Higher Education Summit 2025 Speakers
Robert French AC
Former Chief Justice of The High Court of Australia and Chancellor of The University of Western Australia
Robert French served as Chief Justice of Australia from 1 September 2008 until 29 January 2017. Prior to his appointment as Chief Justice, he had served as a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia from November 1986. Mr French is an International Judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court, a Visiting Judge of the Supreme Court of Fiji and a Judge of the Court of Appeal of the Dubai International Financial Centre. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Law School at the University of Western Australia, a Distinguished Honorary Professor at the Australian National University and an Adjunct Professor at Monash University Law School. He is also a Professorial Fellow at Melbourne University. He is a member of the Expert Council on University Governance and a member of the Committee for Freedom and Responsibility in Science of the International Science Council.
Professor Michael Crommelin
University of Melbourne
Michael Crommelin is a Professor Emeritus in the Melbourne Law School at The University of Melbourne. His teaching and research interests are in constitutional law, mineral law, petroleum law and property law. He was Zelman Cowen Professor of Law from 1975 until 2021, and Dean of the Law School for 19 years. In 2009 he was appointed an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia for service to the law and legal education, particularly as a tertiary educator and through the development of mining and petroleum law in Australia.
Professor Glenn Savage
University of Melbourne
Glenn Savage is a policy sociologist and Professor of Education Futures at the University of Melbourne. His research sits at the intersection of education policy, strategic design, and system change. Glenn has led major research and teaching initiatives in collaboration with organisations such as AITSL, ACARA, the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership, the South Australian Department for Education, and the International Baccalaureate Organization. He has been the recipient of four Australian Research Council (ARC) grants and currently leads an ARC Discovery Grant on collaborative policy design in national schooling reform. Glenn works closely with school and system leaders to apply strategic design methods to educational challenges and has co-designed major professional learning programs for state governments, including the Teaching Impact Fellowship (VIC) and Leading Future Learning (SA). He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Critical Studies in Education and author of The Quest for Revolution in Australian Schooling Policy (Routledge, 2021). Glenn’s background in journalism and teaching shapes his creative, systems-focused approach to educational transformation.
Professor Andrew Norton
Monash University
Andrew Norton is Professor of Higher Education Policy in the Monash Business School at Monash University. He joined Monash in January 2025 from POLIS: The Centre for Social Policy Research as the Australian National University, where he was Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy. Mr Norton is the author or co-author of many publications on higher education topics. His Mapping Australian higher education 2023 is an overview of higher education policy and trends. In 2013-14 he was the co-author of a government-commissioned review of the demand driven student funding system. He was on the ministerial reference group for the Universities Accord.
Libby Hackett
CEO Australian public policy institute
Libby Hackett is CEO of the Australian Public Policy Institute, a joint-venture uniting governments and universities to improve public policy in Australia. With over 20 years of experience working with government and universities, Libby has held senior leadership and advisory roles in government, parliament, university peak bodies, think tanks and private sector consultancy in Australia and the UK. She served as a Director on the UK Higher Education Commission and as an Advisor to the Browne Review of Higher Education Fees and Funding.
Alex Robson
Deputy Chair Productivity Commission
Alex Robson commenced a 5-year term as a full time Commissioner and Deputy Chair of the Productivity Commission in March 2022.
Professor Robson has a broad range of experience in academia and the public and private sectors, most recently as Associate Partner at EY (Ernst and Young).
Prior to that, Professor Robson served as Australia’s Ambassador to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
He also served as Senior Economic Adviser and Chief Economist to the former Australian Prime Minister, the Hon Malcolm Turnbull, and has held a number of other positions, including Managing Director at FTI Consulting; Director at Deloitte Access Economics; Director of the Economic Policy Analysis Program at Griffith University; Lecturer in Economics at the Australian National University; and as a graduate economist at the Commonwealth Treasury in Canberra.
Professor Robson’s teaching and research has been in the fields of advanced microeconomics, game theory, public economics and public choice, law and economics, and macroeconomics.
