Headquarters:
Unit 1, 170-180 Rooks Road, Vermont, Vic 3133
Year founded:
1958
Number of employees:
180
Phone:
03 9837 2668
Email:
mgelman@campion.com.au
Website:
campion.com.au
LinkedIn:
au.linkedin.com/company/campion-education
Tom Bradley
Chief Executive Officer
Brett Watson
General Manager, Growth
Jake Ledin
General Manager, Supply Chain
Leadership
Tom Bradley is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Campion Education, Australia’s largest and most trusted provider of learning resources for schools nationwide. Appointed in 2024, Tom leads Campion with a clear focus on supporting schools, educators and students across the country. His leadership centres on strengthening how schools access and use learning resources, from modernising available resources to transforming how they are delivered and integrated into classrooms. With more than two decades of international experience across customer experience, digital transformation and commercial strategy, Tom brings a forward-thinking, collaborative approach to Campion’s multi-business group, including Campion Education, Insight Publications and The Book House.
Chief Executive Officer
Tom Bradley
Susan Walker has held leadership roles in schools and education-related organisations. She was a founding AVID secondary teacher and became an AVID leading teacher and AVID staff developer in science. She was appointed as an AVID Australia coach, responsible for creating and delivering AVID professional learning in primary and secondary schools and universities with a focus on STEM initiatives. Walker was then invited to co-design the professional learning program for the inaugural Teaching Excellence Program at the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership. She returned to AVID Center Australia as the lead coach with responsibility for Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales.
General Manager, Growth
Brett Watson
Steph McDonald’s early teaching career championed the capabilities of children with disabilities and learning difficulties in secondary schools. She was then foundation principal of Makybe Rise Primary School. She was appointed principal advisor at the WA Leadership Institute and became a collegiate principal. McDonald moved to service director, leadership and statewide services, leading systemic approaches to building leadership capabilities of all staff in schools and systems leadership. She is now AVID’s inaugural leadership and WA schools’ coach. She has received the Women of Achievement Award, Stella Giles Award for Excellence, National VET Network Association Award and state awards for equity and diversity.
General Manager, Supply Chain
Jake Ledin
Mendy Gelman
General Manager, Marketing
Simon Cowell is a 1995 The Knox School alumnus. He has completed a degree in community development at Deakin University, leading him to work in the international community development sector. He was a board member of an educational charity in Cambodia, and this position directed him to education.
Cowell completed a degree in both primary and secondary education. He has taught in various roles across both primary and secondary schools in the UK and Australia. Hehas a strong focus on the inquiry process through a concept-driven curriculum and the Design Thinking Model.
In his own time, he enjoys travelling, especially to Cambodia, where he still maintains strong connections to the educational community.
General Manager, Marketing
Mendy Gelman
Michelle Malone
Chief Information Officer
Tracey Costello is an accomplished strategic leader with a breadth and depth of finance, governance and strategic executive experience, including 10 years with a Big 4 accounting consultancy, working in Australia, USA and Canada, and 10 years as a senior executive in both government and commercial organisations.
Chief Information Officer
Michelle Malone
Ruth Richardson Clark
Chief Financial Officer
Vanessa Ferguson
General Manager, People and Culture
Lou Barnard
National Sales Manager
Pam Chhabra
Manager – Residential Strata
Isaac Rule is a digital strategy and operations leader with experience across New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Australia. With a background in primary education and a Master of Educational Leadership, he brings his experience in the classroom to system-level execution.
He leads digital projects to improve systems and is committed to building staff capability, strengthening digital literacy and aligning innovation with strategic priorities. His portfolio includes oversight of the school’s Learning Management System and stakeholder engagement.
Rule is passionate about supporting students to develop their critical thinking skills and independence. His work as timetabler supports delivery of the school’s academic program, aligning staffing, subject offerings and resource allocation to maximise the benefit to students.
Chief Financial Officer
Ruth Richardson Clark
With more than 20 years in people and culture, Fiona Kapkidis combines her HR experience with a strong background in business and music education. A graduate of the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music at the University of Melbourne, she later completed postgraduate qualifications in business management at Monash University, shaping her holistic approach to people development. Her career includes over five years in Asia with a major communications company, where she led professional development, team engagement and training programs across culturally diverse organisational environments.
Prior to joining The Knox School, she worked in the property industry, leading people strategy, recruitment and stakeholder engagement. Passionate about creating positive workplaces and building authentic connections, Kapkidis believes that when people feel valued and supported, they bring their best to what they do. She remains deeply connected to the music community, teaching piano privately and having previously served as a board director for both the Victorian Music Teachers’ Association and Melbourne Youth Orchestras.
General Manager, People and Culture
Vanessa Ferguson
Margaret Leau-Sulusi brings over 20 years of banking experience to her role as business development manager, having started with Westpac in 2005. Her background includes lending support, senior lending roles and branch management. Leau-Sulusi partners closely with mortgage advisers, providing product expertise and strategic guidance to drive strong client outcomes. Known for her collaborative style and responsiveness, she is passionate about building trusted relationships and delivering customer-focused results.
National Sales Manager
Lou Barnard
Stephen McMillan first entered the financial services Industry when he joined GE Capital as a finance analyst in 2008, from which he progressed through roles working both onshore and offshore. From there, he moved into Pacific Premium Funding as a financial planning and analysis leader in 2012 and was a key resource in the evolution of the business, first with the successful sale to Macquarie Pacific Funding and then the following progression into IQumulate Premium Funding, where he is now the commercial manager.
