Rachael Neumann

Founder, Working Theory Angels

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Rachael plays many roles supporting the #startupaus ecosystem. She is a former Chair of the Board for StartupAus, Partner in Startmate and was a founding Board member of LaunchVic. In her previous role as Head of Startups ANZ at Amazon Web Services, she was charged with growing out the market, driving quantity and quality of startups in ANZ. Additionally, Rachael is a strategic advisor and investor to a number of founders and their early-stage companies. She has been sharing her passion for early stage investing through her role as Lead Facilitator for VC Catalyst and now, as Founder of Working Theory Angels.

Colin McLeod

Executive Director, Melbourne Entrepreneurial Centre

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Colin McLeod is the inaugural Executive Director of the Melbourne Entrepreneurial Centre.

Colin is a Professor in the Melbourne Business School where has been the Program Director of the Master of Entrepreneurship degree and the Academic Director of the Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship since 2015. He was awarded the title of Enterprise Professor in 2016 in recognition of his contribution to industry and academia.

Colin has a long-standing interest in entrepreneurship. He co-founded his first business in 1992, which expanded to a national company with almost 200 employees, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Haas School of Business in 1995/96 during the first ‘Internet Boom’ (and crash!) and completed a PhD in 1998 that identified some of the key factors that lead to the successful commercialisation of innovation. He has also been a Senior Associate of the Judge School of Business at the University of Cambridge.

In 2007, Colin and colleagues at the University of Melbourne were amongst the first researchers in the world to look at co-production with customers as a source of innovation. Their research was published in the highly ranked Journal of Retailing and has been cited over 800 times by other researchers.

Colin continues to have an interest in the commercialisation of innovation, and he contributed a section called “From Innovation to Entrepreneurship,” to a recent book by Danny Samson and Marianne Gloet titled Innovation and Entrepreneurship and published in 2016 by Oxford University Press.

He is currently a Director/Investor/Co-founder of six early stage companies in retail technology, online training, wireless technology, employee management, aged care and wearable biotechnology. All these companies started in Melbourne and have raised venture capital in the US and Australia, and have expanded to offices in Silicon Valley, Berlin and Manchester with partner operations in India, Malaysia and Uganda.

Colin was a member of the Executive Committee that raised almost $200 million to construct the Olivia Newton-John Cancer & Wellness Centre at the Austin Hospital and is a member of the AFL Research Board.

Pedram Mokrian

Adjunct Prof, Stanford University

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Matt Allen

CEO, Tractor Ventures

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Matt is a software developer, ex-CTO, ex co-founder, ex-recruiter, ex-BD guys. In his own words, that’s a lot of ex’s! Now he’s focussed on early-stage investing with a bias towards founders building enduring companies over the long haul.

James Cameron

Partner, AirTree Ventures

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Nick Crocker

General Partner, Blackbird Ventures

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Nisha Dua

Co-Founder and Partner, BBG Ventures

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Nisha Dua is a Co-Founder and General Partner at BBG Ventures, a NYC-based seed fund which invests in consumer start-ups with at least one female founder. BBGV invests across commerce, connected communities, future of work, personalized health and wellness, and Gen Z. At BBGV, Nisha has invested in over 60 start-ups including Zola, The Wing, Pymetrics, KiwiCo, Spring Health, Future Family and Winky Lux.

Nisha has spent the last decade working in media, tech, strategy and law. She was the GM of AOL’s millennial site, Cambio, which she re-launched as a site “for girls, #BUILTBYGIRLS” in partnership with Girls Who Code. She founded the #BUILTBYGIRLS WAVE platform, which has connected over 5000 girls with professionals to help them build their first networks in tech.

Nisha was previously Chief of Staff for the AOL Brand Group, working on strategy, operations and special projects. Nisha cut her teeth as a management consultant for Bain & Company and an M&A lawyer at Blake Dawson. She received her Bachelor of Commerce/Bachelor of Laws from UNSW.

Kylie Frazer

Founder, Eleanor Venture

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Kylie is the founder of Eleanor Venture, an early stage venture capital firm, which makes it easy for private investors to build their own diversified technology portfolios, fitting their own investment theses. In its short history, Eleanor has invested in over a dozen great Australian startups, including Fresh Equities, Jig Space and Goterra, making material capital contributions to their growth journeys.

