Retirement living s newest life member

Retirement living’s newest life memberAt the recent National Retirement Living Summit, Derek McMillan officially became the Property Council’s newest retirement living life member in recognition of his enormous contribution to the organisation and the sector.Life membership is awarded to individuals who demonstrate leadership, commitment, innovation and have made an enduring contribution to the Property Council’s work.Mr McMillan, CEO – Independent and Assisted Living at Australian Unity, provided strong leadership as the inaugural President of the Retirement Living Council until the start of 2016, following the merger of the Retirement Villages Association into the Property Council at the end of 2012.Under his leadership, the Retirement Living Council fulfilled its role as a leadership group for the sector, with much-needed foundation data created ensuring transparency and benchmarking and a pipeline of policy research rolled out.A former board member of the Property Council, Mr McMillan has shown a high level of commitment and strategic thinking to advance the service offering to members and ensure retirement living is recognised politically as a vitally important sector ensuring health and wellbeing among senior Australians.It speaks volumes about him that some 18 months ago when he took a brief sabbatical from his work, he chose to spend a good proportion of that time doing charity work, demonstrating his commitment to giving and service.”There’s so much potential for us as an industry to improve people’s lives; there’s nothing that gives me greater pleasure than when you walk around a village and somebody comes up to you and says ‘you don’t know how much my life has changed, how it’s changed for the better’,” Mr McMillan said upon receiving his award.Congratulations from everyone at the Property Council to Derek and we continue to look forward to working with him as a valued member of the Retirement Living Council.Read more here about all of the Property Council’s retirement living life members.