Introduce yourself in three words or phrases.
Husband. Father. Comedian.
What do you like most about your job?
Working with people – without a shadow of a doubt – and helping people grow. That’s my favourite part. My job is not only the teams that I have the honour of representing and working with internally, but again, customers, people working with us, like helping them navigate challenges and work through problems. I love that.
Best work trip?
My best work trip was probably my last trip to Egypt about three weeks ago, where I was blown away at the innovation and community that we have in Egypt. The way that technology is being used in the classroom, the way that they are bucking the trends of enrolment decline. It was a wonderful, wonderful opportunity. We got to meet some ministers and some really great customers there
Worst work trip?
I used to live and work in Australia prior to this role at Instructure and I used to work for a tiny little EdTech student information system provider. I think I had to catch three connecting flights on one trip. The first two were late, I missed my last one and I didn’t end up seeing any customers for a whole four-day trip, basically because I couldn’t make any of the logistics work. So, I was away for four days and then just came home having achieved absolutely nothing.
If you could learn a language instantly, which would you pick and why?
I would probably pick Spanish. In fact, I’ve been desperately trying to learn Spanish since I took on this role because I’ve spent a lot of time out in Spain and I’m always so embarrassed when my customers can speak wonderful English and all I can say is the usual, ‘Hola’, ‘Gracias’, ‘Café con leche’… and that’s about it.
Champion in the sector which we should all follow and why?
I would say, Martin Bean CBE. He’s the former chancellor of RMIT Australia and the former vice chancellor of the Open University. And I think across both of those organisations and the roles he has developed skills and knowledge that is really going to prepare anyone for the future of education. At the Open University, you’re dealing with a totally unique way of delivering education at scale for free. He was involved when they were sending videotapes out to students to acknowledge content, so just a really inspiring leader who’s broken down barriers. I’ve learnt a lot from him
Best international ed conference and why?
Can I say InstructureCon? InstructureCon was wicked this year, I really thought it was good. I loved being there – as I said, I love working with people, I love working with our customers, so genuinely, that’s the biggest group of our community coming together so that’s why I love that.
Outside of that answer, I think Times Higher Ed do a wonderful university series and I think you get some really inspirational, innovative individuals that tend to go to those conferences and are presenting some really innovative ideas.
Worst conference food experience?
Unfortunately, it’s got to be back in Australia again. You remember the Fire Festival debacle? This was as bad as that. I feel like that’s probably on par with some conferences out in regional Australia… I think it was up in the Northern Territories on a Christian school conference, and they just gave us a pretty average bit of bread, ham, no butter, and just a few sprigs of lettuce. That was pretty rough.
Describe a project or initiative you’re currently working on that excites you.
The European University Aliance projects – there’s a really exciting opportunity there where we’re having some initial discussions with some of the alliances that are being created and the member institutions about how we can provide the backend architecture for that student experience. So navigating to different campuses, stackable credentials, etc., etc.
I’m really excited about what that can do for the future of education. So, we have a small of Tiger team working on the product side figuring out what we need to do, and on the customer side, figuring out what they want us to do and trying to join the dots with the bits and pieces that we have. European university alliances are going to be a really exciting thing to look at over the next five to 10 years.
