The Atlantis Group meets the emerging ECEC leadership shortage with thirty years of people investment and the results to prove it

A leading Western Australian family-owned early childhood provider points to award-winning  leadership culture, structured talent pathways and long-term succession planning as the sector's  most urgent strategic response. 

As new analysis identifies leadership shortages as the next major challenge for Australia's Early  Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) sector, The Atlantis Group is drawing on three decades of  sustained investment in people and a track record of recognised, award-winning leadership outcomes as the model the broader industry needs to adopt. 

The Atlantis Group, the parent organisation of Atlantis Early Learning, Atlantis OSHC, Tall Tree Early Learning and Tall Tree OSHC, operates eleven early learning services and nine OSHC services across Perth, Western Australia. As a thirty-year, family-owned business, the Group has long championed internal leadership development, structured succession planning and long term career investment as core operating principles. 

Chief Executive Officer, Todd Dawson, says the sector's emerging leadership challenge is the  predictable result of years of inadequate investment in people pipelines and that providers who have taken the long view on talent will be significantly better placed in the years ahead. 

"Leadership shortages don't happen overnight. They are the result of years of underinvestment in  people, in development, in pathways, in the cultures that make talented professionals want to stay and grow. At The Atlantis Group, we made a deliberate choice long ago to grow our leaders  from within and back that commitment with real resources. That choice is now our greatest  asset," says Todd Dawson, Chief Executive Officer, The Atlantis Group. 

The Group's investment in leadership capability is broad and structured. Sponsored qualifications and Early Childhood Teacher (ECT) pathways, a dedicated Pedagogy and Practice Lead providing  consistent group-wide educational development, an Emerging Leaders training program equipping Assistant Managers and future leaders with the skills to lead services with confidence, along with a talent and succession planning framework that identifies and supports emerging talent at every level of the organisation. 

Managing Director, Rory Hindle, attributes the Group's leadership stability to the structural advantage of family ownership, an increasingly rare characteristic in a sector facing growing  consolidation.

"As a family-owned business, we have always been able to make long-term decisions about our people without the pressure of short-term return expectations. We invest in our leaders because  we intend to be here in another thirty years and we want them here with us. That isn't a business case. It's a conviction and it flows through everything we do," explains Rory Hindle, Managing  Director, The Atlantis Group. 

The outcomes of this sustained investment are visible across the Group's network and most recently, in the achievements of Tall Tree Early Learning Mullaloo, which received the Service Excellence in Partnerships with Families, Communities and Schools award at the 2026 ECLD WA Sector Awards, following the group-wide recognition as Service of the Year in 2023 and Centre Manager of the Year in 2022 and 2024. 

Nicola, who brings over twenty years of sector experience and more than fifteen years as a Centre  Manager, joined The Atlantis Group in 2019 to open Tall Tree Early Learning Subiaco before being  entrusted to open Tall Tree Early Learning Mullaloo in 2022. She credits the Group's leadership  infrastructure, including its Emerging Leaders training program and Pedagogy and Practice  Lead, as foundational to both her own development and the growth of the team around her. 

"The awards have been incredible. But what I'm most proud of is the team. The team is what it is  because this organisation decided that developing people was worth doing properly. I've watched my Assistant Manager grow through the Emerging Leaders program into someone who can lead  this service with full confidence. I've watched my Educational Leader receive consistent,  structured support and become a better educator and leader for it. That doesn't happen by  accident. It happens because someone built the systems and decided it mattered," says Nicola  Wilkie, Centre Manager, Tall Tree Early Learning Mullaloo. 

Head of People and Culture Elaine Whelan, who oversees the Group's talent and succession  framework, says the key to addressing the sector's leadership challenge lies in deliberate,  consistent pipeline investment and not reactive hiring. 

“The pipeline doesn't build itself. We have educators who joined The Atlantis Group as trainees and are now Centre Managers. That is not an accident, it is the result of deliberate succession  planning, structured development and a culture where talent is noticed and nurtured. Nicola's  story and the stories of the leaders she has developed around her, are exactly what that looks like  in practice," explains Elaine Whelan, Head of People & Culture, The Atlantis Group. 

The Group's talent attraction proposition is built around its Growing Futures messaging, which emphasises long-term career pathways, internal mobility and the opportunity to build a  meaningful career within a purpose-driven, family-owned organisation that treats early  childhood and school-aged care as a long-term and meaningful profession. 

Image: Rachel Hailstones, Assistant Manager and Nicola Wilkie, Centre Manager at Tall Tree Early  Learning Mullaloo.