Introductions

Letter from the Chair

Having been elected to the Chair of WorldSkills Australia in December 2017, half way through the reporting period of the Annual Report 2017-2018, I want to recognise the commitment and leadership of the former chair, Brian Wexham. Brian’s contributions have provided a solid foundation in supporting the necessary evolution of WorldSkills Australia into the future and in meeting the challenges of the 21st Century and Industry 4 world of skills… Click here to read more

Letter from the CEO

Dear Friends, Reflecting on the achievements of the past 12 months I feel both excited and optimistic that we have been able to establish a fantastic platform to launch the next phase of our strategy. Our strategy will see WorldSkills Australia be recognised as the nations “go to” organisation for the promotion of skills excellence. This was the first time in the organisation’s history that our three key activities, regional competitions, National and International… Click here to read more

Meet our Board

KEVIN J HARRIS, PSM

Commenced 2010

During 14 years as Director of TAFE NSW Northern Sydney Institute (NSI), Kevin was instrumental in building one of TAFE’s national leading institutes…
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MEGAN LILLY

Commenced 2017

BRIAN WEXHAM

Commenced 2010

Brian’s experience in international media and advertising spans more than 30 years and includes executive roles with The Times, Sunday Times, and The Observer…
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STEPHEN ROCHE

Commenced 2017

JARRAD LANGDON

Commenced 2011

Jarrad has completed several TAFE courses and achieved local and international success in his chosen field of website development…
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WAYNE COLLYER

Commenced 2012

Wayne has 38 years’ experience in the training sector in both Queensland and Western Australia…
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JACK HANRAHAN

Commenced 2011

Jack has over 30 years’ experience across various retail sectors in a variety of senior executive roles…
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STUART HENRY

Commenced 2017

TREVOR SCHWENKE

Commenced 2017

Trevor has more than 22 years’ experience in key leadership roles in the vocational education and training, higher education, school and corporate sectors…
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CORALIE MORRISSEY

Commenced 2013

Coralie is the President Asia Pacific of LCI Education, a Canadian-based education network that has 23 higher education campuses in 12 countries…
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Thank you to our retired Board Members for their outstanding service to WorldSkills Australia...

DOUG WRIGHT

Commenced 2010

Retired 2017

MARTIN BAIRD

Commenced 2010

Retired 2018

JEANETTE ALLEN

Commenced 2010

Retired 2018

Letter from the Chair

Having been elected to the Chair of WorldSkills Australia in December 2017, half way through the period of this Annual Report, I want to recognise the commitment and leadership of the former chair, Brian Wexham. Brian’s contributions have provided a solid foundation in supporting the evolution of WorldSkills Australia into the future and in meeting the challenges of the 21st Century and Industry 4 world of skills.

In meeting these challenges, WorldSkills Australia over 2017-2018 has realised new industry partnerships particularly in digital skill areas such as cyber security and cloud computing web services. These enabled a significant number of new technology centred skill categories being introduced at the WorldSkills Australia National Skills Show held in June 2018. The high and rapid rate of digital technologies into the traditional trade skill areas have also been showcased through new and exciting industry partnerships with WorldSkills Australia.

WorldSkills Australia is an amazing organisation led by a volunteer governance board and a small but very dedicated and capable executive team, powered by thousands of volunteers and contributing Australian enterprise and industry association partners, training institutes and government. All demonstrate in real terms, their passion and commitment to the purpose of WorldSkills Australia, the development and promotion of skills excellence. All have driven the success of WorldSkills Australia over this Annual Report period and I thank them on behalf of many.

Kevin J Harris PSM

Chair

Letter from the CEO

Dear Friends,

Reflecting on the achievements of the past 12 months I feel both excited and optimistic that we have been able to establish a fantastic platform to launch the next phase of our strategy which will see WorldSkills Australia be recognised as the nations “go to” organisation for the promotion of skills excellence.

This was the first time in the organisation's history that our three key activities, regional competitions, National and International Championships all took place in the same financial year. While it was extraordinarily challenging to do this, it was made easier and possible by the tireless efforts of so many, who give so much.

