Starting in startups, Emily co-founded Jemsoft, a machine learning and computer vision company whose proprietary software adapted artificial intelligence frameworks into many different industries as diverse as health, IoT, ad-tech, ag-tech and animal conservation. Jemsoft was acquired in 2017 by a publicly listed IoT company, from there Emily took her passion for startups and pursued investment opportunities with a focus on early stage tech. Emily went on to co-found M8 Ventures, a venture capital fund, in 2017 whose concentration is working alongside founders to build out robust commercialization and sustained growth strategies. Emily has joined Microsoft as Managing Director of Startups for ANZ where she is committed to building out startup initiatives for this region for both startups and scaleups.

Genevieve has over 23 years experience in Supply Chain Finance and Banking and is an expert in digital identity, market risk, liquidity management, treasury and business and industry transformation. She is a renowned international speaker and has considerable experience in all

major international markets.

Genevieve was an Advisor to the Government of Estonia on their e-Residency Program; Managing Director of Anoterra; Co-Chair of the Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) Working Group providing strategic direction for all techUK activities related to blockchain and DLT and Senior Advisor to various blockchain solution projects. In 2016 Genevieve founded and led a hackathon team in the creation of the AgriLedger concept, a social enterprise project using distributed ledger technology and mobile apps for agricultural producers.

Not only does Genevieve bring significant expertise and corporate experience to Blockchain and Cryptocurrency industries, she’s a passionate and skilled advocate in utilising technology solutions for social impact, empowerment and the greater good.

Genevieve is also a Fellow of the Start-up Leadership Programme, a network for the next generation of founders, entrepreneurs. leaders and innovators and has won a number of awards for her work.

William is a Partner at SOSV and the Managing Director of MOX the Mobile-Only Accelerator in Taipei and Chinaccelerator, China’s the first startup accelerator based in Shanghai. William joined SOSV from SingTel Innov8 where he was Managing Director supporting China investment activities. While at Innov8 he led investments in Yodo1 (mobile games), Gmobi (Android platform), Lekan (childrens video platform), and Massive Impact (mobile advertising) among others. Previously William was a Partner at Softbank China & India Holdings, an early stage venture capital firm backed by Softbank of Japan and Cisco. While at SoftBank he led investments in Silk Road Telecom or SRT (mobile enterprise cloud SaaS), Playspan (payment platform acquired by Visa), Punch Entertainment (mobile game developer acquired by DeNA) and Peacesoft (Vietnam eCommerce and payment platform). William began his career as an equity research analyst most recently with Deutsche Bank where he was responsible for Internet and Telecom Equipment across Asia and China technology, media and telecom. William began his technology investment career 18 years ago as a technology analyst in Taiwan.

Entrepreneur, investor, and two-time NBA All-Star and record-holder, over a thirteen-year career, Baron Davis played for the Charlotte Hornets, the Golden State Warriors, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the New York Knicks. Known for his electrifying style on the court, Davis was a powerful point guard, who won national acclaim for executing in crucial, high-pressure moments, when his team needed him the most. As a businessman, Baron was one of the original investors for Vitaminwater and helped launch Thrive Market.

Baron is also the founder of several companies, including Sports and Lifestyle in Culture (SLIC), The Black Santa Company, Business Inside the Game (BIG) and No Label—each with the objective of combining creative talent with original publication and production to develop and provide educational and empowering stories that appeal to global audiences of all ages.

Baron also served as producer of several acclaimed documentaries including Crips and Bloods: Made In America, 30 for 30: Sole Man, and The Drew: No Excuse, Just Produce. 

Dr Jemma Green is the Chair and a Co-founder of Power Ledger, a leading full stack energy blockchain technology company. She has more than 15 years’ experience in finance and risk advisory, having worked for 11 years as an investment banker in London, where she was chosen to help set up J.P.Morgan’s Global Environment and Social Risk Management Office.

