About PIA

Board of Directors

Polytechnic Institute Australia is an Australian Proprietary Company, Limited by Shares formed under the Corporations Act 2001 with a Board of Directors that includes a majority of external members. The independence of the Board of Directors provides a mechanism to separate the ownership and governance of the Company from the management of PIA day-to-day operations. The Board of Directors is responsible for the strategic planning to ensure that PIA continues to meet its regulatory and community obligations and responsibilities.

Professor John Tarrant (Chair)

Professor Tarrant is a part-time Professor at the Law School of the University of Western Australia.
Professor Tarrant’s tertiary qualifications include a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Laws with Honours, Master of Laws, Master of Defence Studies, Doctor of Juridical Science, and a Doctor of Philosophy. He also has a certificate in Law Teaching and diplomas in Taxation, Finance and Adult Education. Prior to joining UWA, he worked in the mining and petroleum industries as a company director with an emphasis on developing junior mining companies.
Professor Tarrant is a Barrister of the High Court of Australia and has been admitted as a legal practitioner in Western Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, the Australian Capital Territory, and New Zealand.

Mr Michael Abraham

Mr Abraham is currently the global financial controller for one of Australia’s top 25 fastest growing companies.
During his tenure Mr Abraham has driven efficiencies and reduced risk across the company, against the background of a company growing exponentially. He is an experienced financial controller working across many sectors over the past 19 years, and has a demonstrated ability to adapt to a variety of environments, effectively restructuring people and processes to optimise efficiency and output. He has specialist knowledge in complex financial model development. Commercially minded, Mr Abraham is a strong negotiator with proven success in obtaining attractive contract terms. He has successfully lead international and interstate business establishments and restructures, and specialises in utilising both financial and non-financial data in order to manage risks.

Mr Jeff Egan

Mr Egan is a Director of the public relations firm Flagship Communications Pty Ltd. Prior to establishing Flagship Communications in 2003, Mr Egan worked as a Ministerial Adviser in the Howard Government and a teacher in the Catholic Education system. He has more than 19 years’ experience in stakeholder engagement, government relations, community consultation, issues management and media management.
Mr Egan holds numerous qualifications in communications and education, including a Master of Arts degree in Organisational Communication, a Bachelor of Education, a Graduate Diploma in Communication, a Graduate Certificate of Public Relations and a Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment. He is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and member of the Public Relations Institute of Australia (NSW Division).

Academic Board

The Board of Directors delegates responsibility for academic policymaking, academic administration and oversight of the educational process pertaining to the operation of higher education courses to the Academic Board. The Academic Board is made up of a majority of external members and staff, with students as invitee to ensure that they have the opportunity to participate in academic governance.

Emeritus Professor Peter Flood (Chair)

Professor Flood is a distinguished Australian academic with five decades of activities as a scientist, geologist, and higher education administrator. He has First Class Honours and a Master of Science from the University of New England, and A PhD from the University of Queensland. In addition, he holds a Diploma from Harvard University in Educational Management.
He is an Emeritus Professor at the University of New England and he has served as Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney. He has held previous appointments at the University of Hong Kong and the University of Miami. He lectured at the University of Queensland (1972-1979), the University of New England (1980-2009), and the University of Sydney (2013-2014).

Associate Professor Elaine Evans

Elaine is a Higher Education Consultant with over 30 years’ experience in the sector. She is both a FCPA and a CA. Currently Elaine is a member of academic boards of Higher Education Private Providers (HEPPs) and is an external reviewer of curricula for accounting specialisations in undergraduate degrees. In addition, she chairs Course Advisory and Review Committees. She has held academic positions at Macquarie University, UWS (now WSU), ANU and UNSW. She has taught both undergraduate and postgraduate subjects in the accounting discipline. Her roles at Macquarie University included Higher Degree Research Co-ordinator and Research Co-ordinator for which she won the Faculty of Business and Economics Dean’s Award for Research Leadership. Elaine is the recipient of a Vice Chancellor’s Excellence in Education Award, from Macquarie University. She has received Outstanding Reviewer and Outstanding Paper Awards from international accounting and accounting education journals. She has been an invited guest editor for themed editions of Accounting Education and Accounting History journals and a plenary speaker at the British Accounting Association Education Special Interest Group Annual Conference, at the University of Essex. She was a member of the Editorial Review Board of several international accounting journals.

