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Elizabeth Death to step down as CEO of ELACCA after nine years of sector leadership
Fiona Alston
Jul 14, 2025
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The Early Learning and Care Council of Australia (ELACCA has announced that long-serving Chief Executive Officer Elizabeth Death (pronounced Deeth) will resign from her role, stepping down on 6 October 2025 after nearly a decade at the helm.
Since her appointment in 2016, Ms Death has led ELACCA through a significant period of growth and transformation, overseeing its evolution from a small representative body into a nationally recognised peak organisation comprising 18 of the country’s largest early learning and care providers.Throughout her tenure, she has maintained a commitment to balanced sector representation, ensuring equal participation from both for-profit and not-for-profit members across ELACCA’s footprint. Under her leadership, ELACCA now represents a quarter of Australia’s early learning places, serving more than 232,000 children and employing over 59,000 educators and staff nationally.
Ms Death brought to the role a deep understanding of the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector. A qualified early childhood teacher, her diverse career has spanned frontline education, local and state government administration, academic instruction, social policy, and executive leadership across a range of service delivery contexts.
She is also widely known as co-author of Programming and Planning in Early Childhood Settings, a leading academic resource for early childhood educators, now in its eighth edition.
During her time as CEO, Ms Death has steered ELACCA and its members through some of the sector’s most complex policy and regulatory challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple Productivity Commission and ACCC inquiries, and jurisdictional reviews such as the South Australian Royal Commission and NSW IPART inquiries.
She has been a prominent advocate in national policy forums, a trusted advisor to government and regulators, and a consistent voice for high-quality early learning outcomes. Her leadership has been instrumental in the development of benchmarking tools, research initiatives, and professional learning programs tailored to support the unique needs of large early learning providers.
In a statement, ELACCA co-chairs Pejman Okhovat and Kay Turner acknowledged Ms Death’s “huge contribution” to the organisation and the broader sector.
Ms Death said she was proud of what ELACCA had achieved in collaboration with members, partners, and governments across all jurisdictions.
“I’ve been privileged to work alongside such a dedicated group of leaders and to contribute to the collective effort of improving outcomes for children through high-quality early learning,” she said.
A recruitment process for Ms Death’s successor is expected to be announced in due course.
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