While in the UK she received a master’s degree and two postgraduate diplomas from Cambridge University in sustainability. Upon returning to Perth, she carried out doctoral research into “Citizen Utilities” at Curtin University, that has produced unique insights into the challenges and opportunities for the deployment of roof-top solar PV and battery storage within multi-unit developments and the application of the blockchain.

Alongside her roles as the Chair of Climate-KIC Australia, Founding member of the Global Blockchain Business Council, and contributor to Forbes on blockchain disruption, Dr Jemma Green was recently elected Deputy Lord Mayor of Perth.

Paul is a co-founder and major shareholder in Square Peg Capital which is a venture capital fund focussed on investing in early stage technology companies in Australia, Israel and South East Asia.

Paul is a Commissioner of the Australian Football League (AFL). He is also on the board of Innovation Australia, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Foundation and the P&S Bassat Foundation and served as a director of Wesfarmers from 2012-2018.

He was designated as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum in 2009. Paul co-founded SEEK in 1997 and served as CEO and then as Joint CEO from 1997-2011. SEEK is the world’s largest online employment business and in 13 years went from a start up to one of Australia’s top 100 companies with a market capitalisation of $2.5b. SEEK has operations in numerous markets throughout Australasia, Asia and Latin and South America. SEEK has consistently been ranked as one of Australia’s best employers over the past decade. Paul started his career as a lawyer and practiced for 6 years working on a range of corporate transactions. Paul holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Commerce from The University of Melbourne.

Jessica Alter is an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at Social Capital, a leading venture capital and investment firm. She is also Cofounder and Board Member of Tech for Campaigns, the digital arm for progressive and centrist political candidates. Previously, she was the Cofounder & CEO of FounderDating (acquired by OneVest), the Linkedin for entrepreneurs. Jessica led Business Development and was GM of Platforms at Bebo (acquired by AOL for $850M). She was recently named one Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in business and sits on the board of the A.Alfred Taubman Institute at the University of Michigan. She holds a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from University of Michigan and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Derek Andersen is the co-founder and CEO of Bevy, a SaaS product that helps companies build community in real life. Bevy powers event communities for Salesforce, Atlassian, Asana, Duolingo, and others. Derek co-founded Startup Grind, a community of over 600 Chapters in 120 countries designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. Since 2012 Startup Grind has hosted 7,000 events for more than 250,000 people. In 2010 he co-founded Commonred which was acquired by Income.com. Derek also previously worked at Electronic Arts on games like Burnout and The Sims 3. Derek lives in Palo Alto CA with his wife and four children.

Katherine McConnell is the CEO and Founder of Brighte, a leading Australian fintech that provides a marketplace and on-the-spot finance for home energy improvements.

Before starting Brighte, Katherine worked for 16 years in Investment Banking and Financial Services. Fourteen of those were at Macquarie Bank where she was a founding member of their Australian Energy Leasing business.

Katherine also previously worked as an Economist in the Commonwealth Government’s Department of Finance and as a Policy Analyst at the Federal Treasury.

Katherine has been recognised as Fintech Leader of the Year 2018 (Finnie Awards, Australian Fintech Awards) and her business, Brighte, has also been widely recognised for its success. She holds a BA (Japanese), a BCOMM (Economics and Management) and a Masters of Applied Finance from Macquarie University.

Katherine enjoys spending her free time at home in Sydney with her husband and their two boys. Their house has solar panels and a home battery.

After 15 years hosting some of the biggest TV and Radio shows in the country, Jules Lund has now taken the audacious step of founding his own tech company,

TRIBE. Launched in Nov 2015, TRIBE is a digital marketplace that connects social media influencers with leading brands to transform word of mouth recommendations. Celebrity and everyday influencers who have built audiences around a particular passion or expertise, can now submit and get paid for posts featuring products they already use and love.

