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In the room.
The people in the room are Sydney-based professionals whose work sits at the heart of end-of-life planning and support. Each is personally curated for their fit with the topic they’re speaking to, and each has committed to contributing without a sales pitch. Different people contribute to different sessions across the series, hosted by the Kiwanis Club of Sydney as part of Proveda’s national Dying to Know Day campaign.
Angelique Mastoroudes
Angelique Mastoroudes is the President of the Kiwanis Club of Sydney and the founder of Bee Positive Consulting, a trauma-informed practice for organisational change. She spent seventeen years inside large enterprise transformations in government and corporate Australia, and now works with leaders, teams, and communities on the human side of change.
She reads Dying to Know Day the way she reads any large transformation: the systems (wills, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, conversations) already exist. What’s missing is the human capacity to actually use them. Most people don’t avoid these documents because they can’t afford them. They avoid them because there’s no rhythm, no language, and no room to face what they require.
She joined the Kiwanis Club of Sydney when the club started the Comfort Care Cases programme at Sydney Children’s Hospital — the project itself was what brought her in. That work walks with families at the end of a child’s life, and it shapes the belief that runs through everything she does: that being prepared makes the hardest moments a little less crushing, and that families deserve to be spared from guessing when a loved one can no longer speak for themselves.
Angelique convenes this series.
Drew Browne is the Founder and Senior Advisor of Sapience Financial, a Sydney-based speciality personal risk advisory practice with more than 25 years of experience. His work focuses on families, small business owners, and individuals whose circumstances don’t fit standard categories — people who need life insurance, income protection, and modern estate planning tailored to real, complex lives.
Sapience is a trauma-informed practice, and Drew’s philosophy — Secure People Live Bigger Lives — reflects what he has seen again and again in over two decades of practice: that the confidence to face the future comes from knowing you are protected, and that the people who love you will be protected too. His practice is particularly known for helping people whose circumstances make it hard to get standard cover: complex medical histories, high-risk occupations, and unusual life situations.
Drew speaks to the conversations and protections that matter when the unexpected happens — and the specific gaps in most people’s preparation that only become visible when it’s already too late.
Lucky (Laxmi) Manna is a Certified Financial Planner and Principal Financial Adviser at Six Pillars Wealth, a Sydney firm whose stated values place Legacy at the centre of the work they do with families.
Her practice covers the full arc of the second half of life: retirement planning, aged care transitions, intergenerational wealth transfer, and estate planning. She works with families through the money and care conversations that most people avoid until they’re forced into them — and she sees, constantly, what happens when those conversations don’t get had until it’s too late.
Lucky speaks to what needs to be discussed and documented before a health crisis hits, and why having the conversation early is one of the most caring things you can do for the people around you.
Nicky Myers is an independent funeral director who describes herself as your deathcare companion — someone who walks with families before, during, and after a death. Her practice, Your Funeral Director, is available around the clock across Sydney, the Blue Mountains, and the Central Coast, and offers burial and cremation services, doula support, memorial arrangements, prepaid funeral plans, twilight services, and death cafes.
She calls it deathcare done differently. The work isn’t a single-day event but a steady, reassuring presence for families through one of life’s most tender times.
Nicky speaks to what happens when the moment comes, and what people wish they’d known beforehand.
Paul Falzon is a solicitor and the Director of Falzon Legal, a Parramatta-based practice serving families across Western Sydney. His work centres on the legal architecture that shapes what happens when people die — wills, estates, powers of attorney, and the documents that hold when a family is grieving and someone still has to make decisions.
He brings the practitioner’s view of what actually happens when the paperwork isn’t done, or isn’t right — and the practical steps everyone can take, while there’s still time and choice, to spare their families from unnecessary conflict and delay.
Paul speaks to the legal decisions that can’t be made without the right documents in place, and how to think about them in a way that isn’t overwhelming.
Everyone in the room is here for one reason: they know what they are talking about.
The Kiwanis Club of Sydney hosts this series. The people in the room are Sydney-based professionals, each an established practitioner in their field, personally curated for their fit with the topic they are speaking to. Different people contribute to different sessions across the series.
They participate because they believe these conversations matter. They are not paid to appear, and they are not selling anything from the room. If someone’s work seems relevant to your circumstances, you are welcome to reach out to them afterwards.
A portion of any support the programme receives goes to Kiwanis Club of Sydney’s Comfort Care Cases programme at Sydney Children’s Hospital.
Part of the national Dying to Know Day campaign, run by Proveda. The people in the room are Sydney-based professionals, personally curated for the conversation.