RMIT UP Executive Leadership Team
Jake Heinrich
Jake holds a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Education (TESOL) and a Master of Business Administration.
He has extensive experience in the education sector, working as a lecturer in China, Vietnam and Australia, and as an ESL teacher in Australia, Japan, Taiwan, China, Mexico, Cambodia and Vietnam. He has also held executive positions in higher education and pathways institutions, as well as time at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, where he was responsible for a range of international education products.
Jake joined RMIT Vietnam in 2016 as Director of the School of English and University Pathways (SEUP). He commenced at RMIT UP in 2018, leading the Commercial, Operations and Finance department before becoming CEO in September 2021.
Jake is committed to his vision for the international education sector, striving to always offer the best of pedagogy enhanced with a rich and diverse student experience.
Mitun Chakravarty
Mitun Chakravarty is RMIT UP's Director of IT. She has the strong lateral thinking, technical expertise and stakeholder influencing skills needed to drive meaningful and sustainable technical change, and is a skilled leader of IT teams, integrated technical strategies and technical programs of work. Mitun has a Master’s Degree in Computer Application (MCA) and over 20 years’ experience in IT across three countries. Over the past 4 years she has driven RMIT UP's cloud first technology strategy from concept to reality.
Mitun values three core elements of leadership: Concentration, the ability to access in depth knowledge; Informed Decision Making that allows one to make effective decisions; and Empathy to drive high performance and people success.
Margaret Dawson
Margaret is the Associate Director, Quality Assurance and Standards at RMIT UP. She has extensive executive leadership and management experience across a range of education sectors and institutions, including senior secondary colleges and public and private higher education providers. Margaret is passionate about International Education and has held positions of President of ISANA (Vic/Tas) and Director and Chair of Mount St Joseph Girls College Board. Margaret provides expertise in the regulatory and operational requirements for developing quality assured international pathway programs for onshore and offshore delivery.
Josh Edwards
With 25 years’ experience across start-ups and medium to large companies, including complex international organisations, Josh has earnt a strong reputation for providing commercially and values-focused leadership with the ability to impact business culture.
His career has included executive and senior level positions at The Coles Group, Lonely Planet, Momentum Energy, Enett International and RMIT Online. A Certified Practising Accountant, Josh has a passion for purpose driven companies that can impact lives.
Kate Fennessy
Kate graduated with Arts, Honours in Japanese Studies, completing her Honours year at Saitama University after studying as an undergraduate at Osaka Gaikokugo Daigaku.
Her early career was in the TAFE and local government sectors, working with ‘at risk’ youth and in program management before taking the leap into advertising, following a stint writing for the women’s website Mamamia. Kate ran her own social media and digital marketing business for four years before joining RMIT UP in late 2021.
Kate is passionate about clear, personalised communication, and believes in the power of words and storytelling.
Elise Fraser
Elise Fraser is RMIT UP's Director Wellbeing and Student Experience. She has a Masters degree in Counselling & Psychotherapy, a Graduate Diploma in Education, a Graduate Diploma in Counselling, and a Diploma in Fine Art.
Elise has been leading Student Experience and Wellbeing programs for international students for more than 18 years. Her background in fine art and education allows her to bring various creative threads together in her research-informed wellbeing and student experience programming. Elise leads a number of discrete teams: Wellbeing, Student Experience and Academic Support, all of which are focused on student success and wellbeing, but each with a specific and divergent focus.
Malcolm Neil
With over 25 years of experience in the publishing and digital content industries, Malcolm Neil brings a wealth of expertise to the role of Director, Informit. As a former CEO of the Australian Booksellers Association, he was instrumental in guiding key copyright discussions on parallel imports. His career spans leadership roles at Monash University Publishing, Melbourne University Press, Small Press Network, and Private Media.
Malcolm’s international achievements include establishing Kobo’s commercial eBook business in the Asia-Pacific region and leading strategic publishing initiatives for global companies Bibliotheca, Legible and Wattpad. He is also an active contributor and respected advisor in the publishing and media industry, having served on various boards, including the board of Overland Magazine.
Kathy Prince
Kathy has extensive Human Resources leadership and management experience across a range of education sectors and institutions, including primary and secondary schools, and now higher education. Kathy is focused on enabling individuals and teams to thrive and excel and has a proven track record in designing and delivering fit for purpose people plans linked to business objectives.
Kathy firmly believes that education is the cornerstone to a thriving society, and she is passionate about making a difference in higher education.
Ben Stubbs
Prior to working at RMIT UP, Ben was the Director of Deakin University English Language Institute and Global Student Mobility at Deakin University and the Principal of the University of Melbourne’s English Language Centre at Hawthorn.
Ben has been on the Board of EA, UECA, the Victorian Universities International Directors Forum (VUIF) and the Australian Universities International Directors Forum (AUIDF). He is also a registered Expert for English language and Foundation programs for TEQSA.
Prior to taking up leadership roles, Ben taught in Universities and High schools in Australia and Japan.
