focusinterview
Business Minds with Ingrid Rothe of VIVID Thinking
women in business
BUSINESS minds
Megan Aitken. Introducing Megan Aitken, General Manager for TAFE NSW’s Digital Operations.
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hat is TAFE Digital? Our office manages the online education offering for TAFE NSW. At the moment, we have three online businesses across the state offering over 100,000 students a range of online courses, and our mandate is to bring them together to leverage TAFE’s size, scale, and reputation so we can offer more courses, more flexibility and more choice to our students. It’s not about offering all of our courses online. It’s about giving students greater choice about how and where they want to learn. Students who complete a course online will also have the chance to top up their education with campus workshops or in-class lessons and visa versa. So, it’s about giving students choice and variety as to when and how they want to learn. What is exciting, is that it is all headquartered in Armidale. Can you tell us about your background? I grew up in Sydney and spent most of my career in financial services. Working in finance gave a me a lot of insight into how large and complex companies work, and how technology can really impact the way things operate. For the past 10 years I’ve worked in Asia, which gave me and my family a much better understanding about life outside of Australia. It also taught me how to manage people and lead projects across different countries and cultures. I’ve worked at UNE as well, heading up their Strategic Projects Unit, which showed me just how exciting the 64 46 focus new england Special focus. Edition
educational sector is at the moment and how sionals wanting to top up their skills. For important technology is in giving students those living in the country, our online courses a better, more engaging, learning experience. are really important, because they can access What brought you to Armidale? the same courses and the same opportunities My husband went to UNE, and many of as their city counterparts. his life-long friends live here. We also have What is the opportunity for our commufamily close by, so after 10 years in Asia, we nity with TAFE Digital located here? felt this was a good place to relocate with I think it cements Armidale as an educaour two children. We wanted an environtional hub, with UNE, TAFE NSW as well as ment that provided both a career opportunity great schools. We will also be creating 40 and supported family new jobs within the life. Our children ride department. Bringing horses and we love new jobs to a city like the community here, Armidale means an We will also be creating so Armidale provides increase in the money 40 new jobs within the all of this. It was spent in our community department. Bringing quite a shift from that ultimately supnew jobs to a city like Asia, but we felt that ports local business. I Armidale means an it offered everything think an even greater increase in money Sydney does but opportunity is that TAFE spent in our community with a much stronDigital could act as a that ultimately ger community spirit, precedent for other supports local business. which we like. government agencies Why did you join to move to regional TAFE NSW ? locations. If we get TAFE makes such the model right, we a huge difference to will demonstrate that people’s lives. This jobs with statewide sounds a bit like a press release, but it’s true. responsibility can be successfully delivered We skill our workforce, first and foremost, from towns like Armidale, and this sends a which is an important role. But even more message to decision makers. importantly, we give our communities access And your broader contribution? to education, and this is life-changing for so We give people the skills they need to many people. secure a job, get that next promotion or We cater for lots of young adults coming change careers. I think that’s such an importout of school, but we also educate people ant contribution. looking to change their careers, or profesAs a woman in business, what has been
your biggest challenge? I have focused not on being recognised as a woman in business, but rather as a good business person. I think starting my career in banking, which is such a male dominated environment, helped. It was so fast paced and you needed to really deliver, so your focus wasn’t on gender but on doing your job well and adding value to the team. What would you advise a young woman starting out in her career? Find yourself a mentor, but don’t automatically focus on finding a female mentor and it doesn’t have to be formal. I benefited from having brilliant male mentors in my career, and they weren’t officially labelled as mentors. They just gave me exposure to different ways of thinking, networking approaches, communication styles, and a more well-rounded perspective about business. What are the biggest challenges that lie ahead? The pace of technology is such a great opportunity, but it’s also a challenge. There is so much we can do when it comes to education - things like virtual reality, augmented reality and machine aided learning will open-up new ways to teach people in virtual classrooms - people from all walks of life, regardless of where they live and like to learn. This is all exciting, but we just need to make sure it really adds to the student experience. Thank you, Megan.