Professor Robson holds a Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honours) from James Cook University and a Master of Arts and PhD in Economics from the University of California, Irvine, USA. His research has been published in several international journals, including Economic Theory, Public Choice, the Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance, and Economic Modelling. His law and economics book, Law and Markets, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2012.
Raymond da Silva Rosa
The University of Western Australia
Ray da Silva Rosa is a professor of finance at UWA Business School and director the UWA Asia Centre. He is a former president of the UWA Academic Staff Association, former Chair of Academic Board and member of Senate, and former president of the Accounting & Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand. Ray has a keen interest in the contingent historical circumstances that have generated many of the issues that pre-occupy the higher education sector, e.g., free speech and the ostensible corporatisation of universities. He writes frequent opinion pieces for The West Australian and occasionally for the Australian Financial Review and The Australian.
Professor David Hornsby
Carleton University
David J Hornsby is a Professor in the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs and the Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President (Academic) Carleton University, Ottawa. Prior, David was the Associate Vice-President (Teaching and Learning) and held faculty positions at University College London and the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, South Africa. David’s research interests pertain to the politics of science and risk in international governance, Canadian foreign policy in Sub-Saharan Africa, South African foreign policy, middle power cooperation, and the philosophy and theory of higher education. David has published in both the biological and social sciences and is an award-winning lecturer.
Melinda Cilento
Chief executive ceda
Melinda Cilento is Chief Executive of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, a company director, economist and experienced senior executive. She is also the Deputy Chair of Australian Unity, Chair of the Expert Council on University Governance, and a member of the Ministerial Advisory Council on Skilled Migration. She is a Member of Amplify Australia Research Committee, a member of the ACCC Performance Consultative Committee and a Melbourne Institute Advisory Board Member. Melinda was previously a Non-Executive Director with Woodside Petroleum, Co-Chair of Reconciliation Australia, a Commissioner with the Productivity Commission, Deputy CEO and Chief Economist with the Business Council of Australia and held senior roles with Invesco, the Federal Department of Treasury, and the International Monetary Fund.
Professor Shamit Saggar CBE FAcSS
Executive Director Australian centre for student equity and success
In addition to being ACSES’s Executive Director, Professor Shamit Saggar is a Visiting Professor at King’s College, London and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Essex. He has 37 years of experience in international academia, government, business, regulation and philanthropy, is a former Senior Advisor to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, and a Knowledge Exchange Fellow in the David Cameron administration. Shamit was previously Director of the UWA Public Policy Institute. He has held personal chairs, visiting professorships and senior management roles at Essex, Sussex, Liverpool and Queen Mary in the UK, and at UCLA, Yale and Toronto in North America. He has published six books, 70+ journal papers and book chapters, and 20+ policy reports. His research grant capture exceeds $70m.
Vicki Thomson
Chief Executive & Director Group of Eight Australia
Vicki Thomson is Chief Executive of the Group of Eight Universities and a long-standing advocate for Australia’s university sector. With over two decades of leadership experience, she previously served as Executive Director of the Australian Technology Network.
Her background spans media, politics, and policy, including serving as Chief of Staff to a South Australian Premier. She holds leadership and advisory roles with the European Australian Business Council, Multiple Sclerosis Australia, the University Foreign Interference Taskforce, and Jobs and Skills Australia, among others.
Vicki was awarded the French Government’s Ordre des Palmes Académiques for her work strengthening France-Australia education ties. She has extensive experience with China and is known for fostering collaboration between universities, industry, and government. She has consistently ranked among the top five most influential figures in Australia’s education sector by the Australian Financial Review.
Luke Sheehy
CEO Universities Australia
Mr Luke Sheehy commenced as the CEO of Universities Australia in February 2024. He is a highly skilled leader with more than 20 years' experience sharing the agenda of higher education. Prior to UA, Mr Sheehy led the Australian Technology Network of Universities for almost five years. He has also held key education roles in government, worked as an education and strategy consultant for the Asian Development Bank and held senior management roles at Swinburne University. As the first member of his family to graduate from university, Mr Sheehy knows first-hand the power of education to transform lives and is driven to ensure that opportunity is provided to as many people as possible.