INTHEBLACK July/August 2023 - Magazine - Page 31
MEMBER PROFILE
“You couldn’t visit all the campuses
in a single day,” Greentree says.
Greentree and his team keep both the
micro and macro perspectives in mind
when making decisions.
“We also are a university that offers a
hybrid model of both the large, sprawling
traditional campuses and the centrally located,
high tech vertical environments,” he says.
While finance is clearly at the core of
what Greentree does, there are commercial
and spatial prerogatives to his role as well.
“Demographic changes and urban sprawl
mean it is beneficial, in some cases, to
move to vertical high‑rise CBD locations
such as in Liverpool, Bankstown and
Parramatta. This includes the redevelopment
of ‘excess to need’ campus locations to
further build on the university’s financial
sustainability through the development of
an intergenerational corpus,” he explains.
tends to be more short to medium term
and about results,” Greentree says.
“The university’s horizons are
intergenerational. We are not obsessed
about the next quarterly result, as there is
a longer‑term learning, research and social
benefit attached to everything we do.”
COMMUNITY MINDSET
WSU is enormous. It has a turnover of
about A$1 billion, 2500 staff and almost
50,000 students across 13 campuses.
The university was founded in January
1989, under the terms of the University of
Western Sydney Act in 1988.
Today, it is not a standard corporation, nor
is it exactly a charity – it sits in between the
two. WSU is a self‑governed entity with a
respected and diverse board of trustees.
WSU has a clear mandate to serve its
local communities, of which there are many.
It is served by multiple campuses, which
serve a large catchment area that ranges
from Hawkesbury in the north‑west, to
Parramatta in the central west, Penrith and
Blacktown in the west and Campbelltown
and Liverpool in the south‑west.
LEADERSHIP WITH IMPACT
Greentree is candid about how important it
is to love what you are doing, understand and
care about the community you are serving
and believe that you are making a difference.
“Education has an element of responsibility
that sits over the top of everything, so
when you are making decisions, you
need to think not just of the financial
fundamentals, but also the social impact
and the greater good over a longer period.
“I don’t ever want to suffer what I
call ‘the glass office syndrome’ – that is,
to make decisions based on technical
factors without really appreciating what’s
happening at the ‘coalface’ and how those
decisions might impact people doing their
job or those relying on that service.”
To him, the CFO part – the technicalities
of finance – is simply the baseline.
“What matters more is the leadership
component over the top. There is the
challenge of staying relevant with
operational requirements, and being able
to filter out the day‑to‑day noise and
to know what the true issues are.”
Greentree believes culture is critical
to success, and the culture that the university
has developed over time really came home
to him when the pandemic hit.
“Almost overnight, we transformed into
a hybrid and online learning environment
for our students, but we still had to make
sure that those from disadvantaged or low
socio‑economic backgrounds could have
the critical campus infrastructure available
to them to continue their education.”
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