Built for the people who know the sector.

The advisors behind the Edition.

CoreBridge Advisory’s advisors have led institutions and shaped national policy from the inside.

• Benjie Norman Chief Executive Officer, CoreBridge Intelligence Read the full bio
  

  Benjie Norman

  Chief Executive Officer, CoreBridge Intelligence

  Founder and Managing Principal, CoreBridge Advisory

  Benjie‑Etta Norman is the Founder and Managing Principal of CoreBridge Advisory. She partners with universities, government agencies, and purpose-driven organisations to drive growth, transformation, and long-term impact.

  Before founding CoreBridge, Benjie was Director of Business Strategy at Monash University. She sat across nearly every transnational play Monash made, Monash Suzhou, the Indonesia campus, the full acquisition of Monash Malaysia, the Joint Graduate School with Southeast University, and the European Research Foundation in Italy. She led financial and commercial diligence on around fifteen Monash biotech and medtech commercialisations, including BioCurate, FODMAP, the Monash mRNA Centre, MTTI, and the Bionic Eye. She also worked at the policy-setting layer: the $400 million annual investment framework, the pricing policy, and the commercialisation ecosystem strategy.

  Outside CoreBridge, Benjie is a board member of The Pride Fund and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Prior board roles span Avenu Learning, Phrenix Therapeutics, Myostellar, Flex Immunotherapeutic, Monash Commercial, and Monash Investment Holdings. She holds a Master of Planning (Urban Design) and a Bachelor of Management (Marketing) from Deakin University.

  Her work has shaped strategic plans, founded new institutes, and stewarded high-stakes partnerships, always with the same conviction: that the institutions worth saving are the ones willing to lead from the inside out.

  • Senior executive with 20+ years' experience in strategy, finance, and transformation across higher education and innovation
  • Specialist in transnational education, governance reform, market entry, and the commercialisation of research and education
  • Board and advisory roles spanning universities, NGOs, impact investment, BioTech, MedTech, and innovation ecosystems

  • Higher Education
  • Health & Research
  • Innovation & Venture
  • Government & Policy
  • International Strategy

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• Chris Roberts Strategic Partnerships, CoreBridge Intelligence Read the full bio
  

  Chris Roberts

  Strategic Partnerships, CoreBridge Intelligence

  Chris Roberts has spent his career in tertiary education, where universities, industry, workforce capability and growth meet. He has worked with institutions across Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, which gives him a wide view of what is changing in higher education and lifelong learning.

  He has worked inside universities and alongside them, in faculty, central and online program management (OPM) roles, so he knows what these pressures look like from the inside. He pairs strategic thinking with the operating experience of someone who has delivered in complex environments: building industry partnerships, leading portfolio transitions and growing new revenue streams.

  He founded CJR Advisory in 2026 and co-chairs the Online Education Roundtable, a peer forum of sector leaders that challenges outdated assumptions about online education. His particular interest is the connection between education, workforce demand and the communities institutions serve.

  At CoreBridge, Chris leads Australian engagements. He helps institutions turn their commitments into outcomes, backed by intelligence they can act on.

  • Founder, CJR Advisory; Co-Chair, Online Education Roundtable
  • Faculty, central university and OPM leadership roles across Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom
  • Strategic thinking paired with operational delivery

  • Higher Education
  • Industry & Employer Partnerships
  • OPM Strategy & Transition
  • Online Education Strategy

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• Belinda Harries Strategic Partner, CoreBridge Intelligence Read the full bio
  

  Belinda Harries

  Strategic Partner, CoreBridge Intelligence

  Senior Advisor, Strategy, Partnerships and Business Development, CoreBridge Advisory

  Belinda Harries bridges the gap between public sector rigour and startup agility, helping education and research organisations think and act more strategically. Her career sits at the meeting point of three worlds, government, founder-led ventures, and the tertiary and schools education sectors, and she draws on each to design strategies that survive contact with reality.

  Belinda has held senior policy and strategy roles in Australian government, where she worked on early-childhood, schools, and tertiary reforms with both Federal and State agencies. In parallel she has founded and scaled multiple ventures in EdTech and SaaS, raising early-stage capital, building product and commercial teams, and learning the discipline of resource-constrained execution. That dual lens, the policymaker who has also met payroll, is rare in the consulting market and central to how she advises clients today.

  Her advisory practice covers strategic planning for university faculties, research units, peak bodies, and purpose-driven organisations; commercial strategy and partnership design; and early-stage business development for spin-outs and ventures emerging from the research base. She is particularly known for helping clients move from an aspirational vision to a credible, fundable plan with the executional clarity to win Council, Board, and Cabinet support.

  Belinda is values-led, plain-spoken, and unusually fast at translating ambiguous problems into decisions. Her clients return because she shapes work that endures past the engagement.

