MEET THE TEAM

Caroline Smith

Executive Director, Centre for Education and Training

As a senior leader specialising in future skills, employment and economic policy, Caroline has had a distinguished career dedicated to empowering individuals and businesses. Her focus includes economic and skills development, labour markets, workforce planning and the future of work.

With extensive expertise in federal and state government and peak bodies, Caroline brings strategic insights on workforce development policy and innovation. Caroline’s experience includes being the inaugural Executive Director of Jobs Queensland, Deputy Chief Executive of the National Employment Services Association and Executive Director, Economic and Policy Futures in Queensland government.  

Peter Canavan

Senior Policy Officer, Education and Training

Peter contributes to education and training policy and manages Centre projects including state industry skills advisory projects and apprenticeship and traineeship projects that often explore new models. Peter has many years' experience in the vocational training sector, and has managed projects for the Victorian Government relating to education and training.

Paolo Damante

Senior Policy Officer, Education and Training

Paolo contributes to the Centre’s policies and is a member on a number of national and state secondary and tertiary education industry advisory bodies. Paolo project manages state government-funded projects centred on education-industry partnerships in the defence industry. He also administers the CET’s Member Network.

Sarah Pilcher

Research and Policy Manager, Education and Training

Sarah leads the Centre’s research program and comes to Ai Group with considerable experience in creating a targeted, policy-focused research agenda. She works to combine member data with broader research insights to create a rich evidence base to underpin the Centre’s policy and advocacy work.

Brett Crossley

Research and Policy Officer

Brett contributes to the Centre’s ongoing research and policy development projects. As the Centre’s main data collector and analyst, he is interested in finding and drawing links between various datasets and developing evidence-based policy that can lead to improved system performance and productivity growth.

Andrew Elsbury

Project Officer

Andrew coordinates the Defence Science Institute’s Defence Industry Scholarships Program for the Centre which involves supporting SMEs in Victoria’s defence industry with hosting final-year higher education students in industry placements and bolstering their higher skills workforce needs. Andrew has two decades of experience in communications roles in State and Federal Government, most recently as a Government Relations Consultant in the private sector.

Ross Kelly

Project Manager

Ross has extensive experience in the mining, equipment supply and training sectors. He has managed Registered Training Organisations for the Victorian/Tasmanian Caterpillar dealership and the Civil Contractors Federation (Victoria). Ross has been providing consulting and contract services in the fields of business operations, RTO management and compliance, people development and project management. He is uniquely positioned to understand the issues faced by both technical people in the field, and the staff and management team in the office.  He has a strong interest in developing and mentoring staff and in the future skills and knowledge that will be required by industry in an evolving technological world.

Ross is currently contracted with Ai Group as Project Manager for the exciting Dual Electrical Qualification pilot project. The pilot is an amazing opportunity to provide industry with the advanced and broader skill sets required for current and future technology.