Education

What we do

Supporting systems and organisations to enable equitable access to high quality education

We recognise the education sector cuts across our care and support economy, social justice and public sector practice areas, which enables us to bring cross sectoral perspectives to complex problems and the nuances of education.

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Case studies

Some recent education sector projects

Strengthening strategy and operations at ECMS

Since 2021, Right Lane has partnered with ECMS on multiple projects spanning strategy, operations, and performance uplift. We supported the development of a 3-year strategy and reviewed information systems and the operating model for early childhood and support services. In response to policy change, we designed a financial model to optimise 3 year old kindergarten delivery.

Our work has helped ECMS refine its sessional kinder portfolio, uplift executive reporting, and align support structures with future needs. Across all engagements, we’ve worked closely with ECMS leaders to ensure decisions are evidence-based, future-focused, and grounded in the needs of children, families, and communities.

Strategic planning for impact: Supporting ESA’s vision for education excellence

In 2023, Education Services Australia (ESA) engaged Right Lane Consulting to co-develop a three-year strategic plan focused on improving student outcomes, enhancing teacher impact, and strengthening school communities.

Using a collaborative approach, Right Lane gathered insights into ESA’s evolving context and built a strong evidence base to ensure relevance.

The strategy was refined through multiple working sessions with ESA’s project team, resulting in a clear, actionable plan aligned with ESA’s mission to support excellence in education through technology.

A strategic partnership: Shaping the future of the University of Canberra

Right Lane Consulting has partnered with the University of Canberra for five years, facilitating strategic planning, values formation, and implementation processes.

In 2020, we led a virtual symposium with 100 stakeholders to shape the University’s strategic direction. In 2021, we supported the refresh of the University’s purpose and values, achieving 97% staff agreement. In 2023 and 2024, we developed strategic goals through community consultation and supported strategy implementation.

Through every phase, our work has helped ensure that strategy at the University of Canberra is participatory, purposeful, and actionable.

Testimonials

What our clients say

Thanks to the Right Lane Team for their support through the chaos, we will reach out as required for next steps in implementation. Comments have been received around how we created a truly ‘safe space’ and invite people to really open up about the issues at hand. Super job all!

Manager, People and Development

Wodonga TAFE

Zoe is always highly professional, and has demonstrated huge capacity for translating experience in other sectors to the Higher Ed sector and more specifically, to the University of Canberra context. Her engagement with our staff, university executive and council members has been fantastic. Zoe has also demonstrated the flexibility necessary to work with a senior leader who has competing responsibilities and demands on his time. Her patience and the support she has provided to the UC-based project team has been invaluable. The content for our working sessions has been of very high quality and her ability to think outside the box for activities that support an online environment for our collaborative sessions has been instrumental in maintaining engagement with our stakeholders

Director, Office of the VC

University of Canberra

I just wanted to say thank you for your contribution today. The GE discussion with the board went extremely well and provided sound directions and insights with respect to GE at GOTAFE. Well done on the structure and timing of the presentation Zoe! It was extremely well received.

Executive

GoTAFE

Thanks for your facilitation of our GEAP discussion with The Gordon TAFE team. I commend you on a wonderfully professional, focused delivery and positively collaborative session. Appreciated!

Board Member

The Gordon TAFE

Thanks Ashlee. It was, by a long way, the best planning day I have been involved with in 20 years of working in HE. And, we did it all via Zoom! Thanks to you and the Right Lane team for doing such a spectacular job.

Executive Dean

University of Canberra

Our experts

Our people supporting the education sector

Meet our team

Georgie Swan

Associate Principal

Georgie Swan is an associate principal at Right Lane Consulting. Her expertise is in strategy, facilitation and organisational development. She is a passionate not-for-profit leader, previously holding senior roles in the sector for a decade. Georgie’s projects are steeped in methods of co-design, where she uses her masterful facilitation skills to work with groups and teams to build engagement and commitment to outcomes. Georgie focuses on inclusivity, she values different perspectives and ideas, and builds engaging approaches to bring teams into projects.

Experience

Her recent experience has included:

Working with Australia’s largest industry superannuation fund’s senior teams to build capability of the organisation, through the development and implementation of a bespoke high performing teams’ framework.
Working with the board, CEO and executive team of a large Government Agency to develop a 3-year strategy, focussed on redeveloping their priorities to meet the needs of a changing policy and program environment, a reorganisation of government agency responsibilities in the sector and rapidly evolving consumer expectations.
Working with the CEO and board of a mid-sized community services organisation to agree their overall strategic direction and aspiration, to ensure their priorities align with consumer and funder expectations, and consider key strategic questions to set them up for future success in an evolving competitive market.
Working alongside the senior leadership team of a large public institution to co-develop action plans for key strategic initiatives across a 3-year time horizon. This included sequencing initiatives to manage competing priorities and to set the organisation up to achieve their strategic aspiration.
Facilitating multiple executive and board strategy processes across sectors.