As always, I’m indebted to, and I thank the thousands of volunteers who gave so freely of their time, which in the last 12 months has been in the order of 107,500 hours. I am also extraordinarily grateful to the 165 organisation and businesses who partnered with us to support more than 3,000 events that took place around Australia. These along with so many other wonderful acts of generosity enabled us to generate 2,300 media items, valued at $8.3m and that was seen by an audience of 100 million.

All involved with WorldSkills Australia believe in the power of skills, and we continue to work towards our vision of contributing to Australia’s sustainable economic prosperity through the development, recognition and promotion of excellence in skills. To do this, we must achieve a greater level of financial independence and stick to focusing on our strategic priorities. This, I believe we’ll achieve through small improvements every day; coupled with the ever-increasing support of the volunteer workforce, the government and private training providers and our industry partners.

The tireless work of our Board Chair and the Board Members, all of who are volunteers, has been nothing short of spectacular, as has the commitment, innovation, flexibility and patience of the WorldSkills Australia management, staff and volunteer network. My sincere thanks to all of you.

Many opportunities lie ahead for us, and I am excited to build on the momentum we have generated over the past year.

I thank you, in advance, for your continued support,

Brett Judd

CEO

Kevin J Harris, PSM

During 14 years as Director of TAFE NSW Northern Sydney Institute (NSI), Kevin was instrumental in building one of TAFE’s national leading institutes. His leadership has helped the NSI to become a national IT training leader through associations with global ICT companies including CISCO Systems, IBM, Oracle and Microsoft. Kevin is a member of many innovation and skills development-focused government and industry entities and was awarded the Public Service Medal in the 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his achievements in public education and skills development.

Kevin joined the WorldSkills Australia Board in 2010 and elected as Chair in December 2017. He has previously been a member of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee as well as Deputy Chair.

Megan Lilly

Megan is the Head of Workforce Development for The Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) and a director of the Australian Industry Group Training Service and Graduate Employment Services. In this role, Megan is responsible for the development of all education and training policy as well as member service delivery across the breadth of workforce development. Prior to this, she was the Chief Executive Officer of Business Services Training Australia, the national industry advisory board for the business services and related industry sectors. Before joining the national board, she held several senior management positions in various Victorian TAFE institutes.

Megan joined the WorldSkills Australia Board in March 2017 and was appointed as Deputy Chair in December 2017. She is a member of the Australian Industry Skills Committee (alternating Director), Chair of Manufacturing Skills Australia, member of the Australian College of Educators, member of the Salvation Army Disability Employment Services Advisory Committee, and the Naval Shipbuilding College – Delivery Advisory Committee. She has been a member of the Australia India Education Council, including Chairing the Skills Working Group, Australian Qualifications Framework Council, Queensland Ministerial Commission, Victorian Skills Commission and Australia Pacific Technical College. Megan was a member of the National Skills Standards Council, and the National Quality Council. Megan also chaired the Joint COAG-NQC Working Group – VET Products for the 21^st Century and has presented at international conferences. She has a Masters in Educational Policy and Administration.

Brian Wexham

Brian’s experience in international media and advertising spans more than 40 years and includes executive roles with The Times, Sunday Times, and The Observer (London, United Kingdom), Media 24 (Cape Town, South Africa), and Lonrho PLC (Nairobi, Kenya). Brian is the author of several books and a successful international cartoon strip. In 2006 he was appointed CEO of The Institute for Trade Skills Excellence.
He was appointed to the WorldSkills Australia Board in 2010 and acted as Chair between 2013 - 2017 and holds several nonexecutive board positions, including Creative Communications. He is also Chair of The Australian Children’s Music Foundation, CEO of SkillsOne Television and Founder of National Skills Week.

Stephen Roche

Stephen is a partner with over 25 years of experience providing audit, due diligence and accounting advice services to listed, government and private entities at a global and local level. Stephen has a Bachelor of Commerce and is a Chartered Accountant and \ current Partner within the Audit and Assurance section of Deloitte Asia Pacific. Stephen also holds several leadership roles within Deloitte Australia and Asia Pacific. Stephen’s experience includes two years auditing in the US (New York), where he coordinated several global audits and developed an in-depth knowledge of effective corporate controls in a Sarbanes Oxley (“SOX”) environment.
Currently, he is a Director and Chair of the Audit Finance and Risk Committee of the Victorian Law Foundation. He is also an Audit Committee member for Group Eight. Stephen joined the WorldSkills Australia Board in December 2017 and is Chair of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee.

