Tessa Cummins

Tessa brings more than fifteen years of experience in health economics and social policy, with a career shaped by a deep commitment to the communities that are too often left behind by systems designed elsewhere. Raised in Toowoomba and having lived and worked across regional and rural Australia, including Orange and Holbrook in New South Wales, Tessa understands rural communities not just professionally but personally. That lived connection runs through everything she does. Much of Tessa's work has focused on rural mental health, health services planning, program evaluation, and co-design. She spent five years leading New South Wales's Rural Adversity Mental Health Program, navigating some of the most difficult years for rural communities: the Black Summer bushfires, prolonged drought, widespread flooding, and the COVID-19 pandemic. That experience gave her a clear-eyed view of what happens when service models and funding frameworks built for cities are simply dropped into rural contexts, and why co-designing solutions with communities is the only approach that actually works. Since joining Ethicol, Tessa has led complex, high-impact engagements across Queensland and beyond. She has worked on the evaluation of Queensland Health's Better Care Together Plan, co-led the McGrath Foundation's All Cancer Model of Care co-design project, and contributed to health services planning and business case development for a range of government and not-for-profit clients.