This position entails leading the Marketing Department in providing informed and professional marketing advice and direction to the Executive and various teaching departments throughout the Institute to enhance the effectiveness of their interaction with the market place. This has involved educating department managers regarding marketing concepts to empower them to make effective decisions regarding their marketing expenditure and establishment of customer relationships.

I founded Business Plan Workshop (BPW) in order to provide a specialised service to business owners supporting them in developing that fundamental business tool - the business and marketing plan. The BPW program was designed to enable fundamental understanding of the client's business to facilitate the writing of a comprehensive business review and set of strategies, and also to help develop the business owners' residual business and marketing skills. The main aim of the program was to develop a practical, action-based business/marketing Plan that the business owner would be able to fully implement.BPW became the Victorian Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development's (DIIRD) preferred one-on-one providers to small businesses in the Border region and North-East Victoria. My activities with DIIRD centred on providing business planning assistance to small regional businesses under several different programs. I also undertook extensive business planning projects directly with individual businesses with the support of NSW Department of State and Regional Development (DSRD). Other project highlights included: developing a marketing plan for the town of Walla Walla; a marketing plan and ongoing implementation support for Park Lane Nursery; a series of business and marketing plans for different divisions of Central Access Limited.Over these five years, I directly assisted over 100 small to medium-sized businesses in developing strategic direction and identifying pathways to sustainable success. Industries covered include wineries, agribusiness service providers, hotels, food and retail outlets, and business-to-business service providers, as well as not-for-profit organisations. Some of these businesses have had export exposure or potential to develop export markets.