RMIT UP Board Directors
Mish Eastman (Chair)
Mish Eastman was appointed to the role of RMIT UP Board Chair in July 2023 after serving as a Board Director since 2020.
As RMIT Deputy Vice-Chancellor Vocational Education Mish Eastman is responsible for developing and leading a renewed vision and strategic direction for Vocational Education. Since joining RMIT, this has included establishing the new College of Vocational Education and the development of a 5-year strategic roadmap for vocational and applied learning.
She is passionate about gender diversity in all aspects of education and creating space for women in non-traditional roles, continuously providing diverse opportunities and support as part of her leadership style. An advocate for creating a safe and respectful community, Mish is also co-chair of RMIT’s Vice-Chancellor's Advisory Group on Gender-based Violence Prevention.
An experienced education and health leader, Mish has strong expertise in identifying and creating new models of education and training in collaboration with industry, enhancing tertiary pathways, and understanding how to create educational and employment success for learners. Beginning her career as a Registered Nurse before moving into educational leadership roles, has given Mish a deep knowledge and passion for Vocational Education.
She has previously held positions with TAFE Tasmania, Tasmanian Polytechnic and Swinburne University of Technology, providing strategic and operational leadership of teaching and learning programs in pathways and Vocational Education.
Professor Ian Burnett
Professor Ian Burnett was appointed Deputy Vice Chancellor, STEM College and Vice President in January 2023.
Prior to joining RMIT, Ian was Dean, Faculty of Engineering and IT at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) where he significantly grew the Faculty, pushing the rankings to #1 in Australia and the top 20 worldwide.
Ian is an active researcher in the Audio and Multimedia Signal Processing space and has more than 220 publications, as well as US patents and international standards contributions.
Before his tenure at UTS, Ian was the Head of School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at RMIT University. During his time in this role, the school saw significant growth and expansion internationally with programs in Vietnam and Hong Kong, as well as significant research performance.
James Morgan
James joined RMIT in 2021 as Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Strategic Finance, before taking on the role of Interim Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in April 2024.
James leads the Finance and Assurance function, who provides a range of services across RMIT to ensure financial sustainability, support commercial and operational strategies and provide risk and compliance assurance.
James is an accomplished and values led finance executive with extensive experience in leading high performing teams across large, complex organisations. He is passionate about delivering organisational goals through cross functional collaboration.
Prior to RMIT, James had a 14-year career with Telstra where he held a number Divisional CFO roles across a broad range of complex business operations, delivering revenue and operational improvements.
Prior to moving to Australia in 2007, James held several senior roles at British Telecom and PricewaterhouseCoopers in London.
James is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales.
Elizabeth Compton
Elizabeth Compton was appointed to the RMIT UP Board in July 2023 as an independent Non-Executive Director (NED). She is an experienced NED with other board roles including Chair of the Continence Foundation of Australia and NED of one of Australia's largest NFP aged care and retirement living organisations, Southern Cross Care (SA, NT and Vic).
Prior to this Elizabeth was the CEO of LanguageLoop (2016 - 2021) a multilingual communications organisation delivering interpreting and translations solutions to government and large corporates across 190 languages. She spent almost a decade living and working overseas working for Goldman Sacs (London and New York), Yamaha Motors Europe (Amsterdam) and the Department of Trade and Industry (London).
Dr Simon Livingstone
Dr Livingstone has worked for 28 years in the vocational and higher education sectors. His most recent executive role was 19 years as Chief Executive Officer of a tertiary agribusiness College based in Geelong. Dr Livingstone’s PhD is in higher education, and he holds tertiary qualifications in School Management, Further Education and Training, Business and Agriculture. In addition to his board position with RMIT Up, he is a Director and Deputy Chairman of the Primary Industries Education Foundation Australia and is an active member of the Audit and Risk and the Human Resource and Governance Committees. Dr Livingstone has served on the Victorian Government Higher Education Advisory Committee and is a past Board Member of Independent Higher Education Australia and the Council of Private Higher Education.
Laijing Lee
Laijing Lee is Head of Legal and Director at RMIT. She is a Graduate of the AICD Company Directors Course (GAICD) and holds a Master of Laws in Commercial Law (LLM, Monash University) and a Bachelor of Laws with First Class Honours (LLB (Hons), University of Tasmania). Laijing has over 16 years’ legal practice experience.
Laijing has been with RMIT since March 2018, and leads the Legal team to deliver the legal, contractual and regulatory aspects of key strategic priorities of RMIT and its controlled entities in Australia. She has led on a wide range of enterprise-wide, complex, high value, high risk and multi-jurisdictional commercial arrangements at RMIT.
Laijing joined RMIT following a career in in-house legal environments in the private and NFP sectors, and at the top tier global law firm now known as Allens Linklaters. She is passionate about transformative experiences and opportunities through education, and working with executive leadership to drive exceptional outcomes within commercial, legal and risk parameters.
Careers at RMIT UP
Inspire students from over 50 countries. Create best practice teaching programs. Grow a global business. Expand knowledge in digital services.
