Elena Douglas is the founder of Primary Focus. As one of the founders of the Centre for Social Impact at the University of Western Australia Business School, Elena collaborated with Professor Paul Flatau and came to understand the role poor literacy and numeracy was playing in entrenching disadvantage in Australian society.
In 2016 Elena commenced working in education, identifying system-wide strategies to improve educational outcomes. It was then that Elena discovered the evidence-base from global experience and the science of learning. She was shocked to learn that this wealth of knowledge was not a part of teacher education, nor was it in the hands of education leaders and policy-makers, nor covered in the national debate on education. Primary Focus was established to close this gap.
Elena is an economist who is on the Advisory Board of Deloitte Access Economics. She is the founder and CEO of Knowledge Society. Prior to her work in education, Elena was the Convenor of the Centre for Social Impact and the founding CEO of Advance - Global Australian Professionals. Throughout her professional career, Elena has seen first hand the impact of the quality and equitable education system that Australian had in the 1980s and 1990s, but has lost through neglect, failed policy, poor curriculum decisions and inadequate teacher education.
