Chris Smith
Independent Director
Chris Smith knows what happens when a skills system fails people.
Growing up in northern England during the industrial upheavals of the 1980s, he watched communities built around coal and heavy industry lose not just jobs, but certainty and identity.
“It wasn’t just individuals who were affected,” he reflects. “You could feel it in families, on the streets, and in whole towns that suddenly didn’t know what came next.
“Talented people had potential, but nothing connected them to the new opportunities that were emerging.”
Those early lessons still shape how he thinks about work, education and skills.
From disconnection to direction
Chris arrived in Australia around the time of the Sydney Olympics, planning only a temporary stay.
“Australia felt like not just an easy place to live, but full of opportunity compared to the industrial town I’d left behind,” he says. “So I decided to stay.”
Opportunity was easy to see; a clear career path was not. Chris studied Humanities and English at university, and while he knew he had strong, adaptable skills, the pathways into work favoured specialists, leaving generalists with fewer clear entry points.
“I was a generalist in what felt like a world of specialists,” he says. “I knew I was capable, but it wasn’t obvious where that value fitted.”
Looking back, he thinks it was a common experience. Career pathways for generalists were poorly defined; career advice was limited. “I found that doing well in education isn’t always a lead indicator for success at work,” he reflects.
The turning point came as a customer of fledgling software company ReadyTech. Chris asked hard questions, challenged assumptions and pointed out what wasn’t working.
“In the end, Marc Washbourne, ReadyTech’s CEO, said, ‘I’d rather have you working with us than against us,’ and he hired me.”
Turning fear into fuel
Soon after, Chris was put into a room full of people to talk about a technology project he barely felt qualified to explain.
Public speaking was a deep fear. “I was very shy and absolutely convinced I’d fail,” he says. “But after about fifteen minutes, something clicked. I realised I actually loved it. I’d just never been asked to do it before.”
That moment did more than overcome a fear. Being trusted, stretched and supported to sit with discomfort fundamentally changed how Chris saw himself at work.
“Had I not had that opportunity,” he says, “it’s unlikely I would have had this career.”
Fifteen years of tech impact
That was 15 years ago, and since then Chris has helped grow ReadyTech to an ASX-listed company with a team of over 500, serving more than 5,000 customers.
Today, he leads its Emerging Tech function, focusing on how AI and frontier technologies can be embedded across products and into everyday ways of working.
He also owns the organisation’s approach to capability and skills, ensuring the company builds the workforce of tomorrow from within. For this, Chris backs a different model: start with employment, not training.
“We have doubled down on our successful strategy of employing individuals with potential, from any background, in our support team where they are immersed in our culture, our products, our customers and our ways of working,” he says.
“In this time, we work to identify the right pathway to pursue. We define, design and deliver the skills they need through partnerships. And when the time is right, we support these individuals into that opportunity.
“As they move onwards and upwards, it frees up a place to allow us to repeat the pattern. Or, and this really matters, they can stay and grow in our support team,” he adds.
Models like this, he believes, can be adapted so smaller employers can participate fully in the digital economy.
Shaping skills with employers
Now on the Future Skills Organisation Board, Chris encourages employers of all sizes to be active partners in shaping the skills system.
“Simply saying the education system is not producing the right talent is not enough,” he says. “Industry has to be explicit about what it needs and prepared to work alongside government and educators to define and support pathways.”
He brings to the Board the perspective of a practitioner working at the interface of technology, industry and workforce capability, with a focus on practical pathways that work for both employers and workers.
At heart, Chris describes himself as “a frustrated teacher.” He enjoys sharing knowledge, learning alongside others and creating the conditions for people to discover their potential, often before they see it themselves.
He says tech “found me almost by accident,” but the reason he stayed is closely tied to the communities he grew up in.
“Skills, education and employment are how societies respond to economic change,” he says. “My focus is on helping people move through that change with clearer pathways and real opportunity.”
3 quick-fire questions
What’s the best advice you’ve been given?
Be kind. It’s simple advice from my brother that has served me well every day.
A simple thing that makes you happy?
Football. I can’t walk past a game without stopping to watch, and I try to keep playing as well.
A book or a podcast that you’re reading or listening to currently.
I enjoy the BBC’s Desert Island Discs. It taps into a kind of nostalgia for me and it’s always a lesson in storytelling. If I were on it, there’d definitely be a Beatles and an Oasis track in the mix.
With two young sons, there’s not much time for books, but given the chance I’d reach for Wuthering Heights. Emily Brontë was born in the Yorkshire village where I went to school, and I’ve always loved how she made a very specific, obscure place resonate with people all over the world.