Professor Beaton-Wells is an internationally distinguished academic leader, committed to the role of education and research for a sustainable future and with a track record in leading major organisational change through innovation and high performing, collaborative and inclusive culture.

Caron is currently Dean and CEO at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government. She is also an honorary Professorial Fellow of the University of Melbourne and a lay member of the Australian Competition Tribunal.

From February 2020 to December 23, she was the internal Dean at Melbourne Business School, a period in which the School transformed its educational portfolio to offer greater accessibility, established an innovation agenda to address pressing learning and development challenges, strengthened its impact in sustainability, business analytics, Indigenous business leadership and social purpose, and forged new partnerships with industry and government.

Previously, as a member of the Melbourne Law School executive team, Caron established one of the world’s most highly regarded hubs in competition and consumer law. She led the development of Australia’s first online masters suite in this field, while researching, teaching and advocating at the intersection of law, economics and business disciplines as they relate to competition in markets and the digital economy and regulation of concentrated markets. She was awarded substantial research funding and published extensively, contributing to policy and legal reform and intellectual and public discourse around the world.

Caron has consulted to the OECD, ASEAN, and the New Zealand Government, been a non-governmental advisor to the International Competition Network, a member of UNCTAD’s Research Partnership Platform, and a member of the Law Council of Australia’s competition and consumer committee. She was the recipient of the Academic of the Year (Women in Law) Award in 2019.

Prior to her academic career, Caron was a solicitor at (now) King & Wood Mallesons and a member of the Victorian Bar, practising largely in government-related areas of law for the federal and State governments.

She is a member of Chief Executive Women, Australia’s peak organisation for influencing and engaging all levels of business and government to achieve gender balance and equity and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.