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2007 Speakers
Biographies for Successful Innovation 2007
Neil Anderson
Managing Director,
CathRx Ltd
Mr Anderson is one of the founders of CathRx and currently Managing Director. Over the past 4 years he has successfully managed all customer relations/negotiations, financial, marketing, business compliance and patent protection aspects of the company through to a late 2005 listing on the ASX. Mr Anderson was project leader and champion for the Metallised Polymers project within the CRC for Cardiac Technology. In 1999, he negotiated the rights for the Intellectual Property of the project from the University of Technology, Sydney into CathRx. Mr Anderson is a Materials Scientist with over 20 years experience in areas such as Materials Testing and Analysis, Research and Development, Product Validation and Project Management.
Mark Bennett
Chief Executive Officer
New South Innovations
Mark Bennett is currently the CEO of NewSouth Innovations Pty Ltd, the Technology Transfer company of the University of New South Wales formally know as Unisearch. During 2005 he was also Acting Director of the Business Liaison Office at the University of Sydney.
For over seven years Mark has been at the interface between the academic world, industry and the investment community. After a successful career in the ag-biotech sector as a CEO and general manger for subsidiaries of the Cagene Pacific (Florigene) and Forbio Group of companies Mark “jumped the fence” to the Business Liaison Office of the University of Sydney. While there he formed a specialised business unit responsible for spin off company formation, management and investment capital raising. This resulted in the formation of over 16 new companies.
Mark has sat on the Boards of many spin off companies and is currently on the Boards of Hepatocell Therapeutics Pty Ltd, Qucor Pty Ltd., Acyte Pty Ltd, and Cystemix Pty Ltd among others. Mark is also on the Investment Committee of the Uniseed Venture Capital Fund.
Mark remains firmly hooked by and committed to the industry. He would say he spends a good part of his life managing expectations while striving for that common goal of seeing University intellectual property successfully commercialised.
Laurence Crew
Managing Director,
Cylo Technology Pty Ltd
Laurence is the founder and Managing Director of Cylo Technology located in Sydney, Australia. The company has previously specialised in user interface design and web software systems development, recently moving into product research and development around computer input devices.
Laurence, holds a Bachelor of Industrial Design with First Class Honours (University of Technology), Sydney and has until recently been employed as a Senior User Interface Designer at Canon Information Systems and Reseach Laboritories, Sydney. Laurence lectures at UTS and is the author or co-author of 10 patent applications primarily in the user interface field.
Dr Steve Gourley
Investment Director,
GBS Venture Partners
Dr Steve Gourlay joined GBS (a leading life science venture capital group) in 2005 with more than 15 years experience in drug development and he has recently he was Senior Director of Clinical & Experimental Pharmacology and (Preclinical) Safety at Genentech Inc. in California. Over the same period Steve taught epidemiology, clinical research methods and clinical pharmacology at Monash University and the University of California. Steve is a licensed consultant physician in Internal Medicine. He received his PhD from Monash University after completing a series of observational and interventional studies of novel smoking cessation medications. Subsequently he undertook a postdoc in clinical pharmacology at UCSF and a MBA at Macquarie University.
Neil Groll
CTO and co-founder,
Leopard Labs
Neil Groll is the CTO and co-founder of the Australian-based company, Leopard Labs. Leopard Labs has developed mozone, the world’s first handset-based content filtering and security software for mobile phones. Neil has over 10 years experience in the mobile telecommunications industry and has held senior positions at major telecommunications companies, in roles focussed on systems architecture and development.
Prior to Leopard Labs, Neil worked at Virgin Mobile, Mobile Telephone Networks (MTN) and Alcatel. Most significantly, Neil was the IT Manager at Virgin Mobile during its start-up phases in Australia and South Africa, and headed up Core Network Planning for MTN’s start-up operations around Africa.
Hamish Hawthorn
CEO,
ATP Innovations Pty Ltd
Hamish Hawthorn is the Chief Executive Officer of ATP Innovations – Australia’s premier technology business incubator. ATP Innovations delivers commercialisation & business expertise to emerging technology businesses, helping entrepreneurs build successful high-growth companies.
Hamish has been involved in the commercialisation of technology for over 15 years with experience in the advanced manufacturing and life sciences sectors. Prior to joining ATP Innovations, Hamish directed strategic business development programs for a number of emerging Australian technology companies. He also has worked in economic and industry development for the Federal and New South Wales Governments, focusing on emerging technology businesses,
particularly life-sciences, and early-stage entrepreneurship.
Hamish is a Visiting Fellow in the Entrepreneurs in Science Program at the University of New South Wales, as well as teaching entrepreneurship at the University of Sydney, the University of Technology, Sydney and the Australian National University. He is a qualified mechanical engineer with postgraduate training in business and technology.
