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A year of transition

For Open Universities Australia, 2014 was a year of significant and important change. A year of transformation. A year in which we turned what had been promising initiatives on paper into active ventures. A year in which we reshaped and reformed critical elements of our established businesses. And we did it all with one ultimate goal in mind: to give our students, now and in the future, a better education experience than ever before.

A year of transformation

Board of directors

  • Professor S. Bruce Dowton Professor S. Bruce Dowton Nominee Director – Macquarie University
    Chairman of the Board
    More info
    Professor S. Bruce Dowton

    Professor S. Bruce Dowton

    Nominee Director – Macquarie University
    Chairman of the Board

    Professor S. Bruce Dowton is the Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University. He is a paediatrician, clinical geneticist, molecular biologist, researcher and academic who has served as a senior medical executive at universities, healthcare institutions and consulting organisations in Australia and the United States. He has also held visiting Professorial and External Examiner appointments at several overseas universities.

  • Mr David Pitt Mr David Pitt Nominee Director – Monash University
    Member of Finance, Audit & Risk Management Committee
    More info
    Mr David Pitt

    Mr David Pitt

    Nominee Director – Monash University
    Member of Finance, Audit & Risk Management Committee

    David Pitt is the Senior Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer of Monash University. Prior to joining Monash University David held senior positions at Telstra in the areas of research, engineering, human resources, finance, television, superannuation and offshore entities.

  • Professor David Wood Professor David Wood Nominee Director – Curtin University More info
    Professor David Wood

    Professor David Wood

    Nominee Director – Curtin University

    Professor David Wood is the Provost and Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor International at Curtin University. Professor Wood is an accomplished researcher in urban and regional planning and tourism development who leads CSIRO’s Flagship Cluster Projects, examining barriers to the implementation of climate change service.

  • Professor Ian O’Connor Professor Ian O’Connor Nominee Director – Griffith University More info
    Professor Ian O’Connor

    Professor Ian O’Connor

    Nominee Director – Griffith University

    Professor Ian O’Connor is the Vice-Chancellor of Griffith University. Professor O’Connor is widely published in the field of juvenile justice, child welfare and the future directions of social work and human services.

  • Mr Paul Beard Mr Paul Beard Nominee Director – University of South Australia Chair – Finance, Audit & Risk Management Committee More info
    Mr Paul Beard

    Mr Paul Beard

    Nominee Director – University of South Australia Chair – Finance, Audit & Risk Management Committee

    Paul Beard is the Chief Operating Officer at the University of South Australia, with responsibility for finance, facilities, IT, planning and institutional analytics. Prior to joining the University of South Australia, Paul held senior roles in both the private and public sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom. Paul is a Chartered Accountant.

  • Mr Stephen Beall Mr Stephen Beall Nominee Director – Swinburne University of Technology Member of Finance, Audit & Risk Management Committee More info
    Mr Stephen Beall

    Mr Stephen Beall

    Nominee Director – Swinburne University of Technology Member of Finance, Audit & Risk Management Committee

    Stephen Beall is the Vice-President (Strategy and Business Innovation) at Swinburne University of Technology. Stephen has extensive management experience, and has previously held executive roles in the areas of employee relations, workers’ compensation, occupational health and safety and business development. Stephen is a member of the Board’s Finance, Audit & Risk Management Committee.

  • Professor Gill Palmer Professor Gill Palmer Nominee Director – RMIT University More info
    Professor Gill Palmer

    Professor Gill Palmer

    Nominee Director – RMIT University

    Professor Gill Palmer is Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Academic at RMIT University. Professor Palmer has experience in education, government and private sector management having held senior roles in the university sector in Australia.

  • Mr Paul Wappett Mr Paul Wappett Chief Executive Officer* More info
    Mr Paul Wappett

    Mr Paul Wappett

    Chief Executive Officer*

    Paul Wappett is the Chief Executive Officer of Open Universities Australia (OUA). Paul is focused on ensuring that OUA provides its students with access to a world class education.

    *Not a member of the Board

Retired in 2014: Mr Sam Weiss, Professor Margaret Gardner, Mr David Phillips, Mr David De Campo, Ms Paula Allen, Professor Judyth Sachs, Professor Adam Shoemaker

Diversifying online education

Executive team

  • Matthew Walsh Matthew Walsh Executive General Manager - Corporate Services (CFO) More info
    Matthew Walsh

    Matthew Walsh

    Executive General Manager - Corporate Services

    During 2014, we implemented new real-time operational reporting across our consumer facing business lines to provide a single view on the performance of our sales operations. We have decreased our time to market of business change significantly due to improvements in our project management and IT practices. We have started integrating and consolidating our technology platforms, and expanded our cloud solution and student management solutions by setting up robust foundations that enable us to scale efficiently and service students and clients in Australia and internationally.

  • Carlos Schafer Carlos Schäfer Executive General Manager - People, Performance & Culture More info
    Carlos Schafer

    Carlos Schäfer

    Executive General Manager - People, Performance & Culture

    In 2014, we rolled out OUA’s values – Bold, Innovative, Learner-centred, Passionate and United – and embedded them in the systems, processes and structures that are the engine room of OUA. Those values drive us as an organisation to deliver great learning outcomes and interactions for all our students.

  • Paul Wappett Chief Executive Officer More info
    Paul Wappett

    Paul Wappett

    Chief Executive Officer

    Whilst 2014 tested our resolve, we emerged much stronger, and our early 2015 results are showing the benefit of the enormous amount of work we did. This work has brought us closer together as an organisation.

  • Janine Harper Janine Harper Execuive General Manager - Education Delivery More info
    Janine Harper

    Janine Harper

    Execuive General Manager - Education Delivery

    We signed our first clients to our OUA Education Solutions business in 2014. We’re excited about this because it gives us the opportunity to showcase the deep capability we’ve built in learning design and content development, and the best-in-market learning management system and analytics engine that we’ve created

  • Jose Herrera Perea José Herrera Perea Executive General Manager - Professional & Corporate More info
    Jose Herrera Perea

    José Herrera Perea

    Executive General Manager - Professional & Corporate

    In 2014, we adapted and prepared for our next stage of growth. We redefined the way we think about marketing to students and clients, and we deepened our conversation with lifelong learners. We expanded our e3Learning sales, learning and operation teams, which will help us to penetrate and grow all OUA’s offerings into corporate markets. We also signed a long-term partnership with ARI Services to commercialise our two-string ‘.study’ and ‘.courses’ internet domains that enable us to adapt to changes in the digital media.

Family of Brands

When Open Universities Australia was born in 1993 it was established with an important, but highly specialised, remit. Our objective was to offer open access distance education to students in remote locations via television. More than 20 years have passed since we began offering courses through the ABC, and education has changed dramatically since then. So have we.

Today, thanks in no small part to the hard work done and changes made in 2014, our organisation offers the broadest set of post-secondary online education and training programs in Australia. We do that through our principal lines of business.

Our five brands

Open Universities Australia makes undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from leading Australian universities available online.

Open Training Institute offers nationally recognised certificate and diploma qualifications.

e3Learning helps businesses stay productive and compliant by offering training, compliance and workforce management technology.

Open2Study’s four-week courses are entirely free, available to everyone and an excellent foundation for further study.

Education Solutions provides market-ready, proven technology solutions, combined with unrivalled expertise in learning and content production.

Our ownership of the ‘.study’ and ‘.courses’ domains will help us adapt to how students search for and access education.

Our ultimate goal

To give our students, now and in the future, a better education experience than ever before.