Open Universities Australia - 2016 Year in Review

Open Universities Australia
2 0 1 7 YEAR IN REVIEW

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Our shareholders

Chairman's message

This was a year of significant transition for Open Universities Australia with the successful relaunch of our digital marketplace platform for accessing Australian higher education online, the opening of the marketplace to new university partners (we welcomed The Australian National University in December) and in concluding the process of winding out of OUA’s portfolio of diversified education businesses and activities. The focus has returned to higher education.

Despite the significant efforts associated with working through an extensive change agenda, there have been several notable accomplishments in operating performance. Firstly, an operating profit was achieved and pleasingly, the company witnessed significant year on year improvement in the performance of its continuing business of higher education. For the first time in five years, the business delivered year on year new student growth in its third and fourth quarters, a trend which has also continued into the first quarter of 2018. There is growing confidence that the investments made into establishing OUA’s marketplace platform, together with a return of focus within the business to its core strengths of marketing and acquisition on behalf of its university partners, will continue to deliver positive momentum in performance improvement across the business.

This year was also the last year for outgoing CEO, Paul Wappett, who finished in January 2018. I thank Paul for his outstanding contribution, commitment and guidance of OUA through six years of particularly challenging conditions across the Board, including a challenging regulatory environment and increasing dynamism in the market. Paul’s contribution to OUA has been very significant and his legacy will be in the repositioning of OUA as the online marketplace to access higher education in Australia.

I also welcome Stuart Elmslie as incoming interim-CEO. Stuart was previously the Chief Financial Officer and Executive General Manager of Corporate Services of OUA for two years, and prior to that was the General Manager of e3Learning, OUA’s online corporate compliance and training business that was successfully exited in 2016. Stuart knows the business thoroughly and has many years of digital and commercial experience both domestically and internationally. Along with the Board, I look forward to working with Stuart and the excellent senior leadership team to continue building on our recent successes. During the year, David Pitt (nominee of Monash University) retired from the Board and his position was assumed by Professor Susan Elliott on 1 January 2018. David Pitt had been a member of the Board for four years and was a significant contributor to all the major initiatives that OUA has undertaken in that time. I thank him for his service, his contribution and his wisdom whilst a member of the Board.

I would like to thank all of our stakeholders for their support in 2017; shareholders, university partners, vendors and especially our highly skilled and dedicated management team and staff.

Professor S. Bruce Dowton

CEO's message

It’s an exciting time to be a part of Open Universities Australia as the business finalises its transition out of diversified educational services offerings and refocuses its efforts to consolidate its position as the largest digital marketplace to access higher education in Australia. Education remains the single best investment option and opportunity for most Australians to transform their lives, the lives of their families and communities. OUA is committed to making the difficult process of appraising options across a complicated landscape of universities, undergraduate and postgraduate programs, and the various funding options and study modes available, as efficient and effective as possible.

With the ongoing support of the Board and shareholders, 2017 has emerged as a turning point in the shape and performance of the business. It’s been a year of repositioning for the future with the successful re-platforming of OUA’s entire student application stack and website launch in December 2017, the opening of the platform to new university partners (we welcomed The Australian National University to OUA in December 2017) and the introduction of new product to the marketplace. OUA returned to new student growth for the first time in many years and established a strong foundation for future growth that has continued into 2018.

This growth in new students was particularly encouraging, especially given the plateauing of growth across the sector since 2015 and increased intensity of competition for new students from universities directly as evidenced by continued year on year growth in sector marketing spend. But with the effective return of caps to Commonwealth Supported Places funding back on the table in 2018, universities right across the board will be pressured to review their capacity to chase growth directly and OUA has remerged as very well positioned to offer a cost-effective range of marketing, enrolment and acquisition services to the sector in the coming years.

