Our people
Office of the Public Guardian organisational chart
Our Executive team
Public Guardian: Shayna Smith
Shayna Smith is the Public Guardian and Chief Executive of the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG). Shayna joined the OPG as Deputy Public Guardian in 2015 and was appointed as the Public Guardian in June 2021. The Public Guardian is an independent statutory appointment of the Queensland Government and is vested with promoting and protecting the rights and interests of children and adults with impaired decision-making capacity under the Public Guardian Act 2014, the Guardianship and Administration Act 2000 and the Powers of Attorney Act 1998.
Shayna is a senior government executive and her distinguished career spans more than 25 years across the public and private sectors, both in Australia and internationally, particularly across the areas of justice, education and consumer protection. Shayna holds a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland. She is an admitted solicitor to both the Supreme Court of Queensland and the High Court of Australia and is a member of the Queensland Carers Advisory Council and the Queensland Law Society Health and Disability Law Committee.
Deputy Public Guardian: Lisa Pritchard
Lisa Pritchard is the Deputy Public Guardian and joined the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) in November 2021. Lisa is a senior executive with 30 years experience in the United Kingdom and Queensland public sectors in the areas of policy and legislation development and implementation, operational service delivery, health and human services consumer protection and professional regulation, and compliance and complaints management.
Lisa led the Professional Standards Unit at the Office of the Queensland Medical Board prior to the transition to the national regulatory scheme for health practitioners and was Director of the Ethical Standards Unit at Queensland Health for three years.
In 2014 Lisa was appointed as the Executive Director, Assessment and Resolution at the Office of the Health Ombudsman (OHO) where she played a key role in the establishment of the OHO. Immediately prior to joining OPG, Lisa held the role of Executive Director Corporate and Strategic Services at the OHO.
Lisa holds a Bachelor of Laws (Hons I) from the Queensland University of Technology and is admitted as a Lawyer in the Supreme Court of Queensland. She is a member of the Queensland Carers Advisory Council.
Deputy Public Guardian: Nicholas Dwyer
Nicholas Dwyer is the Deputy Public Guardian and joined the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) in October 2022. Nicholas has over 23 years’ experience working in the human services sector across youth justice, child safety and communities. This includes over ten years in senior leadership roles, including working alongside Queensland Police on Youth Justice Taskforce initiatives. He has worked in a variety of senior leadership roles that have directly contributed to the development and implementation of one of the most significant set of reforms and investment to have occurred in youth justice service delivery in Australia through the action plan, Youth Justice Task Force and numerous budget lead reforms. Nicholas worked on the organisational change emerging from the Bob Atkinson review of the Youth Justice Strategy Action Plan, the work of the Youth Justice Cabinet Committee and the taskforce.