Our people
Meet our Leadership Team
Our Leadership Team are responsible for the day-to-day operations and program delivery. They are the faces and names who regularly communicate with our community.
Meet our Board of Directors
Our board is responsible for managing the affairs of the company, in accordance with our constitution and ensure that we meet our legal requirements and remain accountable to our donors and other stakeholders.
Meet our Ambassadors
Our ambassadors share the vision of our organisation, have a passion for our mission and feel a connection to our community.
Leadership team & board of directors
Rebecca Adams
CEO, DIRECTOR
Rebecca’s desire to help widowed people navigate the bereavement process stemmed from her own experience in losing her husband unexpectedly in 2013, only six weeks after their wedding.
Feeling totally devastated and unprepared to navigate the grief process and rebuild her life, Rebecca was left searching for widowed grief support and realised this was lacking in Australia.
After travelling to the United States to attend Camp Widow, a healing retreat/conference for widowed people in 2014, Rebecca turned a corner with her own bereavement and the dream of building First Light Widowed Association in Australia was born.
Rebecca has drawn upon her leadership skills, her commitment to serving widowed people and her career as a writer, professional communications advisor and events coordinator to lead and grow First Light.
Jo Smith-Hooker
Operations manager, DIRECTOR
Jo’s ongoing commitment to supporting the widowed community comes from her own personal experience of being widowed suddenly in her thirties, when her children were eight and eleven. This experience has driven her passion to help others find the peer support and connection that she felt she missed in the early years of widowhood.
Living in a regional area when her husband died in 2013, Jo struggled to find others to connect with locally or through online support groups in Australia. Although she connected sporadically with others through international online groups, she found it incredibly difficult to navigate both her and her children’s grief without the ongoing and regular connection from those who “get it”.
Jo is one of our Directors and our Operations Manager – she wears many hats, including leading on the delivery of our programs.
Lauren Leslie
DIRECTOR
Lauren is one of our co-founders and was aged in her 20s when she lost her husband James to depression, and felt so isolated by her experience, struggling to find anyone else her age who could relate.
Lauren has a keen interest in making space for those widowed in their 20s and 30s to share their unique experiences, which include mourning the loss of the life you never got to share with your person, planning a funeral when your friends are planning dates, engagement parties or weddings, giving your grandparents widowhood advice, and sometimes having your grief dismissed because you’re simply too young to be a ‘real’ widow/er.
Lauren is a proud solo-mum-by-choice to her son Maxwell thanks to IVF donor conception. Being Mum to Maxi is the fulfilment of her biggest dream and a testament to the fact that there is joy and love to share while living with loss.
Carl Fennessy
DIRECTOR
Carl is one of Australia’s leading television executives and entrepreneurs, with over 35 years of experience in the industry. He co-founded and served as co-CEO of Endemol Shine Australia, the country’s largest production group, and currently holds the position of Chairman at independent studio Dreamchaser.
Beyond his successful television career, Carl is dedicated to community volunteer work and is passionate about supporting charities across Australia that hold special significance for him and his family.
Carl’s journey with First Light began when a close friend of his daughter’s faced the loss of her husband, inspiring him by the impactful work of Rebecca, Jo, and the First Light team.
In 2025, Carl joined the Board of First Light, bringing his extensive management experience to help expand the organisation’s presence within Australian communities.
Management Committee
Rebecca Adams
President
Rebecca’s desire to help widowed people navigate the bereavement process stemmed from her own experience in losing her husband unexpectedly in 2013, only six weeks after their wedding.
Feeling totally devastated and unprepared to navigate the grief process and rebuild her life, Rebecca was left searching for widowed grief support and realised this was lacking in Australia.
After travelling to the United States to attend Camp Widow, a healing retreat/conference for widowed people in 2014, Rebecca turned a corner with her own bereavement and the dream of building First Light Widowed Association in Australia was born.
Rebecca has drawn upon her leadership skills, her commitment to serving widowed people and her career as a writer, professional communications advisor and events coordinator to lead and grow First Light.
Josie O'Shea
SECRETARY
Ambassadors
First Light is honoured to recognise the support of our wonderful ambassadors. Our ambassadors come from a range of backgrounds, however, they all have exceptional stories, are respected and recognised in their chosen fields and embody the values of our organisation.
Chris Martin
Originally from Melbourne and now settled in the beautiful northern rivers of NSW, Chris Martin is solo Dad to his two gorgeous children, Grace, aged 17 and Albi, aged 13, after losing his wife Renee to kidney cancer, aged 39, in April 2015.
Not content with letting their catastrophic loss define his family’s life, and equally determined to leverage his experiences to help others, Chris has authored Just a Dad, a blog aimed at voicing the trials and tribulations of life as a solo dad after loss.
With a focus on encouraging men in particular, to connect and share their hardships, Chris, a self-proclaimed “normal bloke”, speaks and writes with a raw, entertaining and brutally honest voice, something Australian men traditionally have struggled to do in a society that promotes male stoicism.
Megan Daley
Megan Daley is the author of the bestselling book ‘Raising Readers’ (UQP, 2019) as well as ‘Teacher, Teacher’ (Affirm Press, 2023) and ‘The Beehive’ (Walker Books, 2024).
Megan is a multiple award-winning Teacher Librarian and early years educator. Megan is also a regular literary judge, workshop presenter and co-creator of the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast.
Megan was widowed in 2017 when her husband suffered a fatal heart attack and she became the sole parent to two young daughters. Those young daughters are now fabulous teenagers living in a blended family with their two little stepbrothers, their stepdad and a heck of a lot of bees.
Megan believes in using her writing skills and profile as a speaker to talk openly grief, being a young widow, helping children to navigate grief, and finding love again (and surviving blending family life!) after such tremendous loss. Her and her partner Murray have spoken separately and together at First Light events about their own experiences of grief and what their life together looks like now.
