ITB DIGITAL Sep 2025 v3spreads - Flipbook - Page 38
MEMBER
PROFILE
THE DIFFERENCE MAKERS
ELIZABETH STRATFORD
ELIZABETH STRATFORD FCPA
CFO, UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
When Elizabeth Stratford FCPA was working as
CFO for NSW Department of Communities and
Justice, she saw how many people’s lives don’t
follow the perfect trajectory — and not through
their own doing.
“If they’re lucky, they self-correct,” she says.
“If not, sometimes through circumstances
outside of their control, they experience parts
of the social services system. There are
fundamental things that can help to shift
someone’s trajectory markedly, and education
is absolutely one of them.”
Stratford had spent much of her career
working in the public sector when she was
approached for the CFO role at UNSW.
She sees education as a pathway to improving
social outcomes and says this was a key attraction
to the role.
“I know firsthand what access to quality
education can do,” she says. “I was the first
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YAO LOONG NG
in my family to go to university, and when I hear
people talking about the difference it can make
in life, I often think, well, they could be talking
about me.”
At UNSW, Stratford is seeking to drive what
she describes as “braver investment decisions”
for the future.
“There are a lot of things in our world that
are changing rapidly,” she says. “If we’re not
focused on the best bang for our buck, we could
be left behind.
“In our sector, we have a lot of headwinds, such
as AI, the rising cost of research and significant shifts
in government policy, so investing in tools for the
future is paramount.”
One of these tools is the university’s enterprise
resource planning software, which is on Stratford’s
agenda for an upgrade.
“We have an opportunity to rethink the way we
do things, while keeping our stakeholders in mind,”
she says. “But we have to be brave in what we
need to do to be a university of the future.”
