Academic Board

Message from Chair

Welcome to the Australian Institute of Business (AIB), a 34-year-old business school that delivers practical, high quality and innovative education to its students. As Chair of the Academic Board, I am pleased to play a part in AIB’s mission to deliver quality life-changing experiences for our students by giving them the skills required to be irreplaceable in business.

One of the primary roles of an Academic Board is to foster excellence in teaching, learning, scholarship and research. It is a role that we take very seriously here at AIB, and one that determines the nature of the oversight given to the AIB programmes and academic activities.

AIB provides students with the opportunity to apply their studies directly to the workplace, resulting in fast returns on investment for both students and their employers.

AIB is highly regarded, both nationally and internationally, offering the full suite of business degrees, including the prestigious PhD and the largest MBA in Australia (Australian Government Department of Education & Training, 2016 data).

AIB is registered as a higher education provider in Australia by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), and its qualifications are accredited within the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) and internationally recognised. This ensures our degrees are equivalent in standing to qualifications issued by Australian universities.

AIB is an organisation, committed to the promotion of further understanding of what business leadership is and what the sustainable development of business enterprise means, as well as pursuing the development of the skills to practice effective performance in these fields. Its individualised attention and approach to online learning offer just the right environment for busy practitioners to share their insights, ask questions and consolidate their practical work-related learning.

As an experienced quality assurance specialist and winner of the Australian Higher Education Quality Award, I am committed to maintaining the high level of quality in AIB’s programmes, so that you can be assured that you are receiving qualifications of the highest standard to lead you and your business into the future. I look forward to welcoming you to AIB, helping you reach your career goals and enabling you to be irreplaceable.

Emeritus Professor Hilary Winchester (Chair, External Member)

M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon), FAICD

Professor Winchester is a higher education consultant, specialising in Quality Assurance. She was the former Provost of CQ University and has chaired the Academic Boards of two Australian Universities. In 2011, she won the Australian Higher Education Quality Award and is a member of TEQSA’s Register of Experts.

Professor Margaret Hicks (External Member)

BEd, GradDipRdg&LangEd, MEd, EdD

Professor Hicks is a consultant specialising in learning and teaching in higher education. She has held former roles as PVC Student Life at Flinders University and Director of Learning and Teaching at the University of South Australia.

Professor Santina Bertone (External Member)

PhD, MA, Grad Dip, Grad Cert, BA(Hons)

Santina is a long-standing academic leader, having led 65 externally funded research projects, including Australian Research Council projects, totalling more than $2 million, and authored/co-authored 132 publications. She has worked as a Research Centre director, Associate Dean (Research), Deputy Dean (Research) and Head of Department at Victoria University, Swinburne University of Technology, and more recently, Central Queensland University. As an employment relations academic, her research focusses on the intersection of immigration and employment, with particular focus on skilled migrants, their careers and employment barriers. She emphasises the value of industry and community-engaged research, and has produced research with a wide range of government, industry and community partners. In recent years, she has also focussed on postgraduate research supervision, and has supervised 11 research completions, including 7 PhDs. In 2003 Santina won the Centenary of Federation medal for contributions to industrial relations, academia and the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria. She has also gained other recognitions from professional associations, such as Best Reviewer for ANZAM (Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management) 2017.

Professor Iain Hay

LittD, PhD, MEdMgmt, GradCertTertEd, MA (with Distinction), BSc (Hons 1^st) FAICD, FIML, PFHEA, FAcSS

Professor Hay is the Academic Dean at AIB. Professor Hay has extensive higher education experience, including as Dean (Education) in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor at Flinders University. He also served as Discipline Scholar for the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities with the Australian Learning and Teaching Council. His other current roles include as a Director on HCi’s (Health Care Insurance) Board and as a non-Executive Director on the South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE) Board.

