With head, heart and hands: How Linda Brown and Torrens University Australia are shaking up tertiary education

In the traditional world of tertiary education, Linda Brown, EY Entrepreneur Of The Year judge and 2021 winner, is a role model for doing things differently. With Linda at the helm, Torrens University Australia is breaking new ground with its outside-in approach of collaborating with industry to bring fresh relevance to the university experience. And as the only university in Australia and New Zealand to be a Certified B Corporation, Torrens University and its CEO are leading the way for entrepreneurship in tertiary education.

The Torrens University story is about collaboration. It's not my university. It's industry’s university and it's the students’ university. When we started out, our first promise was ‘everybody goes to work’, meaning every graduate gains the employability skills they need, and access to employers. We worked with the big players in industry to make sure every aspect of our curriculum has an employability outcome. And it’s not just about paid work, this approach was also built around entrepreneurship, including social entrepreneurship. The connections we help our students build give them a real edge because many of our students start their own businesses. In our MBA program, 89% of our staff have industry experience so they give students those connections to industry and entrepreneurship that our students wouldn't get through a traditional academic situation.

I believe education is a human right, and critical to building a brighter world. My job is to drive down the price of education and let more people in. Tertiary education is like early childhood education; it’s a right, not a differentiator and everybody should have the opportunity to reach their potential. Some people may not want to go to university but they should have the choice. Most of our students come to us because they want to change the world, and Torrens was built on giving students the experience to meet their requirements, not ours.

Never forget you are here to disrupt. You need to be bold about it, and you need to stick at it. It would be easy to fall back into being part of that $46 billion market with only 43 universities and doing what everybody else is doing. But I keep remembering I am here to bring the price of education down and participation up, and to create an infrastructure where we are genuinely collaborating with industry. I’m always looking left and right for opportunities. Building Torrens was my chance to pull all my expertise in starting businesses, shutting businesses, looking at skills and funding, and connecting people to make a significant difference. Building credibility is a challenge for any entrepreneur and I found this especially true in education, where we went in to shake up an established, traditional system. But we’ve shown that you can provide education with private money for public good. In education, competition is good, and choice is good, and we should let more investors into this system to make it more relevant.

The art of entrepreneurship is the awareness and hunger to try different things and not be contained within your circumstances. We need original thinking, and the best entrepreneurship I’ve seen has come about when somebody has taken an idea they've seen in a different industry, different country or with a different set of parameters and brings it together to disrupt a system. You can say a rising tide lifts all boats, but it's how you raise the tide for everybody that matters.

You need a good head, a strong heart, and the hand to execute your strategy. I’m always looking for people who understand what defines business success but are driven by their impact on society. When you dig into their stories, you’ll often find a turning point where they were inspired to make the world a fairer place.

Sustainable investment is key. Funding can be easy to get when people are looking for a speedy return on investment, but the risk of failure is much higher for entrepreneurs who don’t have the infrastructure, advocacy and connections to support long-term change.

Winning EY Entrepreneur Of The Year validated what we were doing and made me more ambitious about disrupting education. And for us, that's critical. Torrens is here to create and support entrepreneurs, so if we're not entrepreneurial, who is? The validation matters because it's tough out there when you're disrupting an industry that is so established, and the support network I’ve grown has been fantastic. And really, the award isn’t mine. It belongs to everybody at Torrens. The university, the board, the staff, and the students were so proud. They can put it on their Bio as much as I can put it on my Bio.

Global impact is the pebble in the pond. We have lots of amazing entrepreneurs who for very good reasons are singular in their focus, and that is their priority at this point in time. And that should be celebrated, but what is the impact derived from that? Have you, or has somebody else changed because of what you've done? Australia is an island but we have to think more about the global impact of what we do. Great entrepreneurs always have that global mindset, and they create change at that scale.

As a judge for EY Entrepreneur Of The Year, I can help people understand why they are here, help them see the wider impact they can have, and to understand that they deserve to be recognised and celebrated. One of my biggest realisations from winning EY Entrepreneur Of The Year, and talking to incredible people from all over the world at EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year, was that we had earned it. What we've done at Torrens can be a prototype to support other people who are trying to disrupt the system for a much bigger marketplace.

Photo credit: Torrens University

The views expressed in this article are the views of the author, not Ernst & Young. This article provides general information, does not constitute advice and should not be relied on as such. Professional advice should be sought prior to any action being taken in reliance on any of the information. Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.