More about Megan and Murray can be found here.
Murray Arkadieff
Murray Arkadieff is a former vice president of the Qld Beekeepers Association and a second generation beekeeper who manages over 1200 hives of European bees for honey production and vital pollination work. With degrees in Commerce and Economics, Murray left the corporate world some years ago to return to his first loves – the Australian bush and bees.
Murray lost his wife when his two sons were very young and has juggled solo parenting, grief and working in the agricultural industry and he has a keen interest in how men process grief and the male experience of grief.
Murray has been involved in First Light and hosting the Men’s Round Table events and feels strongly about creating spaces and places where male widows can openly talk about their unique of widowhood and grief.
Robin Bailey
Robin Bailey is a radio and television presenter with more than 30 years experience. She has worked all over the country as a breakfast radio announcer, but has called Brisbane home for the last twenty years.
Robin is an ambassador for First Light because she understands the struggles of not only surviving but rebuilding and thriving following the death of a spouse.
Robin has three sons and she has helped her boys deal with the suicide of their father in 2014 and then the death of their step-dad in 2019.
Robin is passionate about treating death with honesty, raw emotion and a fair bit of light-hearted banter.
Ambassadors
First Light is honoured to recognise the support of our wonderful ambassadors. Our ambassadors come from a range of backgrounds, however, they all have exceptional stories, are respected and recognised in their chosen fields and embody the values of our organisation.
Chris Martin
Originally from Melbourne and now settled in the beautiful northern rivers of NSW, Chris Martin is solo Dad to his two gorgeous children, Grace, aged 15 and Albi, aged 11, after losing his wife Renee to kidney cancer, aged 39, in April 2015.
Not content with letting their catastrophic loss define his family’s life, and equally determined to leverage his experiences to help others, Chris has authored Just a Dad, a blog aimed at voicing the trials and tribulations of life as a solo dad after loss.
With a focus on encouraging men in particular, to connect and share their hardships, Chris, a self-proclaimed “normal bloke”, speaks and writes with a raw, entertaining and brutally honest voice, something Australian men traditionally have struggled to do in a society that promotes male stoicism.
Murray Arkadieff
Murray Arkadieff is a former vice president of the Qld Beekeepers Association and a second generation beekeeper who manages over 1200 hives of European bees for honey production and vital pollination work. With degrees in Commerce and Economics, Murray left the corporate world some years ago to return to his first loves – the Australian bush and bees.
Murray lost his wife when his two sons were very young and has juggled solo parenting, grief and working in the agricultural industry and he has a keen interest in how men process grief and the male experience of grief.
Murray has been involved in First Light and hosting the Men’s Round Table events and feels strongly about creating spaces and places where male widows can openly talk about their unique of widowhood and grief.
Matt Golinski
Matt Golinski is a highly regarded, professional chef with a passion for creating cuisine using fresh, seasonal and local ingredients. Well known as from the popular ‘Ready Steady Cook’ television series.
Matt has worked as executive chef at some of Queensland’s leading restaurants and founded his own catering company.
Based on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, Matt now enjoys working as a consulting chef to restaurants, being a regular guest chef at festivals and events and writing his popular food columns and blog. He is also an active member of the Slow Food movement and a motivational speaker.
In March 2018, Matt joined the Peppers Noosa Resort team as their Consultant Executive Chef, developing menus that consolidate his knowledge and love of the producers of his region.
In December 2011, Matt lost his wife and three daughters in a house fire and spent 4 months in hospital with severe burns. Over the past 10 years he has worked hard to rebuild his life, and now lives on the Sunshine Coast with his partner Erin and their three-year-old daughter Aluna.
Matt believes that, like the burns community that supported him over the first few years of his recovery by providing a support network of burns survivors going through similar challenges, First Light provides a connection to other people going through the grief of losing a partner and shows them that they are not alone.
Robin Bailey
Robin Bailey is a radio and television presenter with more than 30 years experience. She has worked all over the country as a breakfast radio announcer, but has called Brisbane home for the last twenty years.
She is currently a part of the Robin, Terry and Bob Breakfast Show on 97.3fm. As well as doing weekly segments on The Weekend Today Show, Robin has had an award winning podcast on Mamma Mia and is currently developing a website and podcast space for women over 40.
Robin is an ambassador for First Light because she understands the struggles of not only surviving but rebuilding and thriving following the death of a spouse.
Robin has three teenage sons and in the last six years she has helped her boys deal with the suicide of their father and then the death of their step-dad two years ago.
Robin is passionate about treating death with honesty, raw emotion and a fair bit of light-hearted banter.
Megan Daley
Megan Daley is the author of the bestselling book ‘Raising Readers’ (UQP, 2019) as well as ‘Teacher, Teacher’ (Affirm Press, 2023) and ‘The Beehive’ (Walker Books, 2024).
Megan is a multiple award-winning Teacher Librarian and early years educator. Megan is also a regular literary judge, workshop presenter and co-creator of the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast.
Megan was widowed in 2017 when her husband suffered a fatal heart attack and she became the sole parent to two young daughters. Those young daughters are now fabulous teenagers living in a blended family with their two little stepbrothers, their stepdad and a heck of a lot of bees.
Megan believes in using her writing skills and profile as a speaker to talk openly grief, being a young widow, helping children to navigate grief, and finding love again (and surviving blending family life!) after such tremendous loss. Her and her partner Murray have spoken separately and together at First Light events about their own experiences of grief and what their life together looks like now.
More about Megan and Murray can be found here.
Hope, community, understanding
Join our community for access to information, resources, events, and a network of widowed people for peer support. Joining is free, with options to become a financial supporter to keep us running and helping others.