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Ron Switzer is Director NSW of CPA Australia. CPA Australia represents 11,7000 finance, accounting and business professionals around the world.
Ron spent 25 years in public accounting as a partner in KPMG, and subsequently CFO of CIC Insurance, Director Corporate Services of CSC Australia, and a lecturer at the Australia Catholic University.

Bernd Meyer is the Head of Business and Enterprise at Launceston Church Grammar School in Tasmania. He has been responsible for the ABW Enterprise Education Program for the past 9 years. Bernd trained as an Accountant before becoming a teacher. He has been teaching for over 20 years in the business, economics and enterprise area.

Bernd is married with 2 children. His school has participated in the GEC before, winning twice to be the Australian representative in 2005 and 2006.

Jason has 15 years experience in Workers' Compensation, the last 4 with QBE, initially in the role of State Manager for NSW and more recently, the National Workers Compensation Manager. He holds a Bachelor of Business (Acc) and is a CPA. Prior to joining QBE, Jason held senior Workers Compensation roles in both Victoria and NSW, dealing extensively with Regulators, Brokers, Clients and other key stakeholders.

Les Lloyd is Senior Business Development Manager and Assistant General Manager of Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies Australia-New Zealand. He is an internationally recognised expert in industrial water treatment, and a chemist with over 38 years experience in the treatment of all types of water including; waste water, cooling water, recycled water and potable water. Les has been working for Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies since 1996 and has been involved in engineering, commissioning, design, project management and business development for major industrial projects.

Ian Ritchie is the non-executive Chairman of Iomart plc, Scapa, Computer Applications Service, Caspian Learning and the Interactive Design Institute. He founded OWL in 1984 which pioneered hypertext application development (a forerunner to the world wide web) and sold the company to Panasonic in 1989. Since then he has been involved in over 20 start-up high-tech businesses, including Digital Bridges, Voxar, VIS Interactive, Sonaptic and Orbital. 

My name is Tove Gulbrandsen. I am native Norwegian and 44 years old.
My education is from economics and leadership. My background is from management in banking and hotel businesses. I work today as a manager for one of the Norwegian business gardens with incubation activities.
I also have experience from working as chairperson of boards in different countries - major SMB's.

Both the Welsh and Japanese team are coming to Sydney to compete alongside their Australian counterparts. All teams will be housed on the Macquarie University campus in the Sydney suburb of North Ryde. We look forward forward to meeting them and trust that in their short stay they will have the opportunity to see some of the local sights. 

Tina Bennet is Deputy Principal at Seven Hills High School and has had 12 years involvement with ABW. She coordinated the award winning school program at St Clair High School and over 7 years developed and enhanced it so that it is now recognised as one of the most successful enterprise education school programs in Western Sydney.

Concurrent with the Global Enterprise Challenge hosted in Sydney Australia for all participants around the world, a number of students and organizers from northern hemisphere countries, England, Germany, Norway and Scotland will form a subgroup designated GEC EuroHub08 and travel to Mainz in Germany. This EuroHub will give the European teams the opportunity to take part in the Challenge by participating in an exciting and fascinating competition in a single place.  

Derek started his career as a student apprentice with BP Tanker Company gaining a HND in Marine Engineering. He worked in a variety roles within the oil and gas industry with John Brown Engineering, Marathon Oil UK, APG/Salamis JV, prior to joining Wood Group Engineering as Managing Director in Aberdeen in 1996.

Liam Barnes is a director of 10 Lane Learning, a UK-based educational software publisher. The company publishes Stock Market Challenge, a resource which uses the experience of live trading to create an exciting and competitive team activity.
As an interactive, experiential learning tool, Stock Market Challenge assists the development of four cross-curricular areas: enterprise education, financial capability, work-related learning and key skills (for example, team-working, problem-solving, communication and applied ICT).

Dr Neal Pellis is a senior Scientist in the Space Life Sciences Directorate at NASA Johnson Space Center, working with the directorate chief on strategic planning, alliances and partnerships necessary to acquire basic and applied science and technology exploration missions and to manage the risks to crew in space and on planetary missions.

Lesley is a Professor in Biological Sciences at Macquarie University. Her research interests include; Impacts of current and future climate change on species and communities and Implications of climate change for conservation policy.

In a distinguished federal service career that spanned half a century, George WS Abbey has had a highly decorated aerospace career, which included the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, for his role on the Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team.

The Honourable Julia Gillard, MP, Deputy Prime Minister of Australia will open the GEC event via a pre recorded video message. Ms Gillard was born in Barry, Wales and in 1966 she migrated to Australia with her parents, settling in Adelaide.

Following the 2007 Federal Election, Prime Minister Keven Rudd announced that Gillard would serve as Deputy Prime Minister; and as the Minister for Education, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and also the Minister for Social Inclusion. She is the first woman - and the first foreign born person - to hold the position of Deputy Prime Minister. She is the highest ranking woman in the history of the Australian Government.

Dr. Neal R. Pellis is Senior  Scientist in the Space Life Sciences Directorate at NASA Johnson Space Center, working with the directorate chief on strategic planning, alliances, and partnerships necessary to acquire basic and applied science and technology exploration missions and to manage the risks to crew in space and on planetary missions.

The Global Enterprise Challenge in Australia is run by Australian Business Week Ltd (ABW) a not for profit organisation that offers young people the opportunity to learn about business. Schools have a choice of simulations in the IT Manufacturing, Hospitality, or Retail Industries. To read more about ABW go to www.abw.org.au

The Australian challenge is a three stage event.

1.    A national qualifying event where schools from around Australia compete to select the six finalist teams.

2.    The finalist teams for 2008 are

• Figtree High School NSW
  
• Hunter Valley Grammar NSW
  
• Mount Scopus Memorial College Vic
  
• The Australian Science and Maths School SA
  
• Yarra Valley Grammar VIC
  
• Victorian State Team.
  

All travel to Sydney to compete for the right to represent their country in the international event.

3.    The winning Australian team competes against the winning team from each country in the GEC.