Professor Gayle Morris

PhD(Applied Physical Chemistry), Bachelor of Applied Science(Honours): First Class, Bachelor of Applied Science in Chemistry(with Distinction)

Professor Morris is the Associate Dean, Research at AIB. She has an extensive background within the research and education sector, as a scientific researcher both in academia and industry, a research manager, and as an advocate for research and researchers. Gayle is currently Principal of G Morris Consulting specialising in research management and innovation. She was Director Research Services at Flinders University from 2010-2017 and prior to this she was Director of the VU Research Office at Victoria University for over 4 years. She has been an active and successful scientific researcher since 1992, at the Ian Wark Research Institute, University of South Australia, as Senior Chemist at Rio Tinto Technical Services and more recently at Victoria and Flinders Universities, attracting significant nationally competitive and industry research funding. She is an active professional committee member, as former Australasian Research Management Society (ARMS) Executive Committee Member and ARMS President.

Associate Professor Mulyadi Robin

BBus(Management), BBus(Hons)(Management), PhD(Leadership)

Associate Professor Robin is the Associate Dean, Teaching & Learning at AIB. He is an experienced academic who has previously held academic appointments at the Centre for Workplace Leadership (The University of Melbourne), Monash University, and Alphacrucis College. He served as the Bachelor of Commerce Course Coordinator (Management Studies) and Monash College Course Coordinator at Monash University, and was Program Director for the flagship Master of Leadership Program at Alphacrucis College.

Dr Uwe Kaufmann

PhD, MCOM

Dr Kaufmann has worked on a wide range of consulting and projects analysing the impact of policy on business performance and development. He has done considerable research on the operation of the Australia’s FTAs including the ASEAN Australia New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA) and their impact on private sector performance. He led research consulting projects on the assessment of non-tariff measures affecting business trade among AANZFTA members, and has contributed to work on assessing policy in the health and education services sectors of those economies. For the OECD Services Trade Restrictiveness Index, Uwe led a group of researchers on the collection and analysis of policy information in the services sectors in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa.

Dr. Bora Qesja

PhD, MSc, BSc

Bora is a Lecturer in Marketing at AIB. She has over seven years of experience working in academia and industry. Bora obtained her PhD from the University of Adelaide (Australia) funded by the ARC Training Centre for Innovative Wine Production, graduated with honours from a MSc in Luxury Goods and Services from the International University of Monaco (Monaco), and has a BSc in Bioinformatics from Jacobs University (Germany) which equipped her with strong analytical skills.

Dr. Sumesh Nair

BCom, MCom, PhD. (Kerala), GCHE (Monash)

Dr. Sumesh Nair is currently a marketing academic at AIB. Previously, Sumesh worked with Monash University, at the Clayton and Malaysia campuses, and with Murdoch University, in the Singapore campus for a period of 11 years. Sumesh has been teaching various marketing subjects at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels for the past 20 years in five different countries, including India, Malaysia, Australia, Finland and Singapore.

Ms Vicki Golsby

MBA, GradCertEd(HighEd), GCertSupplyChainMgt

Vicki has more than 20 years industry experience in Supply Chain Management and Purchasing in manufacturing in South Australia. Vicki later joined the University sector where she worked initially as a Lecturer at Flinders University, and more recently as Academic Director for the Flinders International Study Centre.

Ms Tess Coughlan

B.Ed (Humanities), PGCert(AppliedEcon)

Tess has more than 25 years in the Higher Education sector in Australia, and has been employed at both public and private institutions in compliance and quality assurance management roles, including as AIB’s Quality and Accreditation Manager since December 2014. Tess is a member of the Higher Education Private Providers’ Quality Network Steering Committee.

Ms Angela Uther

GradCert Management, BA (European Studies)

Angela (General Manager, Organisation Development) is the Student Representative on the Academic Board and is currently studying her MBA with AIB. Angela’s leadership and management experience across Financial Services and Retail industries spans roles in operations, customer service, sales, procurement and human resources, now focused on organisation development. She is passionate about learning and development and supporting the highest quality learning experience for AIB students.

Mr Rick Madden

MBA, B.AM, A.ENG(Electrical), Electrical trade Cert.

Rick is the AIB Alumnus member of the Academic Board. Rick has more than 15 years industry experience in the electrical distribution industry in Queensland. Within the industry, Rick has proven understanding in controlling and monitoring the High Voltage network. Rick also has experience in operational management of control room environments including emergency management due to adverse weather.