In 2013, Jules quickly became obsessed with social media as he led ‘The Fifi & Jules’ Facebook Page to become the most engaged brand-page in the entire country. Jules’ social insights have since made him a unique asset, being invited around the country to present to Australia’s biggest agencies on the power of Social Influencer Marketing.

Grace Wong, CMO

Grace completed a double degree in Law & Commerce at the University of Melbourne, graduating with honours in law. She has 3 years of experience in Commercial & Property

Law, with a deep knowledge on regulation and systems.

Grace founded Liven - the leading app for restaurant discovery, payment and rewards. Browse curated restaurants, cafés, and bars in your city, pay instantly on your phone with a single tap and earn Liven Cash; the universal digital dining currency that you can spend next time you dine, or pass on to a charity of your choosing. With over 700 partnered venues throughout Melbourne and Sydney - Liven supports both local businesses and national names like Gong Cha, Maha, 8bit, Messina, Roll'd, NeNe Chicken and Sumo Salad. Recently having launched an integrated cryptocurrency LivenCoin (LVN) , Liven has allowed for the immediate adoption of Blockchain technology by everyday people - ready for transacting at thousands of partner merchants on day one of implementation.

Grace is the natural spokesperson of Liven, speaking as its representative at local universities, international conferences, and private investor summits. In 2016, Liven was invited as an industry leader to speak at a Parliamentary Inquiry and Grace represented the company as one of the top leaders of startups in Australia. Grace has also won various industry and tech awards including 2018 B&T 30 under 30 and 2018 SmartCompany’s Smart 30 Under 30.

Justin Dry is an Entrepreneur, Investor and Co-Founder + Joint CEO of Vinomofo.

A self-confessed wine-nerd, Justin and his team are driven by the belief that everybody should be able to enjoy good wine.

Justin and his team at Vinomofo are proven game-changers in the wine industry, taking on retail giants and challenging the ‘bowties and snobbery’ of elitist wine snobs, while being committed to doing good in the world. The company has raised over $200,000 AUD for local charities.

Justin was also recently awarded Spotify Young Entrepreneur of the Year at The Australian Startup Awards and named one of the Top 50 People in E-Commerce 2016 by Internet Retailing.

Sam is a Partner at Blackbird Ventures, a technology venture capital fund with around $500m under management. Prior to joining Blackbird she was a founder, a product manager and a lawyer.  

Calvin is a managing partner at E14 Fund the MIT Media Lab early stage deep tech venture fund. E14 helps nurture and scale companies in frontier areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, synthetic biology, sensor innovation, blockchain and more.

Previously he was co-founder and CEO of Transist Impact Labs, an incubator and investor in impact-driven tech startups in China and the US. Earlier Calvin was founder and CEO of Qifang, China's first online student loan service and the first Chinese company recognized by the WEF as a Technology Pioneer. Calvin is a member of the Aspen Institute's inaugural China Fellowship Program, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and served on the WEF Global Agenda Council on Social Innovation. He was named one of Fast Company magazine's 100 Most Creative People In Business for 2011, was named 2009 Chinese Business Leader of the Year by Horasis and Baker & McKenzie, and is a Social Innovation Park Fellow. He has an MBA from TRIUM (NYU, LSE, HEC Paris), a B.A. from Yale University and has also studied social entrepreneurship, global leadership and other management and policy subjects at Harvard University and INSEAD.

Martin is one of the original founders of Redbubble and currently serves as Chief Executive Officer. A creative writer at heart, he started the company in 2006 after he identified a market opportunity for artists to share their creative work with the world in an online marketplace. 

Martin's mission is to make authentic art and design available to everyone, creating a global platform for artists and designers to sell their work more easily and more often. Under Martin's leadership, Redbubble has become one of the world's largest and most diverse online marketplaces, selling work from over 225,000 artists printed on t-shirts, hoodies, canvas prints, posters, stickers, iPhone cases and more. He has in-depth knowledge of the Internet and e-commerce and a love of art. Martin has spent the last six years growing RB globally, crafting the vision and charting the future. Based in Melbourne, Australia, Martin has over 15 years of international management experience with high-growth technology companies.

