Dr Danielle Wood

Danielle Wood is CEO of the Grattan Institute where she heads a team of leading policy thinkers, researching and advocating policy to improve the lives of Australians.

Danielle also leads Grattan’s Budgets and Government Program and has published extensively on economic reform priorities, budgets, tax reform, women’s workforce participation, generational inequality and reforming political institutions. She is a sought-after media commentator and speaker on policy issues.

Danielle was previously Principal Economist and Director of Merger investigations at the ACCC, a Senior Economist at NERA Economic Consulting and Senior Research Economist the Productivity Commission. She holds an Honours degree in Economics from the University of Adelaide and two Masters degrees, one in Economics and one in Competition Law, from the University of Melbourne.

Danielle is a member of the Australian Government’s Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce, the Parliamentary Budget Office Expert Advisory Committee and the Commonwealth Bank CEO Advisory Council.

Danielle is an Honorary Fellow and former President of the Economic Society of Australia and a Research Fellow of the Women’s Leadership Institute. She is also a passionate advocate for women in economics and was the co-founder and first Chair of the Women in Economics Network.

Komala Champion

Komala Champion is Head of Children’s Services at the YMCA, responsible for 33 Out-of-School-Hours Care (OSHC) services and two Early Learning and Care Centres. Over the last five years, Komala has overseen the growth in YMCA OSHC services from six to 33, something which has happened as a result of strong partnerships with school leaders and their communities and a strong focus on quality of care. Komala is passionate about upskilling people and teams to work effectively within their communities to create the best possible environment for children within the YMCA’s care.

A drive to ensure that each service is unique in the way that it supports and integrates OSHC with a school and its community is the philosophy that Komala works by, which allows children to grow and flourish.

Komala also manages the YMCA’s Safeguarding Children program, and has successfully led the organisation through two full accreditations with the Australia Childhood Foundation. Komala has also led the YMCA’s partnership with the Department of Child Protection, Department of Human Services and Department for Education  to deliver a Vacation Care program for vulnerable youth, providing support, programs and meals for children aged between 12 – 15 across the YMCA’s Recreation, Children’s Services and Community Strengthening areas.

Angela Falkenberg

Angela Falkenberg is the President of the SA Primary Principals Association (since 2018) and is past principal of Hampstead Primary School, Lake Windemere B-7 Schools and Marryatville Primary School. She has also held leadership positions in secondary schools.

Her teaching career began in Indigenous education in the Norther Territory and has included roles in primary and secondary education with a focus on students and families experiencing educational disadvantage. She has worked as a behaviour coach, literacy coach, school counsellor and led the recruitment and induction of teachers to Aboriginal and Anangu schools for four years. She also led a three-year health care project in the neonatal nurseries of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. She continues to embrace the joy of life-long learning.

Her personal leadership commitment is to support students, educators, and families to experience quality teaching and learning and to build the skills of resilience and optimism through explicit teaching and support, the creation and maintenance of positive school cultures and the differentiated strategies of impact.

Angela is an invited speaker to national conferences to share these strategies and has participated in the national work in developing the Respectful Relationships curriculum and in the Building a Culturally Responsive Teacher Workforce tools and resources.

Associate Professor Peter Hurley

Associate Professor Peter Hurley is the Director of the Mitchell Institute, an education and health policy think tank based at Victoria University. Peter’s expertise is in education policy and international education systems.

At the Mitchell Institute, he has led a program of work ranging from early childhood education and care to lifelong learning. His research interests include how education systems are structured, for whom, and how to make them fairer for all.

In ECEC, Peter is most known for his work into childcare accessibility, known as ‘childcare deserts’.

Kerry Leaver

Kerry has a 20-year career in social regulation, assessing quality and reporting performance against legislative obligations in the areas of health care and personal injury.

Kerry has in-depth experience in applying project management and continuous improvement methodologies to deliver improved outcomes for patients and claimants at a system level. Kerry played a central role in implementing South Australia’s privatised compulsory third party insurance scheme and regulator.

Kerry was appointed as Chief Executive and Registrar at the Education Standards Board in December 2021.