Of course, none of the above success in repositioning for the future would have been possible without the ongoing support of OUA’s partner universities, and the commitment and dedication of our employees – all of whom are passionate and uplifted by the opportunity to serve and meet the needs of our students. Everything we achieve at OUA we achieve together, and we are all looking forward to building on our recent successes and further expanding and growing Australia’s pre-eminent platform for higher education online in Australia.

Stuart Elmslie

Board of Directors

Professor S. Bruce Dowton More info

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 McCall More info

Mr David McCall
Nominee Director - Swinburne University of Technology

David McCall is the Head of Strategy and Commercial Management at Swinburne University. He leads the strategy, delivery, commercial and product management functions of the university. David joined Swinburne in 2015, having previously held senior positions in financial services and online businesses, and has also been involved in several digital start-ups both in Australia and SE Asia.
Mr David Pitt More info

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 Ian O’Connor More info

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 David Menarry More info

Mr David Menarry
Nominee Director – Curtin University

David is Curtin University's Chief Financial Officer. Curtin is Western Australia’s largest university, with over 60,000 students locally and internationally, assets of $1.5 billion and annual revenues of approximately $900 million. David’s strategic financial leadership supports Curtin’s achievement of research and teaching outcomes.
Mr Paul Beard More info

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.
Professor Belinda Tynan More info

Professor Belinda Tynan
Nominee Director – RMIT University

In May 2016 Professor Tynan assumed the role of Deputy Vice Chancellor (Education) and Vice President of RMIT University. Prior to joining RMIT, Professor Tynan was the Pro Vice Chancellor of Learning and Teaching Innovation at The Open University, UK. She provided executive leadership in the areas of learning and teaching innovation. Her previous roles have included Pro Vice-Chancellor Learning, Teaching and Quality at the University of Southern Queensland, and Director DEHub, the research centre at the University of New England.
Retired in 2017:

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

Executive team

Anthony Elliot Executive General Manager - Corporate Services

Anthony Elliot
Executive General Manager - Corporate Services

In 2017 we undertook the massive challenge of re-engineering the entire back end of our business as well as launching a new website. The objective of this major undertaking was to build a digital platform that would position OUA as the leading digital marketplace for online higher education. Almost every part of our business was involved in this transformation throughout the year. The successful launch of the new applications in December has set the business up to drive an ongoing culture of continuous improvement to find new and innovative ways to add value to our students and university partners into the future.
Janine Harper Executive General Manager - University Relationships

Janine Harper
Executive General Manager - University Relationships

Change is a constant for most organisations and in 2017 OUA was no exception. 2017 - the year of refresh of focus, systems, working space, partnerships and culture to enable the achievement of our digital platform goals. We welcomed a growing number of new subjects and degrees to the platform for students to choose from and a new university partner, The Australian National University – increasing our university partners to 12. Our results in Q3 and Q4 reflects the progress we have made this year – with expectations of more good things to come.
Stuart Elmslie Chief Executive Officer

Stuart Elmslie
Chief Executive Officer

OUA has emerged anew in 2017 with the relaunch of our digital platform, an expansion of our product and services offering, the welcoming of new university partners to the marketplace and a return to new student growth for the first time in five years. This has been the result of a disciplined focus by the business on consolidating its position as the digital marketplace for accessing higher education in Australia. Our achievements are entirely a result of the commitment and efforts of our dedicated staff and provider partners, and the business remains very well positioned for further success with the ongoing support of the Board and our shareholders.
Andy Sheats Executive General Manager - Student Experience

Andy Sheats
Executive General Manager - Student Experience

2017 was my first year at OUA, and it has been great to be part of hitting reset on the business. The team have made a number of material improvements to upgrade our student experience. First, we completed our shift to be Australia’s higher education marketplace, with far greater student choice. This required building new foundations, constructing a new marketing position around real student success stories and investing to rebuild brand health. We built new technology foundations to support this strategy that let us change how we serve our students. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, we have made huge strides towards building a far more agile working culture based on transparency and mutual trust.