Peter Gahan

Professor of Management, University of Melbourne

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Peter Gahan is Professor of Management at the University of Melbourne and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Workplace Leadership, where he was Foundation Director from 2012 to 2017. He has previously held academic and visiting positions at UNSW, Monash, University of South California, The European University Institute, Cardiff Business School, New York University and Stockholm Business School. Professor Gahan has also worked as senior public servant as Director of Workplace Innovation in the Victorian Department of Industry, Innovation and Regional Development. He has undertaken commissioned research for both state and commonwealth governments on areas related to employment relations, regulatory arrangements to support workplace innovation, and the consequences of various regulatory labour market reforms. Over the last 25 years, Professor Gahan has published widely on conflict and negotiations, employment relations and collective bargaining, high performance workplaces, labour markets and the future of work, and the consequences of labour market regulation. His current research focuses on two major drivers of change at work: workforce ageing and how technology is transforming the nature of jobs. Peter is currently exploring how older works are perceived by others (co-workers, managers and customers) in the workplace and how these perceptions influence hiring decisions, promotion and performance evaluations.   

Peter Huynh

Co-Founder and Partner, Qualgro

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David Kenney

Partner, Hall Chadwick

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David Kenney is widely recognised as the leading legal advisor to businesses/start-ups/scale-ups in Australia. An advisor, partner, mentor, angel investor, he understands the challenges in business, raising capital and growing teams and revenue. With a background in corporate finance, accounting and international tax, he sits on many advisory boards across a range of sectors.

Jill Klein

Professor, Melbourne Business School

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Jill Klein joined Melbourne Business School in 2009 as a Professor of Marketing and is also a Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Medical School.

After completing her PhD in Social Psychology at the University of Michigan, Jill joined the faculty at Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. In 1997, she joined INSEAD. Jill has also held visiting positions at Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, and Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration.

Jill’s research has been published in the Journal of Marketing, Management Science, Journal of Consumer Psychology, British Medical Journal, and more, with a focus on decision making biases and how they affect decisions in both business and medical settings.

Jill teaches Managerial Judgement, Decision Making and Resilient Leadership on the MBA, Executive and Senior Executive MBA programs, Advanced Managers Program, Specialist Certificate in Clinical Leadership, and a variety of executive education programs.

Jill has also appeared in the Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, Guardian and other international media outlets.

Leila Lee

Head of Distribution, Square Peg Capital

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Leila is responsible for building relationships with investors, raising Square Peg’s funds and investor relations. Leila has considerable experience in working with institutional investors, family offices and financial advisors, as well as raising funds across multiple asset classes and strategies.

Previously, she was an Executive Director in the Institutional Sales team at Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) (2009-2017). Prior to that, she managed relationships across asset consultants and research houses for GSAM.

Bryn Leggett

Founder and Director, HelloCFO

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Bryn is the Founding Director of HelloCFO, a specialist accounting and advisory practice supporting startup and high-growth businesses.

With a diverse background covering tax and accounting, corporate finance and CFO services, Bryn delivers practical advice drawn from a wealth of experience with clients ranging from VC backed startups, high-growth disrupter businesses and ASX listed entities.

Bryn currently supports numerous Seed to Series B stage startups operating within Australia and globally in sectors spanning SaaS, fintech, hardware, agtech, and consumer internet.

Jules Miller

Partner, Mindset Ventures

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A seasoned entrepreneur and VC investor, Jules is currently Partner at Mindset Venture in Los Angeles. Prior to this, she was Partner at IBM’s Blockchain Accelerator in NYC and Co-Founder of Prose Ventures, an independent fund focused on professional services. Jules has exited three major startups including Evolve Law and Hire an Esquire. She has degrees from UCLA and LSE and is a Kauffman Fellow and mentor for young women.

Paul Naphtali

Co-Founder and Managing Partner, rampersand

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Paul is an international investor with extensive experience in Silicon Valley, the UK and Australia. Following a prolific career in strategic communications and leading many startups through to major acquisition, Paul cofounded rampersand to invest in and support Australian early-stage technology companies.

Rayn Ong

Venture Partner, Archangel Ventures

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Rayn has been an active angel investor for the past 7 years. He has invested in over 70 startups and funds including Blackbird, Instaclustr, Propeller Aero, Carbar, Eucalyptus & Fresh Equities. Rayn is a venture partner at Archangel Ventures, an early stage angel fund focusing on the first 2 funding rounds. In his free time, Rayn loves to collect startup tshirts and Linkedin recommendations.

Nicole Small

Investment Manager, Rampersand

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Nicole joined Rampersand after seven years in SEEK’s strategy team, following on from a number of years in strategy consulting and investment banking. That journey has given her broad insight into investing, product strategy, general business operations and fast growth environments, all very useful when it comes to finding — and helping — the best tech startups in the country.

