Sally Stannard
Director General | Department of Transport and Main Roads
"Public transport for me is about making it easier for everyone to participate more in our community."
Current Position
- Director General, Department of Transport and Main Roads
- Deputy Director General (TransLink), Department of Transport and Main Roads
Previous Positions
- Acting Deputy Director General (TransLink), Department of Transport and Main Roads
- Principal, Apical Analysis, Design & Strategy
- Executive Director, Service, Planning and Infrastructure, Department of Transport and Main Roads
- Director, Strategy and Planning, Department of Transport and Main Roads
- Director, West Gippsland Healthcare Group
- Director, St Paul’s Anglican Grammar School Limited
Career Snapshot
Sally Stannard channels her passion for public transport and developing sustainable communities into the delivery of customer-focused passenger transport services across Queensland. Her focus includes policy, planning, ticketing, contract management and customer services.
As Director-General, Sally Stannard leads the Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR). Sally was appointed as Director-General on 30 November 2023 after acting in the role since 5 June 2023. Sally leads TMR’s portfolio of work across road, rail, bus, cycling and marine infrastructure in Queensland. Alongside that, she has oversight of the Queensland Government Customer and Digital Group—a division of TMR that is focused on driving Queensland’s digital economy, delivering better citizen-centric services, and optimising the Queensland Government’s investment and use of technology. TMR has approximately 9800 staff and an annual budget of $16.3 billion, including capital expenditure of $6.2 billion and managed assets worth in excess of $127 billion
Previously, Sally was Deputy Director-General (Translink). As a Division within the Department of Transport and Main Roads, TransLink is responsible for the integrated rail, bus, ferry and tram network in South East Queensland; urban public transport in major urban centres across Queensland and long-distance rail, coach and aviation services in regional, rural and remote Queensland, in addition to school transport, personalised transport and demand responsive transport services.
In her own words
When I was fresh out of university I got involved in a project focusing on helping job seekers access job rich areas. We discovered that a significant proportion of people would only look for employment close to home because they knew what journey to take each day. Our work was to help these job seekers use public transport and feel confident navigating their way around different areas of the city. The outcome was not only that they were successful in gaining employment (which was amazing) but we also found it resulted in broader benefits; for example, people took their children to Bondi Beach for the first time ever because they felt comfortable using public transport.
It’s a story I tell frequently as it still gives me goosebumps today, and I think it goes some way to explaining why I have devoted my career to public transport in different shapes and forms.
The biggest opportunity I see right now is the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The decisions we make over the next two to three years will shape what we're going to see in ten years' time and beyond, because of the lead time to build. It’s all about optimism and good ideas right now.
Shaping the future
As we continue on our COVID journey, we are creating a ‘new normal’ and people have had time to check in on their values. Personally, I want to contribute to how we shape the cities we choose to make and the way we want to make them. Before COVID it felt like we were on a treadmill and just running towards growth. Whereas now there is greater purpose around the cities we are creating even despite the context where we are dealing with enormous uncertainty. For a long time, we have provided public transport based on some well-known, and well-established needs in cities, including the dominance of the CBD and the importance of coming together for work. These established transport patterns have certainly been disrupted, and for some of us there are some new flexibilities in our workplaces, but I think we have also been reminded that there are some exchanges that always happen best in person.
Sharing knowledge
I became a Director on school and health boards when I was in country Victoria with my young children, and temporarily out of the workforce. During this time, I was able to take what I knew about transport and infrastructure into these two sectors and add value. This experience made me realise the value of engaging professionally with people outside my own industry and area of expertise. Wide networks challenge our thinking and help us innovate.
When I meet people, who are early in their careers, I tell them to deliberately grow and develop their professional networks. It’s important because people move into other spaces, and you tap into these relationships later in your professional life.
Women have a unique way of connecting and increasingly I think we are recognising that me succeeding, and you succeeding goes hand in hand. I think there is also a growing awareness that diversity makes for better outcomes for everyone.
My vision for the next five years is...
…we will commit to giving people access to sustainable public transport, with a zero emissions focus, underpinned by a desire to use the network to shape the cities and regions of the future. It won’t matter which side of the fence you sit on; the private sector and government agencies will work together to realise this vision.