Eva is General Manager Europe at 99designs, the global creative platform that makes it easy for designers and clients to work together to create designs they love.

Having worked in a number of digital agencies over the years, Eva founded 12designer, a Berlin-based European graphic design marketplace in 2009 and, upon its acquisition by 99designs in August 2012, established 99designs’ European headquarters in Berlin and internationalized 99designs in 6 European languages.  

After studying journalism Ruud Hendriks (1959) started his career as a DJ on board legendary pirate station Radio Caroline. At the age of 20 he got his first opportunity as a TV-reporter and with public broadcaster Veronica. During a 9-year period Ruud anchored many Dutch TV programs mainly on news, current-affairs and sports.

He initiated the first non-stop Newsradio format in the Netherlands and several innovative TV formats.

In the late eighties Ruud became a co-founder of Sky Radio and Radio 10. In 1989 he wrote the business plans for TV stations RTL4 and RTL5 and became their first program director. Under his tenure RTL became the market leading TV broadcaster in the Netherlands.

In 1992 Ruud became President of NBC Europe in Londen and transformed Superchannel into NBC Superchannel and finally into CNBC Europe.

Back in the Netherlands where he became an executive member of TV-production company Endemol Entertainment. When Ruud joined in 1994 the company operated in 3 countries, when he left in 2001 Endemol had subsidiaries in 21 countries. Market value grew from 135 million Euros’ to 5.3 Billion.

During his stint at Endemol he was responsible for all its online activities, international expansion and distribution. Amongst others he developed the online business model for “Big Brother” making Endemol the most profitable online company of the Netherlands in the late nineties. He played a key role in Endemol’s I.P.O, the start of failed sports channel Sport 7, and the 2000 take over of the company by Telefonica from Spain.

After Endemol Ruud accepted several supervisory board positions at Eyeworks TV, Dutch bank Theodoor Gilissen and a member of the advisory boards of BSUR (ad agency), MAS Services, AIMgen (neuromarketing) and Mobitto (mobile sales).

Ruud is a regular speaker about innovation and media at seminars and host of two weekly current-affairs programs at BNR Newsradio.

Ruud is a co-founder of Startupbootcamp Amsterdam and Startupbootcamp Global.

Andrew founded Wrike in 2006 after realizing the challenges organizations faced in scaling due to the limitations of collaborating through email and spreadsheets. His vision became to provide modern work teams with collaboration tools that make them more productive than they thought possible. Since its inception, Andrew has led Wrike from budding startup to one of the fastest growing providers of collaboration and project management solutions. Under his leadership, the company has been consistently recognized for its excellent product, tremendous growth and top-rated work environment. In 2017, Wrike was named one of the fastest growing tech companies in North America by Deloitte for the third straight year and was also tabbed a top workplace by the Bay Area News Group for the third consecutive year. In 2016, the company was named a leader in Enterprise Collaborative Work Management by Forrester Research.

As a business leader, Andrew's insights on entrepreneurship, productivity and the future of work have been featured in leading business publications including Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc Magazine and The New York Times. He also an accomplished speaker, having led talks at numerous business and tech conferences including the Project Management Institute Global Conference, Web Summit, CeBIT and Montgomery Summit.

Omar has a track record of successful venture development and investment in diverse sectors including property, professional services and education with market presence throughout Asia, the United States and Australia.

Having been through financial ruin and depression, with continued challenges of anxiety, Omar’s success - recognised with an ambassadorial role for Global Entrepreneurship Week, the role of Sherpa with the G20 Young Entrepreneur Alliance as well as an Australian 30-under-30 entrepreneurship award - has been the result of concerted effort to operate with self-awareness, purpose and empathy.

Omar now utilises his own stories and experience to work with emerging, senior and executive leaders of organisations from around the world with a consistent focus on human-centred approaches to business.