As commercial manager, McMillan leads a team that is responsible for commercial analysis and business support, identifying and reporting improvement initiatives, and the securitization and treasury functions of the business.
Commercial Manager
Stephen McMillan
Read on
Award Winner
Campion Education
SPECIAL REPORT
Home
Bio
Adam Basaldella
Manager – Claims
Stephen McMillan first entered the financial services Industry when he joined GE Capital as a finance analyst in 2008, from which he progressed through roles working both onshore and offshore. From there, he moved into Pacific Premium Funding as a financial planning and analysis leader in 2012 and was a key resource in the evolution of the business, first with the successful sale to Macquarie Pacific Funding and then the following progression into IQumulate Premium Funding, where he is now the commercial manager.
As commercial manager, McMillan leads a team that is responsible for commercial analysis and business support, identifying and reporting improvement initiatives, and the securitization and treasury functions of the business.
Product Manager
Claire Watson
Stephen McMillan first entered the financial services Industry when he joined GE Capital as a finance analyst in 2008, from which he progressed through roles working both onshore and offshore. From there, he moved into Pacific Premium Funding as a financial planning and analysis leader in 2012 and was a key resource in the evolution of the business, first with the successful sale to Macquarie Pacific Funding and then the following progression into IQumulate Premium Funding, where he is now the commercial manager.
As commercial manager, McMillan leads a team that is responsible for commercial analysis and business support, identifying and reporting improvement initiatives, and the securitization and treasury functions of the business.
Commercial Manager
Stephen McMillan
“We also maintain open lines of communication with advisers so they know what to expect and can plan accordingly”
Hayley Burgess, ANZ Bank New Zealand
“We’ve invested heavily in resourcing and process improvements to reduce friction and speed up approvals”
Hayley Burgess, ANZ Bank New Zealand
After more than 65 years of getting the right resources into students’ hands, Campion Education has set about redefining what an education supplier can be. The family-owned Australian business supports more than 3,000 schools and over 700,000 students each year. In recent years, it has evolved from providing textbooks, stationery and book hire to an end-to-end education partner, without loosening its grip on the reliability that built its reputation.
Campion CuratED, its growing portfolio of education technology, spans lesson planning, resource creation, assessment, personalised feedback, examination preparation, student wellbeing and digital resource delivery. The suite answers real changes in schools. Teachers are managing heavier workloads, technology ecosystems keep expanding, students need more personalised support and artificial intelligence is reshaping teaching and learning. Rather than adding to the noise, Campion has built capabilities around those specific pressures.
Campion’s strength is bringing the physical and digital education worlds into one relationship. Schools can access newer technology alongside the resources, integrations and service they already rely on Campion to provide, backed by national scale and local teams. The mix lets Campion solve a broader range of problems than a traditional supplier or a standalone technology company could on its own. Underlying it is a conviction that education is not transactional but a long-term partnership.
The provider’s approach to innovation is deliberately practical. New products must solve a genuine education problem rather than just showcase technology. The company sees that discipline as especially important with AI, where schools need trusted, curriculum-aligned tools rather than simply more of them.
Ideas come from staff, from sector trends and above all from the thousands of schools Campion works with. Products are shaped with educators so that curriculum alignment and classroom relevance are built in from the start. Lessonate speeds up lesson planning, Campion Write supports writing feedback and Acrux Education tracks progress in mathematics through assessment insights. Together, the suite tackles teacher workload, fragmented technology, personalised learning, assessment and content management.
In practice, that partnership runs across resource selection, implementation, digital integration and ongoing support. Campion aims to be the partner a school can call on when something needs solving, whether the problem is physical or digital. Every school operates differently, so the approach is tailored rather than templated.
Steering the evolution is CEO and managing director Tom Bradley, who joined in 2024 with a background in customer experience and digital transformation, alongside general manager of growth Brett Watson, who leads the Campion CuratED expansion. Their brief has been to respect the strengths built over six decades while challenging how an education business should operate for the years ahead.
The results show up in service as much as strategy. Campion reports a 2026 average customer satisfaction score of 6.1 out of 7 and guarantees 99% on-time and in-full delivery on orders placed by the agreed cut-off. It measures its technology the same way, judging success not by how often teachers log in but by whether a tool cuts workload and lifts teaching and learning.
The model runs across four reinforcing domains: instruction, culture, leadership and systems. Rather than chasing new slogans, AVID refines enduring, evidence-informed strategies such as scaffolding, questioning and gradual release instead of rebranding old ideas as new. This grounding in professional development and adult education draws on 46 years of research as the Australian subsidiary of US non-profit AVID Center, which spans more than 7,500 schools across the two countries.
The organisation is led by three former teachers with decades of combined experience. Executive director Dr Claire Brown wrote the 2011 grant that first brought AVID to Australia, lead coach Susan Walker began as a founding AVID teacher, and principal-in-residence Steph McDonald was the foundation principal at a primary school where she implemented AVID in partnership with a local secondary school.
A two-way global exchange
As AVID Center’s first international subsidiary, AVID Australia is now feeding its expertise back into the wider network. Its annual three-day Summer Institute in Melbourne lets Australian and US educators co-design and co-facilitate sessions side by side, and a group of Australian educators will soon work with schools in Florida and Texas to co-design global learning experiences, with student and teacher exchanges to follow.
AVID’s recognition in The Educator’s Service Provider Awards for 2026 reflects an organisation making the case that lasting school improvement takes time, evidence and stability rather than the next education fad.