Prior to joining Right Lane Consulting, Georgie was an executive director at Teach For Australia, a not-for-profit organisation which aims to address educational inequity in Australia, responsible for the Leadership portfolio. She partnered with both Federal and State based Education Departments, to design, implement and continuously review programs in communities facing educational disadvantage; predominantly those in regional, rural, and remote Australia.

Qualifications

Georgie holds a Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Arts from The University of Melbourne and studied abroad at ITESM University in Mexico.

Debbie Williams

Senior Expert

Debbie is a senior expert at Right Lane Consulting with 26 years of consulting experience across a range of industries including government, community services, education, healthcare and financial services. Debbie is respected by her colleagues and clients for her ability to quickly synthesise complex information, assess the potential of opportunities and ask probing questions. She is an expert in governance, strategy development and implementation, and operating models. She has contributed significantly to Right Lane Consulting’s knowledge and methods in the areas of assessing board capabilities and effectiveness, growth strategy and merger option evaluation.

Experience

Her recent experience has included:

Working with the executive of a national disability services provider to understand the possible scenarios arising from disability reform and how they could best position themselves to respond.
Partnering with the CEO and Deputy CEO of a large plaintiff law firm to redesign the structure of the firm’s support services to increase accountability and align with business priorities.
Working with the directors of a professional services firm to diagnose governance challenges in the partnership structure and collaborate to establish the framework of an improved leadership structure.
Leading a 12-month collaborative design and implementation project involving over 40 staff from a national community-based mental health provider to adapt their operating structure and ways of working to further improve the consumer experience while retaining a positive workplace culture.

In addition to her consulting work, Debbie is an experienced non-executive director. From 2009-18 she was a non-executive director of Monash Health, the largest health service in Victoria and in 2015 she was appointed a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Debbie is also on the board of the International Toy Library Association.

Qualifications

Debbie started her consulting career at Booz & Co. She has an MBA (with distinction) from one of the world’s leading programs at INSEAD, a Masters of Operations Research from Auckland University and a Bachelor of Commerce from Canterbury University.

Alice Zeng

Engagement Manager

Alice is an engagement manager at Right Lane Consulting with extensive experience in supporting organisations and senior leaders on strategy development and organisation-wide improvement projects. Alice has worked across a broad range of sectors including in the caring economy, social justice, public and not-for-profit sectors. Alice is a strategic, logical and creative thinker with a proven track record in delivering high quality, differentiated outcomes for clients through data-driven research and analysis.

Experience

Alice’s recent experience has included:

Developing a series of practical, meaningful strategic planning and measurement documents to cascade strategy to business functions and enable ongoing monitoring of progress for a Victorian public authority and purpose-driven organisations.
Working with a leading Early Years Management (EYM) organisation to review its portfolio performance and potential, building on their strategic approach and portfolio optimisation frameworks and models to present relevant insights on portfolio performance and potential to the executive and board.
Working with the executive team from a Victorian public authority to define their CEO-2 and full structure of key functions to maximise impact and deliver on strategic ambition. Alice has also supported a global biotechnology company to define its global risk and compliance structure, design new processes and develop interaction and customer experience models.
Working with the CEO and executive team of an industry superannuation fund to develop a compelling value proposition and service model for its financial help and guidance offering. This included consultation with end users and development of journey maps, personas and mock prototypes.
Conducting several ways of working focus groups with staff, gathering perspectives required to support the establishment of the new merged division. Alice developed a report for senior leaders with a summary of collective themes heard from staff and proposed next steps to support a successful transition to the new division.
Reviewing the governance and institutional arrangements for a Victorian government owned corporation and development of an enterprise-wide governance and decision-making framework for a global biotechnology company that was endorsed by the CEO.

Qualifications

Prior to joining Right Lane Consulting, Alice worked as an Associate Manager in Strategy and Consulting at Accenture. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce/Laws (Honours) from Monash University and studied abroad at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

Ready to see how we can help you create even more impact?

We work alongside clients who do great work within the sectors they operate, and we are excited to be involved in creating outcomes that truly make a difference.

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