Our Team

The management and board of Southern Cross Protection is a highly skilled and experienced team based in our head office in Pyrmont, Sydney. The team is led by Managing Director Patrick Bourke.

Patrick Bourke Non-Executive Director
Southern Cross Protection has been under Patrick’s stewardship since 2008 and since then, he has introduced significant workforce and cultural changes that lead to the business’ transformation. With a keen grasp of the human element of the business, Patrick has instituted continuous programs inspiring the entire organisation to work together towards one vision, that is to live and breathe the same values, and turn the company’s purpose into everyone’s passion.

Patrick recognises that Southern Cross Protection’s challenge is aligning the personal goals of people in the workforce with the organisation’s business goals, and setting career paths for security professionals. Under his direction, Southern Cross Protection is seizing opportunities for development and expansion, while breaking industry paradigms and developing the best workforce in the industry. This commitment is not only for commercial growth, but for his creed as well that everybody is entitled to a pleasant, secure, and safe environment.

Aside from his extensive knowledge in the area of security, operations, and management, Patrick is also backed by a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and a Masters in Marketing that complement the ongoing mission and vision of Southern Cross Protection.

David Medhurst Managing Director
David has a career spanning 25 years operating within major supply chain and logistics organisations including Toll Group, Armaguard, and Scott’s Transport. He has established a national service network for on-call ATM services for NCR and Westpac Bank. David being truly client-centric, continuously strives to deliver multi-disciplined and innovative service solutions to customers. He focuses on excellence in service delivery, strategic planning, productivity initiatives and risk management. Supporting the strategy of continuous training of our teams, David leads a workforce of more than 600 people and ensures that Southern Cross Protection has the best qualified and trained team in the industry. It is through our people that the organisation will continue to lead in a very competitive market.

Sean Goldrick Director of Strategic Partnerships

Supported by a Diploma in Security Management and a Diploma in Business, Sean’s career to-date embraces expertise in both operations and management in the security industry. His humble beginnings take him all the way back to performing supervisory and management functions in several security companies more than 15 years ago, leading to him becoming the CEO of Charter Security. His client-side contributions range from risk mitigation and advisory, to the design and implementation of security systems and policies. Sean’s enthusiasm and drive to support and help clients with their security needs places him perfectly to lead our business development and account management teams. His expertise in loss prevention in the retail industry is endorsed by the longevity of some of our clients who are looking for the right advisor and can implement custom solutions. Sean leads our nationwide team of sales and customer service professionals.

Leeanne Michaelson National Business Development

Leeanne is a highly experienced Sales and Marketing Manager, with a broad range of skills derived from leading sales teams from the Transport, Logistics and Retail industry sectors in Australia and New Zealand. Leeanne has a diploma in Sales Management, and a Cert IV in Risk and Security Management. She has worked with Mainfrieght, TNT, Laura Ashley, and UPS in sales-oriented functions. Her primary focus is ensuring that customers are provided with cost-effective, future-proof solutions using her strategic approach of open communication and lateral thinking as well as drawing from the extensive operational expertise of her colleagues. Leeanne leads a nationwide team of sales executives and account managers, ensuring our customers are provided with the latest security solutions.

Claere Kay National WHS Manager

Claere has a Masters Degree in Work Health and Safety (WHS) and a graduate certificate in Business Management. She has been working as a safety professional for over 15 years and joined Southern Cross Protection in 2013 after more than a decade with Australia Post in the WHS area. Claere has implemented national safety culture campaigns, and injury prevention initiatives that reduced LTIFR and incident rate while improving employee engagement. Claere brings to the team a positive can-do attitude and in-depth knowledge of safety programs that is at the core of our company values. Safety for our clients, staff and the community is our top priority. From statistical analysis and reporting, risk management, compensation and rehabilitation, to rolling out safety policies, Claere continues to deliver safety programs in innovative ways to achieve greater acceptance by everyone. She understands and manages our WHS compliance requirements.

Oliver Vrtkovski National Human Resources Manager
Oliver’s career spans over 17 years in generalist HR roles of which 13+ years have been in senior HR roles. He has had the privilege of working within the logistics divisions of Australia’s two biggest supermarket retailers Coles and Woolworths, along with Australia’s largest steel manufacturer, BlueScope, and Australia’s largest waste management provider, Cleanaway. Alongside his Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Wollongong, he holds a Masters of Strategic Human Resources Management to complement his commercially minded approach to HR.

Over the years, Oliver has acquired strong HR leadership skills to support industrial environments as well as the ability to drive change through the implementation and delivery of initiatives to improve productivity, efficiency and engagement with the intention to create high performing teams and organisational culture.

Oliver’s drive to succeed is demonstrated through the successful delivery of increased levels of engagement and performance across several organisational groups, exemplified through the effective negotiation of complex Enterprise Agreements, seamless mobilisation of contracts/projects and through stringent change management processes leading to efficiencies in operational performance.