Lunchtime Address with Mark Scott AO
Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor
University of Sydney
Thursday 31 August,
Lunch Served 12 – 12.30pm
Address & Discussion 12:30 - 2pm
Perpetual’s Offices: 18/123 Pitt Street, Sydney
HCA Members - $50 / Guests - $60
Our fellow Harvard alum Mark Scott AO (MPA, Harvard Kennedy School) will engage the Club on 31 August with his latest thinking on Creative complexity: the reinvention of Australia’s great public institutions. Given his background, this surely will be an insightful discussion that will impact many of the entities we engage with regularly.
Professor Mark Scott was appointed as the University’s 27th Vice-Chancellor in 2021. He is a highly respected and successful senior leader of large and complex institutions, across public service, education and the media. Under his leadership as Secretary of the NSW Department of Education (2016 to 2021), the Department:
- secured a record 10-year funding agreement for public schools
- created School Infrastructure NSW to deliver an additional 160,000 classroom places
- established the School Leadership Institute to train and develop aspiring school principals across the state
- established policies around the protection and expansion of Aboriginal languages in NSW schools.
Professor Scott is an accomplished communicator and his distinguished record of strategic leadership includes a decade as Managing Director of the ABC (2006 to 2016), where he led the organisation’s transformation to be a public broadcaster in the digital era. Over that time, the ABC created new services like iview, News 24, ABC3 and digital radio; and expanded online and mobile services, such as podcasting and ABC News online.
Professor Scott has also held a number of senior editorial roles at Fairfax, including Education Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and Editor-in-Chief of metropolitan, regional and community newspapers. His contribution to education reaches back to the start of his career, as a teacher in Sydney. He built on his interest in education with senior policy and leadership positions with two NSW education ministers – Terry Metherell and Virginia Chadwick – and in 2011 he was named an Officer of the Order of Australia.
Spaces are limited. We look forward to seeing you there.