operational execution, negotiating and integrating mergers and acquisitions and building high performance teams.
She also mentors and coaches numerous C-Suite executives and is a recognised business leader as the Chair of Chief Executive Women Queensland, Queensland Telstra Businesswoman, AFR 100 Women of Influence and past USA Government Visiting Leaders program.
