Michael Andrews
From improving access to healthcare in Papua New Guinea, teaching Australian children first aid in schools, and now rebuilding the ambulance service in Solomon Islands, I’ve had the opportunity to work across diverse settings, helping to strengthen resilience in each community I serve.
I’ve spent my career working at the intersection of global health ambition and local health system reality — navigating the space between strategy and service, policy and people.
Today, I lead St John Ambulance in Solomon Islands as Chief Executive Officer, where we’re rebuilding the national ambulance service from the ground up. In a context shaped by geography, complexity, and constraint, my work focuses on designing systems that are resilient, responsive, and relevant — ensuring that emergency medical care reaches every person, whether in the capital city or the most remote village.
I’ve been brought into health services at pivotal moments — when systems were stretched, outdated, or in need of transformation. Tasked with driving meaningful reform, I’ve led complex change across pre-hospital care, navigating the intersection of clinical need, operational constraints, and community trust. I’ve introduced specialist programs where they were most needed — embedding mental health clinicians, family violence practitioners, and nurse-led triage pathways into an ambulance system historically focused only on transport. My focus has remained clear: to improve access, enhance quality, and reduce cost — not as competing goals, but as interconnected levers to achieve better patient outcomes and build systems that are more equitable, efficient, and enduring.
Alongside this, I’m completing a Master of Science in Global Healthcare Leadership at the University of Oxford, where I focus on how leadership, policy, and system design can be leveraged to strengthen healthcare delivery across national and international contexts — particularly in low-resource and rapidly evolving environments.
I believe the best healthcare systems are built from the ground up and the outside in — grounded in the communities they serve, but shaped by global insight and evidence. Whether I’m leading a national service, shaping policy, or building tools to connect care, I bring a consistent commitment: to make health systems work — for people, for the long term, and for what really matters.
