Mary O’Hagan brings over 30 years of leadership to Wellways and is internationally recognised for her pioneering work in mental health reform. Drawing on her own lived experience, she has been a powerful advocate for embedding lived experience perspectives in mental health systems around the world.
Career highlights include helping to found the service user movement in New Zealand in the 1980s, serving as the first Chair of the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry, and advising the United Nations and World Health Organisation. Mary has also served as New Zealand’s Mental Health Commissioner, authored the acclaimed memoir Madness Made Me, and most recently was the inaugural Executive Director of Lived Experience for the Victorian Department of Health, where she played a key role in mental health reform.