Dr David Baxter

Dr David Baxter was a secondary school English teacher, head of department and North West regional consultant for the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Education from 1975-1995. He then became a lecturer in English and literacy education for the University of New England until 2007 before moving to the Australian College of Physical Education (ACPE) in 2007 as Associate Dean and Acting Dean in 2012. His responsibilities there included chairing the Teaching and Learning Committee and serving on Academic Board. Since retiring from ACPE in 2013, he has done consultancy work with a range of private and public higher education providers in areas such as policy development and review, TEQSA registration and course accreditation and governance reviews. He has been Chair of the PIA Learning and Teaching Committee since 2018.

Adjunct Professor Sally Robertson

Professor Sally Robinson is an experienced academic leader who most recent focus has been on learning and teaching and student engagement. She is a registered nurse who served as the Dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Notre Dame Australia in Sydney for a number of year and prior as Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching). She successfully led the development and accreditation of the School’s curriculum for both internal and external accreditation. Notre Dame is recognised as having one of the best nursing schools in the country.

Sally served as Chair of the University Learning and Teaching Committee and the internal accreditation committee responsible for accreditation of courses and units for all disciplines at the University. As a result of her work, Sally was awarded Senior Fellowship with the Higher Education Academy in the UK.

Sally is currently serving on Academic Boards/Counsels at a number of institutions.

Mr Mohammad Akbar

Mohammad Akbar is Associate Dean (Learning & Teaching) at PIA. He has an MBA (Professional Accounting) from UTS, Australia and an MBA (Marketing) from North South University, Bangladesh.

Mohammad also works as Senior Accountant at One Tax Accounting Solutions Pty Ltd. He has considerable experience in Marketing and Sales, especially in the Entertainment, Retailing and Internet Service Provider (ISP) industries.

Mohammad is also a PhD candidate at University Malaysia Perlis.

Email: mohammad@pia.edu.au

Professor Geoff Morris

Dean Professor Geoff Morris has an extensive background in both the business world and in academia. Prior to his appointment at PIA he has spent almost 13 years in senior academic roles including Dean of Business at the University of Notre Dame and the Dean and Director of Learning & Teaching at Asia Pacific International College. Before joining academia, he had a successful business career involving senior leadership positions in public and private organisations including Sydney Water, Commonwealth Bank, HCF, Medibank Private, TAB and Australian Water Technologies. He has managed and delivered a number of large projects in Australia, Hong Kong and the Philippines. Geoff’s home discipline is economics with a bachelors degree from Sydney University. This was followed by postgraduate qualifications in management, leadership and higher education teaching.

Executive Management Committee

The authority of the Board of Directors derives from the Constitution of Polytechnic Institute Australia Pty Ltd. The Board of Directors has delegated authority to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of PIA to manage the day-to-day operations of the organisation.

The CEO convenes the Executive Management Committee (EMC) as an advisory committee, that assists the CEO in the day-to-day running of PIA and the implementation of the PIA’s Strategic and Operational Plans.

The EMC consists of Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Compliance, Quality and Risk Manager, Registrar Dean and Marketing Manager.

Chief Executive Officer Ms Alessia Calabrese ceo@pia.edu.au

Chief Operating Officer Mr Amanjot Singh coo@pia.edu.au

Dean dean@pia.edu.au

Registrar registrar@pia.edu.au

Compliance, Quality and Risk Manager Dr David Morgan compliance@pia.edu.au

Marketing Manager Mr Sunny Singh marketing@pia.edu.au