Jarrad Langdon

Jarrad has completed several TAFE courses and achieved local and international success in his chosen field of website development. In 2005, he won a gold medal in Website Design at the WorldSkills International Competition in Helsinki. In 2007, Jarrad established Jala Design Pty Ltd, an Australian design agency with a passion for strategic website design and development. Jarrad teaches part-time at TAFE NSW to help train the next generation of developers. He continues his involvement with WorldSkills Australia as a regional judge, project designer, national skill advisor and previously was International Deputy Chief Expert at an International level.

Jarrad has been on the WorldSkills Board since 2011 and is currently a member of the Nominations Committee and the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee.

Wayne Collyer

Wayne has 38 years’ experience in the training sector in both Queensland and Western Australia. He completed a Masters in Education Leadership in 1993 and was appointed Managing Director of Central West TAFE from 1994 to 2004 and then Managing Director Polytechnic West from 2004 until his retirement in 2013. Both of these organisations received Training Provider of the Year in Western Australia. For many years Wayne’s has made significant contributions to training policy development and delivery, especially in employment based training and engagement with industry.

Wayne was a Board member of TAFE Directors Australia for nine years and continues to contribute to the training sector.

Wayne joined the WorldSkills Board in 2012 and is currently a member of the Nominations Committee.

Jack Hanrahan

Jack has over 30 years’ experience across various retail sectors in a variety of senior executive roles. He is a respected Retail Industry Executive with a career defined by reorganising untapped markets and responding with creative technology and products. Jack had his consultancy firm that works closely with global brands, professionally assisting in the development of offers for retailers, coalescing thought processes, as well as leading retail study tours and seminars. Jack has a Masters Degree from the Macquarie Graduate School of Management and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He has taught MBA and Graduate programs as well as co-authored a textbook “Retail Strategy” as well as a number of published papers on retail.

Jack joined the WorldSkills Australia Board in 2011 and is currently a member of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee.

Stuart Henry

The Principal of Aqua Global Consultants, Stuart is the former Deputy Chairman and Chairman of the World Plumbing Council and currently works as executive director of the Plumbing Products Industry Group (PPI). Stuart is a former politician elected to the House of Representatives as member for the Division of Hasluck, WA for the Liberal Party at the 2004 Federal election. Before entering politics, Stuart was executive director of the Master Plumbers Association of WA, a small business proprietor operating in the construction sector and a farm manager. Stuart was a member of the Australian Society of Association Executives and the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and a director of Group Training Australia 2002-03, the West Australian Construction Industry Redundancy Fund 1999-03 and the Australian Construction Industry Safety Training Trust. He was Deputy Chair of the Building and Construction Industry Training Council 1998- 2003.

Trevor Schwenke

Trevor has more than 22 years’ experience in key leadership roles in the vocational education and training, higher education, school and corporate sectors. In 2013 Trevor was recognised as the 2013 Queensland Professional Manager of the Year by the Australian Institute of Management. Trevor began his career as a tradesman and holds an Associate Diploma in Engineering, Bachelor Degree in Education and Masters of Education in Leadership. He is currently the CEO of Bendigo Kangan Institute. Previously, Trevor was the General Manager of TAFE Queensland South West and has held a Board position with TAFE Directors Australia.

Trevor became a WorldSkills Australia Board member in 2017 and currently sits on the Nominations Committee as well as the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee.

Coralie Morrissey

Coralie is the President Asia Pacific of LCI Education, a Canadian-based education network that has 23 higher education campuses in 12 countries. She has built a reputation for innovation and building programs that lead to employable outcomes for students, fostering commercial and industry relationships along the way. Coralie’s work experience includes appointments as Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business and Hospitality at THINK Education Group; Executive Director of the Centre for Engineering, Technology and Trades at Swinburne University of Technology in Victoria; Executive Dean of the Faculty of Technical and Trades Innovation at Victoria, and; General Manager of Training at Swan TAFE (Polytechnic West).

Coralie joined the WorldSkills Australia Board in 2013 and currently is Chair of the Nominations Committee.