Governance and Leadership

The governance structure at GHE is commensurate with the size and complexity of the organisation. Under provisions in the IIBIT AHE Pty Ltd Constitution, the Board of Directors is nominated as the corporate governing body appointed to oversee the operations of the company. This means the Board of Directors are accountable for the governance and performance of IIBIT AHE Pty Ltd (trading as Global Higher Education), including accountability for ensuring compliance with the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021.

The Governance Framework sets out the governance protocols for boards and committees, the document hierarchy and purpose of all governance documentation, and contains the approved Terms of Reference for the Boards and Committees. 

Board o Governance

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Prof Graham Webb 

Independent Member, Chair

Professor Graham Webb retired in 2011 as Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at the University of New England in Australia where he had overall responsibility for the academic activities of the University and acted as Vice-Chancellor for extended periods. His previous career includes eleven years at Monash University in Australia where he was Pro Vice-Chancellor (Quality) and for a period, CEO of Monash College Pty Ltd (a wholly owned company of Monash University comprising six educational businesses); eleven years at the University of Otago in New Zealand; six years at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica; and, seven years at the University of Ulster in Ireland. 

Graham has played an active role internationally in quality assurance and improvement. He chaired the first and subsequent audits for the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) and is a consultant, trainer and auditor for national accreditation and audit agencies in six countries. In 2008 he received the Australian Higher Education Quality Award.

Graham is author or editor of 9 books and numerous book chapters and journal articles concerning the theory and practice of teaching and learning in higher education, organisational and staff development. He is an Editorial Advisory Board member for five international journals.


Semi-retired, Graham runs a higher education consultancy specialising in quality assurance and improvement, leadership and educational development. He is a Professorial Fellow of the L H Martin Institute for Leadership and Management in Higher Education at the University of Melbourne and Adjunct Professor at the University of New England. He was Chair, Board of Governance, IIBIT Education Group (2014-2019) and Chair, Board of Directors, Universal Higher Education; Chair, Board of Directors, Universal Learning Group; Chair, Board of Directors, Universal Information Technology; and Chair, Board of Directors, Universal English (2017-2020).   

Mr. Graeme Dennehy

Independent Member

Graeme Dennehy has over thirty years experience in University administration with the majority of those years working at the level of Vice-President. Over the past nine years, Graeme has provided management consulting services to the Tertiary Education sector along with holding a number of non-executive Board positions. Prior to this, he occupied the positions of Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer at Deakin University and, Executive Director and Vice-President (Business and Administration) with the University of New England.

His responsibilities while holding those positions included the provision of leadership and oversight of the Universities’ academic support and corporate and commercial services which included, inter alia, areas responsible for legal, financial, and business administration; audit, risk, and business continuity. Graeme holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) and a Corporate Directors Diploma, is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD), and is the immediate past Chair of the Higher Ed Services (HES) Board.

He is a member of the register of Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) Experts and has over 10 years’ experience as an auditor with the past Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA). Graeme is also on the register of experts for Quality Assessments of Universities in Papua New Guinea and has been appointed as a specialist for the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic & Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ).


Dr Ruth C Schubert

Independent Member

Dr. Ruth has over 40 years’ experience in education management, leadership and academia with particular expertise in strategic development. She is currently the Education Director in the Department for Education South Australia where she provides strategic and innovative educational leadership for the realisation of the Department for Education strategic priorities and achievement of the Partnerships, Schools and Preschool Divisions objectives and outcomes: including delivering on the departments 10-year aspiration for world class education.  She is also an Honorary Fellow at the LH Martin Institute / Melbourne CSHE at the University of Melbourne, following 4 years as Associate Professor/Associate Director, and Principal Consultant with Schubert, Lehmann and Hartley – specialising in tertiary education. 

Her previous engagements have included Associate Director of the prestigious LH Martin Institute where her role was to extend the range and reach of all Institute programs and ensuring the longer term financial viability of the Institute.  She also spent 15 years with TAFE SA in a variety of management and executive roles, culminating in a project which transformed TAFE SA from three separate Institutes to one organisation operating as a Statutory Corporation.

Mr. Mahesh Bigala 

Shareholder Representative

Mahesh is a high calibre achievement driven business leader associated as one of the co-founders of the Company and a Director on the Board of the Company. He is involved in designing and implementing strategies, plans, processes and systems to establish businesses and assure sustainable growth delivering objectives, vision, mission and values. He is responsible for having understanding of educational scenarios & stakeholder aspirations at all levels from K12 to secondary and tertiary education.

As a Director on the Board he actively participates in the affairs of the company and engages in strategic decision making and ensuring availability of adequate financial and other operational resources for the smooth functioning of the company.

Mr. Sai Kishore Vallam

Shareholder Representative 

Kishore is one of the Co-founders and Director of Infotech Professionals Pty ltd trading as IIBIT (International Institute of Business and Information Technology). He is also on the Board of Directors of Rockwell Educational Institutions Private Limited involved in K-12 Education and on the Board of Directors of IIBIT AHE Pty Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary of Infotech professionals Pty Ltd involved in Higher Education.

Kishore is an accomplished executive with over 25 years of experience in the areas of General Management and Administration, Teaching, Corporate Training and Development, and International Education Management.

As a member of the Board of Directors and as Chief Executive Officer of IIBIT, he provides Leadership and Oversight in aspects of governance, compliance with legal and regulatory frameworks, risk and financial management, learning and teaching, and general management and operations of all educational programs offered by IIBIT both as a Registered Training Organisation and through an Educational Partnership Agreement with Federation University Australia. He has been instrumental in the successful establishment and management of teaching sites in Sydney and Adelaide engaged in educational offerings in Higher Education under the educational partnership agreement with Federation University Australia since its inception in the year 2000.

He holds a Master of Business Administration from Osmania University, India majoring in (Marketing and Finance), a Post Graduate Certificate in Education majoring in (Tertiary Education) from the University of Ballarat, and a Post Graduate Certificate and Diploma in Computer-Based Learning majoring in (Interactive Multi-Media ) from the University of Wollongong and University of Technology Sydney, Australia.