Asialink Directors

Executive Team, January 2010

Asialink Executive, January 2010

Jenny McGregor: Chief Executive Officer; Jenny McGregor is the founding CEO of Asialink at The University of Melbourne, the founding Executive Director of the Asia Education Foundation and a member of the Board of the Asia Society AustralAsia Centre. Under Ms McGregor's leadership, Asialink has become Australia's largest non-government centre for the promotion of Australia-Asia relations - with an annual budget of over A$10 million and activities spanning education, the arts, leadership, health and corporate and public programs.

Ms McGregor has been a member of the Boards of the APEC Women’s Business Advisory Committee and of the Myer Foundation Beyond Australia Committee. She is currently on the Advisory Boards of the Australian Centre and the Dunlop Asia Awards, a member of the Executive of the Melbourne Confucius Institute and a member of the Board of the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements and Australian Volunteers International.

Jenny has overseen the Track II Australia-ASEAN dialogue, the 'Asialink Conversations', from their inception in 2002 in Australia. Together with Professor Tony Milner she has delivered ‘Asialink Conversations’ in Malaysia, Vietnam, Sydney and India.

Before taking up her Asialink appointment in 1990, Ms McGregor worked as a political advisor (including the office of the Shadow Minister for Social Welfare) and senior manager in the Australian and Victorian governments, and then joined the Commission for the Future to research Australia Asia relations. She has a BA (Hons) and Dip Ed from the University of Melbourne and holds the Peter Brice award for outstanding contribution to teaching and learning about the Asia Pacific region.

Apart from taking responsibility for a wide range of Asialink publications, Ms McGregor is active as a media commentator on issues relating to Australia-Asia engagement.
Kathe Kirby: Executive Director; Kathe Kirby works across Asialink programs and has particular responsibility for Asialink’s education strategies spanning national and international activities. A foundation member of the Asia Education Foundation (AEF) since 1993, Kathe has held the positions of AEF Executive Director, National Manager and Partnerships Manager. A background in education as a teacher, university lecturer and senior policy officer in the Victorian Department of Education led to Ms Kirby's key interest in implementing educational change and innovation in areas of national interest. In 2001, she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to investigate the studies of Asia in school education in the USA, UK, Japan and Korea.
Lesley Alway: Director, Arts; Lesley Alway has very strong arts management experience and knowledge, having been Director of Arts Victoria, Artbank, Heide Museum of Art, and CEO of Sotheby’s Australia, as well as Chair of the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council. Her specialist area is visual arts, but she has a wider knowledge across the arts.
Julia Fraser: Director, Leadership, Health and Community; Julia Fraser is the Director of Asialink’s Leadership and Community Programs. Ms Fraser oversees the management of a wide range of public programs within Australia and internationally. Programs under her direction include an annual 12 month leadership program for Asia – focused Australian professionals from the business, academic, government and no-government sectors, in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, media exchange programs and the development of new programs in the Health and Community sectors. Currently Co-Director of the secretariat of Asia-Australia Mental Health, a consortium of partners at the University of Melbourne and St. Vincent’s Health, Ms Fraser’s work focuses on building and maintaining the necessary partnerships that include all sectors involved in mental health in Australia and in the Asia-Pacific region to support collaboration in mental health reform in our region. Ms Fraser’s portfolio in this role includes supporting and promoting the work of the community and NGO sectors in mental health reform in Australia and the region.
Maureen Welch: Director, Asia Education Foundation; Maureen Welch has been with the Asia Education Foundation (AEF) since 1993 and is currently the Director of the AEF. She has responsibility for managing the AEF’s programs including partnerships with key stakeholders at national and state/territory levels, professional learning programs, curriculum materials development and international programs. Prior to taking up this position she was Partnerships Manager. She has a background in program evaluation and a strong interest in national policy development and implementation strategies.

Kurt Mullane: Director, Partnerships

Kurt has been with the AEF since 1999. He has a background as a primary school teacher in Australia and the UK, a Masters degree in Asian Studies (Sino-Tibetan relations) and is an alumni of Asialink’s Leaders Program. He currently has responsibility for directing AEF projects funded through the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, AusAID, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, State and Territory education jurisdictions and philanthropy. His role includes working with peak business groups to build links between schools and business and the provision of Asia in-country professional learning for Australian educators. Kurt has managed development and implementation of national teacher professional learning programs and has led the AEF’s work in supporting Asian languages in Australian schools, including development of the 2010 reports on the ‘Current State of Indonesian, Japanese and Korean Language in Australian Schools’.

Sue Peacock: Director, Business Management

As Director of Business Management, Sue has responsibility for the AEF’s operational management and business development. Sue’s role includes the development and management of the AEF’s strategic plan, and the evolution of scalable systems and processes to support the work of the AEF into the future. Having joined the AEF in early 2010, Sue brings experience in change management, strategic management, business development, investment raising and fundraising. Sue spent many years working in management development/education and the alignment of learning to organisational strategy. As founding CEO of a software development company, Sue gained an understanding of the education domains within Australia, USA, Singapore and China, particularly in the development of learning resources to address the changing needs of students to meet the challenges of the future.