Please tell us about your background and your journey to GESS.
I’m originally from Brisbane, Australia and have been working in education for over 15 years. I actually started my career as an English Teacher but worked in senior sales and general operations roles in the private sector for about 10 years before pivoting back to education about 10 years ago. My most recent role was at Dulwich College (Singapore) where I held the position of Director of Admissions and Marketing for three and a half years before joining GESS.
Introduce your role at GESS – what made you decide to join us and take on this role?
I came onboard GESS this academic year as Director of Operations and Customer Experience. This is a new role at GESS responsible for overseeing a number of non-academic departments including Facilities and Operations. I was most attracted to the diversity of the role as these departments cover a wide range of responsibilities, including Building Services, Security, Cleaning, First Aid, Events, Buses, Catering and Parent Services. Whilst each of these areas is quite different, my main goal is to ensure that all the services we provide positively impact the experience of our students, staff and families.
What are you working on at the moment?
At the time of this interview, I have been at GESS for just over 6 weeks so much of my time to date has been spent getting to know my team and the wider GESS community and better understanding some of the key challenges and opportunities in each of the departments I oversee. One of the more exciting projects I have already started working on is the development of a whole school sustainability strategy which will touch on all areas of school operations and will hopefully be something our entire community can be proud of.
What are some of your plans for the next few months?
Over the coming months, I will start being involved in the evaluation and redesign of our parent experience at GESS. This is a critically important project and touches on key areas such as the communications experience that we deliver to our parents.
What is your favourite part of your working day?
It’s definitely any time I get to see teaching and learning in action. Our students are why we come to work each day, and whether you are a teacher, security guard or a cleaner, we all have a role to play in creating a positive environment for our children in order for them to learn effectively. Seeing our students in action is the best way for me to keep in mind what our core purpose is.
What other interesting tidbits would you like to share with our community?
Despite speaking no German, my great-great grandfather was actually German and the name ‘Hoppner’ is a variation of the surname ‘Höppner’, they simply dropped the umlaut soon after arriving in Australia. Sadly I don’t speak German, but I hope by working at GESS I finally have an opportunity to reconnect with my heritage.
On a slightly different note, something you might not know about me is that many years ago I was a national handball player. I represented Australia as a player for over 16 years and played professionally in Hungary for a few seasons. I retired from international competition in 2011 before taking up the Head Coach role for the Australian Women’s team and U21 Men’s team for a number of years. I was fortunate to attend three World Championships in my career and compete against some of the world’s best handballers during that time. Handball will always have a special place in my heart and I was very excited to learn that GESS has a new handball CCA this year.