Katrina Leslie
Founder and Executive Chairman
HRX
Katrina returned to Australia in late 2004 following a very successful 5 years in the U.S. Identifying an opportunity in 1999 Katrina founded ePredix. Utilising a combination of world class technology and assessment data to predict business results, ePredix became the leading online assessment company in the U.S.
Prior to this Katrina founded and sold IPS (an Australian HR business), following a career of HR and Recruitment roles with Westpac (Head of HR WFS, Head of HR Retail Banking NSW), Microsoft (Manager Recruitment APAC, HR Manager Australia) and BHP Steel (HR Graduate Development Program).
Roger Price
Innovation Capital
General Partner
B.Eng(Hons), FAICD
Roger joined Innovation Capital in 2006. He brings a depth of operational experience including senior engineering, manufacturing, IT services and international business development roles for a number of technology based companies across a range of industries.
Prior to joining Innovation Capital Roger was the Chief Executive Officer of Reino International, an Australian venture backed start up providing innovative and technically advanced parking solutions to the global market. Whilst at Reino he oversaw the growth of the business from 30 to 300 people, relocated the headquarters to the US and led an aggressive M&A program which resulted in the acquisition and integration of 4 companies in 2 years
Roger has worked for both multinationals and start-up organisations. He commenced his career at Alcatel, has held senior positions with a number of Australian owned technology businesses and run the Aust/NZ businesses of NASDAQ listed software companies. He has held board positions for a number of these companies and is currently a director of Elanti Systems, Inc.
He has a broad interest in Australian based technology, with direct experience within the areas of IT services, software, telecommunications, mobile payments and electronic device manufacturing. His experience has been gained working in both Australia and the US.
Associate Professor Anne Simmons
Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering
University of New South Wales
Anne has worked in the medical device industry for more than 17 years principally in the areas of research and development, clinical and regulatory affairs, strategic planning and management. At UNSW Anne is responsible for the conduct of research within the Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering & currently serves as the head of school. She also consults to various companies and government departments in the areas of business management, strategic planning and operations management. She has held the positions of Executive Manager and Manufacturing Manager at Telectronics Pty Limited, a manufacturer of implantable defibrillators and pacemakers, and Chief Executive Officer of Domedica Pty Limited, a manufacturer of devices for haemodialysis and blood cell separation.
Peter Spencer
CEO,
Warm Contact
Peter has had extensive experience in the development and commercialisation of medical products and devices. He has worked within a number of start-up companies followed by 12 years with Johnson & Johnson, one of the largest healthcare companies in the world. During this time, Peter spent two years in the USA as Director of the Corporate Office of Science & Technology, sourcing, evaluating and developing new business opportunities and products for Johnson & Johnson. Peter is a founding Committee Member of the Medical Device Network, a program of Ausbiotech, which was established to facilitate the development of Australian export oriented medical products businesses.
Tim Staley
Principal
Griffith Hack
Tim Staley has worked in intellectual property law for over 20 years, and specialises in the drafting and prosecution of patent applications in the IT, computer software, electronics and electrical engineering areas. A registered attorney in both the UK and Australia, Tim has extensive experience in prosecuting Australian, European, US and British patent applications, as well as in patent litigation and opposition procedures in Australia.
Tim acts for a number of small and medium sized enterprises, universities and large corporations in the IT, computer software and electronic engineering areas. He also advises overseas electronics corporations and attorneys on the validity and prosecution of Australian software and electronics patents.
“I enjoy building relationships with clients from different backgrounds and assisting them as their ideas grow into businesses.”
During the course of his work, Tim has acquired specialist knowledge in the patenting of a range of technologies, including remote payment technology (EFT systems), vending machines and systems, online business schemes, electronic commerce, document processing systems, cellular communications technologies, robotics, electronic image compression systems and Internet applications.
Tim worked for a firm of patent attorneys in London before joining Griffith Hack in 1992.
Andrew Stead
Director, Technology Business Programs,
ATP Innovations Pty Ltd
Andrew is responsible for the ATP Innovations activities in the Internet, ICT and Electronics areas.
Andrew has worked within technology focused businesses in Australia and the United Kingdom for over 10 years. Prior to joining ATP Innovations, Andrew was involved in early stage commercialisation with Unisearch (later NewSouth Innovations), the technology transfer group at the University of New South Wales. The highlights of his tenure were leading the sale of a search engine to Google, raising venture capital and involvement in a number of licensing negotiations.
Before his involvement with the University, Andrew was a strategy and technology consultant and project manager with Gibson Quai – AAS. At Gibson Quai – AAS he worked with enterprise and Government clients, investment banks and technology service providers on technology strategy, procurement and implementation.
Andrew began his career as a British Army officer, after attending the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he served across Europe including peacekeeping in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia.
Andrew has non-executive director experience from three boards including quantum computing start-up company, Qucor Pty Ltd. He has a Bachelor of Science (Honours) from the University of Sydney, a Masters of Business Administration from the Macquarie Graduate School of Management and is a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers (UK).