ITB December 2024/January 2025 - Magazine - Page 13
Chris Mamarelis FCPA is the CEO
of Whiddon, an award-winning
not-for-profit aged care provider.
Mamarelis has more than
25 years of financial and
managerial experience across
a wide range of industries.
Mamarelis leads a team of more
than 2500 people who provide
services for nearly 3000 people.
AGED CARE
ELEVATED
By putting people — residents,
clients and employees — as the
focus of aged-care provider
Whiddon’s ethos, Chris Mamarelis
FCPA is changing perceptions of
the industry.
WORDS CAMERON COOPER
PHOTOGRAPHY ANTHONY GEERNAERT
A
s a commercially trained accountant,
Chris Mamarelis FCPA probably never
expected one of his career highlights
to be helping a man to tie his shoelaces.
Yet that is the reality for the CEO of Whiddon,
an industry-leading, not-for-profit aged-care
organisation. Whiddon cares for about 3000 people
through residential aged care, community care and
retirement living options.
During the pandemic, Mamarelis and his team
piloted a pain management program called Exercise
4 Life in three of the organisation’s aged-care homes.
With a focus on “reablement”, the aim of Exercise 4
Life is to give elderly residents more independence
and a better quality of life.
“One gentleman just wanted to be able to tie his
shoelaces on his own,” Mamarelis recalls. “Through
the reablement program, exercise physiology and
ongoing assistance, he was able to achieve that goal.”
Exercise 4 Life was recognised in the 2022
innovAGEING National Awards for its efforts to
increase access to care and services. The program
also complements a range of in-house projects that
are designed to support staff.
For Mamarelis, such initiatives reflect Whiddon’s
dual commitment to residents and its dedicated
team of more than 2500 employees. “We want
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