Executive Team
Dr Andrew Trnacek
Chief Executive Officer
Andrew was appointed Chief Executive Officer of HES in July of 2016. He is committed to coordinating and working with Higher Education interest groups to share information and expertise across the sector and to develop collaborative, innovative services for the benefit of the Higher Education sector.
Since joining HES Andrew has overseen the successful delivery of My eQuals, the rollout of digital student credentials across Australia and New Zealand, renegotiated several major technology contracts saving 10s of millions of dollars, and created closer working relationships between HES and the sector in general. As Chief Executive Officer of HES, Andrew leads a team of dedicated professionals working to provide a suite of high-quality professional services and support initiatives that benefit Australia’s universities and strengthen the nation’s higher education sector.
Prior to joining HES, Andrew was a Senior Partner and National Leader - Education at Grant Thornton with additional account responsibility for the public sector. He has more than 14 years' experience in the broader education sector and a solid track record of successfully leading high profile engagements, collaborating with clients and managing stakeholder groups. Andrew has in-depth experience in finance, strategy, marketing and business improvement.
During his career, Andrew’s projects have covered everything from funding model design, the machinery of government reviews, higher education program reviews, market and segmentation analysis, budget builds, financial modelling and business process improvement.
Andrew holds a PhD in Chemistry and is a graduate of the AICD’s Company Directors Course.
Amarish Thakur
Director, Technology
Amarish has over 20 years of experience providing strategic advice regarding technology licensing. He previously worked for Oracle Corporation where he was responsible for implementing sales & software licensing programs aimed at enabling internal sales teams and key partners on Oracle's licensing, business practices and sales methodology.
Amarish has also worked for Global Management Consulting Firms including Deloitte and KPMG in their Australian Software Asset Management practices. Over the years, he has been instrumental in building a loyal customer base by assisting clients who have complex and evolving software portfolios with strategies to simplify, manage and increase the Return on Investment from their software licences.
Jay Segeth
Director, My eQuals
Jay has been involved in My eQuals since mid-2015, first as a Consultant advising what was then called the Digital Student Data (DSD) taskforce and now as Director of the program with HES the appointed managing organisation.
In these roles, Jay has led and supported the initial cost/benefit modelling, the vendor/solution selection & evaluation process, the development of the business case, the implementation of My eQuals, operations management and the “My eQuals Future State” work.
Prior to his involvement in My eQuals, Jay led the Higher Education practice of a large professional services firm, guiding complex transformation programs with many universities in Australia and providing leadership and guidance across a wide range of initiatives including administrative reform, performance improvement, IT strategic planning, process re-engineering and business case development.
Wayne George
Chief Information & Security Officer
Wayne was appointed Chief Information and Security Officer in January 2023. As a career CIO/CTO with over 25 years of experience, Wayne brings a product, technology, and security mindset to HES, focusing on using agile working methods to develop and operate multiple concurrent value streams underpinned by best-of-breed platforms and partners.
Before joining HES, Wayne served as the CTO of Carsales.com Ltd between 2005 and 2012, helping prepare Carsales' platforms and technologies for a successful ASX listing in 2009. Since then, Wayne has built and operated multiple start-up companies in education, veterinary, publishing, and more. Wayne holds a Bachelor of Technology (Computer Science) from the Engineering faculty of Monash University.
Holly Kissner
University Anti-Slavery Program
Holly leads the University Anti-Slavery Program, where her primary goal is to empower universities to identify and act on modern slavery risks and issues as a sector collaboration. With over two decades of experience in client-facing roles, she employs a solutions-driven style to optimise processes and enhance stakeholder capabilities. Her expertise ensures effective assistance with mandatory reporting obligations, contributing to streamlined operations and impactful outcomes.
Prior to joining HES, Holly worked for an ESG software company, onboarding and assisting ASX listed companies with data analytics for mandatory reporting.
Anthony Manahan
Director, Student Mobility
Anthony has over 25 years’ experience in the tertiary education and allied software sectors spanning a broad range of roles in Australia, New Zealand and the USA. He has first-hand experience of meeting the challenges, and maximising the opportunities, facing universities across student administration and student services, in particular relating to admissions and credit management, locally and globally.
Anthony also has a long history with My eQuals, most notably his leadership of the Digital Student Data (DSD) taskforce back in 2015/16, which has since evolved to what is now My eQuals.
Anthony brings an important customer perspective to the My eQuals team, through his former role as Associate Director Admissions, Fees, Scholarships and Accommodation at The University of Melbourne and his most recent role as Dean of Students and Registrar at Federation University Australia.
Anthony is also the Board Secretary of the Groningen Declaration Network (GDN).
Stephen Callaghan
Senior Advisor
Stephen joined HES from the Queensland University of Technology where he spent 15 years as a highly valued member of the Human Resources Executive team providing technical advice and support for the university’s HR technology initiatives and infrastructure. In this role, Stephen also participated in many of QUT’s governance, planning, technology projects and enterprise architecture activities. He was also responsible for running the University’s superannuation function.
Prior to this, Stephen spent 25 years working for a variety of chartered accounting firms in the private sector, most notably as a Senior Manager at Ernst & Young.
Scott Boulton
Commercial Manager and Company Secretary
Scott has an extensive background in both management and Human Resources across both the private and Higher Education sectors. He holds a Masters in Information Technology with a focus on business process improvement from QUT as well as a Master of Business Administration from the QUT Graduate School of Business. At HES, Scott provides advice and technical support both internally and to several of our serviced forums.
Prior to joining HES, Scott spent 12 years with the Queensland University of Technology as a Business Analyst across a variety of projects and disciplines in their HR and IT spaces.
Oliver Whiteley
Director, Analytics and Insights
As Director, Analytics and Insights, Oliver leads the HES Analytics Division including the delivery of sector-owned data solutions. We bring together complex data sets in a safe and secure way to drive actionable insights on compliance, operations and strategic differentiation.
The current focus of the analytics service, along with a significant number of participating universities, is the management of two sector-wide benchmarking tools developed for, and owned by, the Australian higher education sector. These benchmarks allow us to share information in a secure and anonymised fashion, to compare performance against best practice, identify future focused practices and provide actionable insights to help Universities continuously improve.
The two benchmarks are academic quality and corporate (financial) benchmark. We are looking to expand participation, depth of analysis and adding new areas such as research and workforce which we are currently exploring.
Alexia Aslanidis
Digital Content Manager
Alexia has worked for over 10 years, internationally in the Social Media & Digital Marketing fields. Having covered a broad range of industries both agency and client-side, including luxury fashion and beauty, hospitality, e-commerce, resource, education, medical & legal. Most notably, Alexia worked in London as a Global Head of Social Media for a tech company where she managed a global team of 80 people.
Alexia has studied and worked in Duesseldorf, London, Berlin & Melbourne and is now based back in her hometown of Adelaide.
Lynne Pike-Overall
Office Administrator
Lynne is responsible for providing administrative, accounting and organisational support to the HES team. She has more than 20 years of administrative experience in the financial services sector working with NAB in the role of Asia Pacific Operations Manager - Accounts Payable as well as a number of other senior roles in voluntary community work.