  • Strategic Vision & Planning, value propositions and strategic frameworks for university faculties, research units, NFPs and purpose-driven organisations
  • Commercial Strategy & Partnerships, high-value contracts and cross-institutional partnerships that create shared value and measurable impact
  • Early-Stage Business Development, building and scaling startups with deep expertise in SaaS, enterprise strategy, and early-stage funding pathways

  • Higher Education
  • Schools & EdTech
  • Government Policy
  • Startups & Ventures

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CoreBridge Advisory’s wider bench.

• Professor Emeritus Margaret Hay Senior Advisor: Education, Health and Innovation Strategy Read the full bio
  

  Professor Emeritus Margaret Hay

  Senior Advisor: Education, Health and Innovation Strategy

  Professor Emeritus Margaret Hay is an internationally respected academic leader and strategist with more than three decades shaping health and higher education through innovation, policy reform, and global partnerships. As Professor Emeritus at Monash University, she led large-scale transformation in medical and professional education over a career that helped redefine how clinicians, educators, and institutions learn together.

  She was Founding Director of both the Monash Institute for Health & Clinical Education and the Monash Centre for Professional Development, building from the ground up two organisations that became national reference points for health-professions education, simulation-based learning, and faculty development. Under her leadership these centres trained thousands of clinicians and academic leaders and built sustained partnerships across the Australian and international university and health systems.

  Margaret's international affiliations include the Harvard Macy Institute at Harvard University, where she has been Faculty member and Lead of International Programs, and previously the MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston. Her work has shaped institutional strategy, leadership programs, and equity-of-access initiatives across Australia, North America, the United Kingdom, and South-East Asia.

  At CoreBridge Advisory, Margaret advises on university transformation, leadership development, diversity and inclusion integration, and transnational education partnerships. She brings a rare combination of academic credibility, system-level perspective, and the practical instincts of someone who has built institutions from the inside.

• Dr Bronwyn Hinz Senior Advisor: Policy, Research and Strategy Read the full bio
  

  Dr Bronwyn Hinz

  Senior Advisor: Policy, Research and Strategy

  Dr Bronwyn Hinz helps leaders turn complexity into clear choices through thoughtful engagement and robust evidence. With more than twenty years across consulting, academia, think tanks, start-ups, and the Australian Parliament, she brings recognised expertise in education policy, governance, and federal reform, and the rare instinct of someone who has worked on policy problems from every side of the table.

  She has worked with every Australian education department, multiple peak bodies, regulatory authorities, and tertiary education providers, leading or contributing to strategy and policy design, program co-design, evaluations, workforce planning, and governance reviews. Her academic and practitioner credentials span the Mitchell Institute at Victoria University, the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO), Nous Group, and HumanAbility, where she led research and strategies that have shaped national policy.

  Earlier in her career Bronwyn served as Chief of Staff for Maria Vamvakinou MP and as adviser to Senator Kim Carr in the Australian Parliament, work that gave her a deep, practical understanding of how policy actually moves through Cabinet, caucus, and the federation. She holds a PhD in education policy and remains an active researcher and public commentator.

  Recent engagements include the evaluation of Queensland's $755m Advance Queensland innovation agenda; an international review on socio-economic diversity in selective programs; and the national workforce plan for the care and support economy. At CoreBridge, Bronwyn advises on the policy environment around higher-education strategy, governance under pressure, and the design of evaluations that survive scrutiny.

  If you wish to engage with Dr Bronwyn Hinz directly and not with CoreBridge, you're welcome to reach out to her own consultancy, which provides tailored consulting across evaluation and research, strategy and implementation, stakeholder engagement, grant/tender development and management services, and workforce planning and delivery.

• Jacob Thomas Senior Advisor: Research, Inclusion and Global Partnerships Read the full bio
  

  Jacob Thomas

  Senior Advisor: Research, Inclusion and Global Partnerships

  Jacob Thomas is an internationally recognised human rights advocate and higher education expert with more than fifteen years in academic strategy, research leadership, student engagement, and global partnerships. A multi-published researcher and advisor, Jacob brings deep expertise in interdisciplinary methodologies, research impact, and inclusive education policy, and a track record of translating evidence into institutional change.

  Their work has spanned UN-affiliated forums, Commonwealth agencies, and university leadership roles across Australia, Europe, and South Asia. As a researcher, Jacob has led and contributed to projects on LGBTQI+ inclusion, the integration of lived experience into research and teaching, and the design of inclusive academic frameworks at scale. As an advocate, they have represented Australia and the higher-education sector at international platforms on equity, gender, and human rights.

  At CoreBridge Advisory, Jacob supports universities to strengthen their research strategies, build inclusive evidence-based academic frameworks, and forge international collaborations. Their work helps institutions enhance student success, drive innovation, and ensure research delivers genuine real-world impact, including in contexts where the institution's social licence is contested or under pressure.

  Jacob is known for combining rigorous academic standards with the lived perspective of someone who has navigated institutions from inside and out. Their advice is sought by governments, peak bodies, and university executives looking to make equity and impact structural rather than symbolic.

