By Casey Neill
Chisholm Institute CEO Maria Peters will step down at the end of the year.
She announced her intention to retire on Monday 31 July.
Ms Peters has been the Chisholm chief since 2010, and became one of the leading figures in the vocational and tertiary education sector.
In 2014 Chisholm was named Large Training Provider of the Year at both the Victorian and Australian Training Awards.
Chisholm chair Stephen Marks said the board would start searching for a suitable replacement.
“We are hopeful that this will be completed by the date of Maria’s retirement,” he said.
In 2014, the Journal reported that a chance chat in a Berwick chicken shop led Ms Peters into TAFE.
She told a SEBN breakfast that she was a secondary school English teacher on maternity leave when the encounter occurred in 1989.
The woman knew Ms Peters’ husband as a good teacher, assumed she would be too and offered her a job.
She initially planned to learn from TAFE and then return to high school.
“It’s in my blood now,” she said.
Ms Peters became the Chisholm CEO just four weeks before the TAFE sector was turned on its head.
“We lost $30 million out of a $140 million business in six months,” she said.
“We’ve been to Hell and back the past four years.
“If I’d had a crystal ball, I might have reconsidered.”
She made the decision to cut 230-plus jobs from 1400, deciding one fell swoop was preferable to “thousands of little cuts”.
“I knew I wanted Chisholm to be there in years to come.”
Ms Peters said she reminded herself that she was only a custodian – one hoping to leave the place in better shape than when she arrived.
“It’s not about you,” she said.
“I love and feel passionate about Chisholm.”
