About Sonya
As CEO of Common Ground Queensland (CGQ), Sonya is dedicated to creating a community that accepts, includes, and enables all its people to lead fulfilled lives. Her mission is to guarantee access to the fundamental human requirement of a safe place to call home through delivering and increasing supply of supportive housing to people who experience chronic homelessness.
She is a strong advocate of the benefits and outcomes of supportive housing, as evidenced by tenancy statistics and sustainment outcomes. These results stand as testament to Sonya’s success in creating an effective supportive housing project at CGQ.
Her compassionate approach combined with 15 years of industry experience and her proven ability to develop strategic responses and organisational capacity has allowed her to play a key role in shaping client focused and financially viable service delivery businesses.
Before joining CGQ Sonya worked as Group Manager Strategic Development for Red Cross, upholding the organisation’s financial viability in Queensland through development and implementation of strategies to increase discretionary revenue and by embedding a culture of financial accountability and transparency with the Divisional Board and Management.
Importantly, during this time Sonya has been directly involved in reducing disadvantage experienced by vulnerable children, families, Indigenous communities, homeless people, and those affected by disaster through negotiation with Government, service providers and funding bodies to enable the development and implementation of appropriate services.
In addition to her commercial acumen and exemplary communications skills, Sonya holds an Executive Masters of Business Administration, Bachelor of Business (Accounting) and CPA. She is also a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.