• Daniel Persaud Senior Advisor and UK Lead Read the full bio
  

  Daniel Persaud

  Senior Advisor and UK Lead

  Daniel Persaud is an executive higher education leader who has spent more than twenty-five years in the part of a university where policy meets the person it lands on. He built student support and wellbeing services from the ground up across the UK and Australia.

  He was the inaugural Director of Student Support at the University of Warwick from 2006, building the first integrated student support service in that university's history. In 2012 the University of Melbourne recruited him after an international search to lead its Wellbeing division, and he finished his Australian decade as Deputy Head of International House. His expertise as a reviewer has been sought at a range of institutions, including Durham, Curtin, City University Dublin, the University of the South Pacific and Aston.

  He has given twenty years to boards in education, charity and local government, and since 2024 has been an Independent Governor of the University of Wolverhampton. He holds an MA in Social Work from the University of Warwick and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. His doctoral research at Anglia Ruskin asks what it takes for university staff to feel safe raising a concern.

  At CoreBridge, Daniel leads UK engagements and advises on leadership development, governance under pressure, and strategic reviews. He is known for building teams that are hard on the outcome and safe for the people in them.

  If you wish to engage with Daniel directly and not with CoreBridge, you're welcome to reach out to his own consultancy, Daniel Persaud Consulting, which provides executive and management coaching, teambuilding, workshop facilitation, independent reviews and culture reviews for universities, public sector and not-for-profit organisations.

• Dewi Sitorus Senior Business Analyst: Data, Risk and Modelling Read the full bio
  

  Dewi Sitorus

  Senior Business Analyst: Data, Risk and Modelling

  Dewi Sitorus builds the evidence base underneath a decision. Six years inside the risk function of a state-owned bank: building the data, checking it, and making it something a decision-maker can act on without taking it on trust.

  At PT Bank Mandiri she moved from the national graduate program to First Senior Manager across three risk roles. She ran risk analytics on the auto-loan portfolio across the bank's leasing, commercial and consumer finance subsidiaries, and was the named subject-matter expert on the re-engineering of the mortgage process. Her last role covered digital channel risk, including the analytics behind Mandiri's first PayLater lending platform and the testing that signed it off.

  Before Mandiri she was an associate consultant at EY on enterprise risk management for Bank Indonesia, the central bank, and a state-owned construction company, and interned at Citi on KYC analytics. She holds a Master of Business Analytics and a Master of Accounting Science, works in SQL, Python, Power BI and Tableau, and speaks Indonesian, English and French.

  At CoreBridge, Dewi works on the analytical layer to ensure quality output for our clients.

• Ray Lind ONZM Lead Facilitator, Leadership Evolution Read the full bio
  

  Ray Lind ONZM

  Lead Facilitator, Leadership Evolution

  Ray Lind ONZM is a strategic operator who rebuilt New Zealand's care and health workforce system over a career spanning more than three decades. Nationally decorated for his work in governance and leadership development, Ray brings hard-earned insight into systems change, operational trust, and the kind of institutional reform that holds long after the consultants have gone.

  As Chief Executive of Careerforce, New Zealand's industry training organisation for the care, health, and social services sectors, Ray led the transformation of how the country's frontline workforce is trained, credentialled, and supported. The reforms he stewarded touched tens of thousands of workers and reshaped the operating model of an entire sector. He was awarded the Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for his contribution.

  Ray has held faculty roles at Monash University and the Harvard Macy Institute, designing and delivering leadership intensives for senior clinicians, executives, and educators. He is a sought-after mentor on succession, operational reform, and identity-informed leadership, particularly for executives navigating high-stakes governance transitions.

  At CoreBridge, Ray co-leads the Leadership Evolution program with The Hon. Dame Annette King. He brings a rare gift for cutting through executive cant and asking the question the room is avoiding.

• The Hon. Dame Annette King Lead Facilitator, Leadership Evolution Read the full bio
  

  The Hon. Dame Annette King

  Lead Facilitator, Leadership Evolution

  Dame Annette King is an icon of public leadership in New Zealand and one of the most experienced political and institutional leaders in the southern hemisphere. Across more than three decades in public life she has held more than ten Cabinet portfolios, including Health, Justice, Police, and State Services, and served as Deputy Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party and as the country's longest-serving woman in Parliament.

  After leaving Parliament she was appointed High Commissioner to Australia, representing New Zealand at one of its most consequential diplomatic posts and deepening the trans-Tasman relationship across trade, defence, and education. She was made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to the State.

  Dame Annette is an internationally recognised mentor, most publicly to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, whose early career she shaped, and to a generation of women in public leadership across Australasia. Her insight on gender, power, influence, and institutional endurance is sought across politics, the public service, and the boardroom.

  At CoreBridge she brings calm strength, clarity, and the capacity to mentor under pressure, qualities that have shaped some of New Zealand's most consequential public decisions. She co-leads the Leadership Evolution program alongside Ray Lind ONZM.