Rachel Yang

Investment Manager, Giant Leap Fund at Impact Investment Group

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Rachel is the Investment Manager at Giant Leap, a venture capital fund backing founders using business as a force for good, driving social and environmental change across three themes: health and wellbeing, sustainable living and empowering people. Giant Leap has invested in 18 companies to date.  Rachel is also on the Board of Startup Victoria, a non-profit, grassroots organisation with over 20,000 members supporting startup founders succeed, and is a member of the Victorian State Government’s Innovation Taskforce.

Mike Zimmerman

Partner, Main Sequence Ventures

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Mike Zimmerman is a Partner with Main Sequence Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm investing in deep-tech companies creating future industries.  Main Sequence manages the $240M CSIRO Innovation Fund, backed by CSIRO, the Australian government, Temasek and other institutional and private investors. Mike has over 20 years of startup operating and investing experience in Australia and the US, been a founder or executive in several venture-backed companies and worked with several dozen companies as an advisor, director and/or investor. He has an MBA from Stanford University and a BA from Amherst College.

Will Richardson

Managing Partner, Giant Leap Fund

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Will is Managing Partner at Giant Leap, Australia’s first and only 100% impact venture capital fund manager.

Giant Leap invests in exceptional, rapidly scalable businesses that blend financial returns with deep social and environmental impact, across three impact themes: sustainable living, health and wellbeing and empowering people. The portfolio includes Sendle, Glam Corner, Perx, Goterra, Applied, Work180, Amber, and Mindset.

Komal Patel

Venture Analyst, Tenacious Ventures

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Komal Patel is an experienced, strategic leader committed to driving impact and innovation across private, public, and philanthropic sectors. She brings a passion for sustainable and inclusive growth in business and society to her work.

Komal currently serves as a Venture Analyst at Tenacious Ventures, where she conducts scouting and due diligence on emerging agtech startups in Australia and around the world. She also serves as a Principal Advisor at Agthentic Advisory, where she supports clients across the agtech industry, including agribusinesses, government institutions, and industry associations, to future-proof their organisations and develop strategies to drive innovation and adoption at scale.

Komal brings a global track record across the US, UK, India, and Australia, working on topics including supply chain data and transparency, food & ag, climate, and health. She also has experience working with Australian agrifood and tech startups focused on supply chain transparency and alternative proteins.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts with honors from Duke University and an MBA and Certificate in Sustainability from MIT Sloan.

Bridie Ohlsson

CEO & Co-founder, Geora

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Bridie is the CEO and co-founder of Geora. Since 2016, Bridie has navigated the intersection of blockchain and agriculture heading up the blockchain pilot program at AgriDigital, and the subsequent commercialisation of this program by co-founding Geora. On the basis of this work, Bridie authored use cases in a range of publications including CSRIO Data61’s Architecture for Blockchain Applications as well as in the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations’ e-Agriculture publication Blockchain for Agriculture, Opportunities and Challenges. Bridie speaks regularly on the opportunities presented for farmers by emerging technologies including on global stages such as the World Trade Organisation and the Asian Development Bank.

Bridie is an active member of the Standards Australia Blockchain Technical Committee – Smart Contracts Working Group (IT-041) and the Australian National Blockchain Roadmap, Supply Chain working group. Bridie was recently awarded the THRIVE Australia Female Founder Award, and was a 2020 finalist for Fintech Australia’s Emerging Fintech Leader of the Year.

Bridie holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Arts studying at both the University of Sydney and Sciences Po, Paris.

Chris Hitchen

Managing Partner, Inventures

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Chris is an Australian entrepreneur and super angel.
He built and sold price comparison business Getprice to News Corp, eCommerce marketplace Next Commerce to Future PLC and programmatic ad marketplace Hynt to Zalando. Chris is a founding investor and Chairman of vacation rentals platform Holidu and has invested in more than 60 startups. He worked as Venture Partner with VC funds EQT Ventures, Project A and SquarePeg Capital prior to establishing Inventures and Inventures Collective, an Angel Collective backing ambitious founders building frontier technology to positively impact

Hannah Field

Partner, Folklore Ventures

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Hannah is a Partner at Folklore Ventures (formerly Tempus Partners). She has spent her career with high growth technology companies including Dropbox, Pandora, and Canva where she was heading up business development and operations, and helped Australia’s best technology companies secure amazing engineering talent in her prior work at Lookahead Search. Before life in tech, was a freelance violinist and built a Grammy-winning contemporary classical music record label.