OMF Australia Board of Directors

Meet Open Medicine Foundation Australia’s Board of Directors.

William Ranken

Board Chairman

Bill is a Trustee of The William Angliss Charitable Fund. He has 37 years of experience in the financial services industry and previously was a partner and investment banker at JBWere and Goldman Sachs JBWere. Bill’s son was diagnosed with post viral infective ME/CFS in 2007-8, and at present is unable to work or study. Bill, like Linda, is passionate about OMF’s objectives to find treatments and cures, and especially about OMF’s global strategy which sees over 200 scientists and clinicians from around the globe working together every week. OMF does this in a friendly and cooperative way, and combines the results of analyzing many different systems and patients. Bill believes strongly in this collaborative, results-oriented, cost effective approach to achieving answers quickly. Bill has a BA from ANU, a Graduate Diploma in Finance and Investment, and has attended a number of summer schools at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Financial Services Institute of Australia.

Linda Tannenbaum

Founder and Deputy Chair

Linda Tannenbaum is Founder and CEO/President of Open Medicine Foundation (OMF), an independent non-profit dedicated to funding and facilitating open and collaborative scientific research towards clinical breakthroughs for chronic complex diseases, such as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME / CFS), post treatment Lyme disease, and fibromyalgia. Ms. Tannenbaum founded OMF after her daughter came down with sudden onset ME/CFS. Realising that open, global collaborative research into the disease was lacking, she established OMF to facilitate large-scale research to find a cure for these chronic complex diseases. An accomplished speaker, Ms. Tannenbaum has spoken and keynoted worldwide. Her presentations have drawn enthusiastic responses from scientists as well as clinicians and patients because of her ability to simplify complex science and also, because of her passionate empathy for patients and their caretakers. Ms. Tannenbaum is a clinical laboratory scientist with a degree in bacteriology from UCLA.

Kimberly Hicks

Treasurer

Ms. Hicks has worked with OMF since its early days, first as a board member and currently as the global COO/CFO/Treasurer, helping to build the organization to the global collaborative research entity it is today. As a patient, she is driven by a need to accelerate research findings into diagnostics and treatments and bring precision healthcare to all patients suffering from these diseases. She is a C-suite Finance industry veteran with over 25 years of leadership, business transformation, business development/sales, merger integrations, and major strategic initiative experience across private and public sectors, and international settings. In the past few years she has transitioned to Health Tech and Healthcare, and has a keen interest and passion for the use of technology to solve big healthcare problems. She is specifically focused on the use of AI and LLM and Web3 solutions to target answers more quickly and build community and patient engagement around those solutions. Ms. Hicks holds an MA in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from St. Mary’s University and a BA in Psychology from The University of Texas.

Nicholas Ingram

Board Secretary

Mr. Ingram has run his own Strategy Consulting firm for over ten years. His clients include commercial organizations (from ASX-listed top 20 companies to technology start-ups), Government entities (including federally funded scientific agencies, and state government departments), and non-government organizations (including patient advocacy organizations and a medical society). His clients are principally Australian based, but Nick works in other Pacific Rim countries including New Zealand, The Philippines, and the West Coast of the US.

Nick has an adult daughter who has been living with ME/CFS for the last ten years.

Prior to working in strategy, Nick had twenty years’ experience in financial services (including investment banking and stockbroking). He holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Sydney with First Class Honors in Pure Mathematics.

Louise Myer

Board Member

Louise Myer is a member of the Myer Foundation. She has spent much of her life involved in philanthropic activities and has worked on numerous boards including the Melbourne Community Foundation, the Myer Community Fund (a founding director) and Asialink.

Her son was diagnosed with ME/CFS at 12 years of age which changed both his and her life. She is very keen to promote and support research for ME/CFS and related chronic complex diseases in order to help improve the lives of sufferers.

Ross Pinney

Board Member

Ross Pinney was elected President of Australian Red Cross Society for a third, two-year term at the Annual General meeting on 27 November 2021.

Previously, Ross had served as Deputy President since 2011, as a Red Cross Divisional Advisory Board member from 2005 to 2007 and was elected Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee in 2007. He served as a member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ Finance Commission from 2007 to 2015. Ross also served as a member of the Australian Red Cross Blood Service Board from 2011 to 2017. He also served as Chair or member of a number of Board Committees.

Ross worked for 15 years as a senior executive at National Australia Bank, as Executive General Manager Office of the CEO, CEO Europe, and Executive General Manager Products and Services. Prior to that he worked for 15 years at the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works.

Ross has been a non-executive director on several Boards in financial services, including being chair of Elders Financial Services Ltd and Rural Bank Ltd.

Ross’ qualifications include an MBA and B Comm. He is a fellow of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, the Australian Society of CPAs, the Financial Services Institute of Australia, and of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Emeritus

Peter Thompson

Member Emeritus

Following a career as a successful commercial lawyer Peter has spent the last two decades specialising in strategic advice for corporations, particularly in the media and entertainment sectors. He is based in Sydney, Australia and has lived experience of ME/CFS through a family member. Peter is on a number of Boards for both not for profits and commercial enterprises.

OMF Supported Research Centers

Current Research Studies

The LIFT Clinical Trial

Melbourne ME/CFS Collaboration

Collaborative Center at Stanford

The Ronald G. Tompkins Harvard ME/CFS Collaboration

Collaborative Center at Uppsala

Collaborative Center at Montréal

Computational Research Center
for Complex Diseases

What Is ME / CFS?

What Is Long Covid?

Videos

The End ME/CFS &

Long COVID Project

Annual Reports

People

Other omf websites