Lucy is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Airwallex. Previously an investment consultant at the China International Capital Corp (CICC), China's first joint venture investment bank, she is responsible for overseeing the ongoing business operations within Airwallex. After leaving CICC, Lucy was the Director of Hong Stone Investment Development Limited, a Hong Kong based investment company, where she designed and implemented their financial and operational strategy. She co-founded Airwallex in 2015 and was recently named one of Forbes Asia's 30 Under 30, Fintech Australia’s Female Fintech Leader for 2018, and one of Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneurs of the Year.

Adam is VP of Product at Dropbox, where he leads the charge in building products that empower customers to do their best work. He’s spent his career creating and scaling products used by millions of customers, and has held leadership and technical roles at companies including LinkedIn, eBay, and Apple.

Previously, Adam was President and CEO of Wealthfront, a pioneer in automated financial advice. Most recently, he served as executive-in-residence at Greylock, where he worked with portfolio companies on product strategy and growth.

Layne Beachley AO is widely regarded as the most successful female surfer in history. The only surfer, male or female, to claim six consecutive world titles (1998-2003). Layne then went on to win a 7th world title in 2006 before retiring from the ASP World Tour in 2008. 

On Australia Day 2015, Layne was awarded with an Officer of the Order of Australia for her distinguished service to the community through support for a wide range of charitable organisations, as a mentor for women in sport and as a world champion surfer.

Layne achieved yet another first in Australian sport by becoming Surfing Australia's new Chairperson in the latter part of 2015. She is the first former female World Champion of any sport to take on the role in a National Sporting organisation.

Layne is also the proud Founder and Director of her own charity, the Layne Beachley Foundation, Aim For The Stars, empowering and enabling young girls and women to take control of their lives, to invest in their future, fulfill their potential and to put back into the community that supported them on their journey. Her exploits are astounding, her attitude unwavering and her achievements inspirational.

Start Small, Experience Big. Cyan Ta'eed is the Founder of Hey Tiger and the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Envato. Cyan began her career as a graphic designer and in 2006 founded Envato out of her parent's garage. Envato is a creative eco-system, encompassing the largest digital marketplace in the world. Its 7 million members buy and sell digital stock and services, and Envato has delivered over $600 million dollars of earnings to their community of creatives so far.

In 2017, Cyan founded Hey Tiger, a speciality chocolate company based in Melbourne. Each chocolate bar is handmade from quality and ethically sourced ingredients combining surprising and delicious flavours. A passionate social enterprise, Hey Tiger benefits cocoa farming communities in West Africa, where 60% of the world’s cocoa is grown. Cyan is also the founder of New Day Box, an initiative that mobilises the community to make boxes of skincare and cosmetics for women in domestic violence crisis accommodation. Last year New Day Box distributed over 2,000 boxes to women around Victoria.

Cyan was 2015 Telstra Victorian Business Woman of the Year, Australian Financial Review’s 2016 100 Women of Influence Enterprise Winner, and InStyle Magazine’s 2017 Woman of Style, Business Enterprise Category.

“Take a chance, challenge yourself, make an impact. You know more than you think, but you do need to start .”

Paul Ark spent the first half of his career as an investment banker, working on IPOs, acquisitions, and private equity deals for global banks Deutsche Bank and Citigroup in Asia and New York, as well as boutique advisories Tonson Capital and Blackwood Ventures in Southeast Asia. He then transitioned to the world of retail by joining Thailand’s retail conglomerate Central Group, working on regional joint ventures and working on the company’s market entry into China and other Asian markets. He spent several years facilitating Apple Retail’s market entry into Asian markets, opening flagship stores in China, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia, before joining Microsoft and advising on their China retail market entry strategy. Paul is also an active startup mentor and angel investor, having made investments in early-stage companies in the United States, China, and Thailand, and devotes much of his time supporting and developing the Thai startup ecosystem as a Startup Grind chapter director and Seedstars World ambassador for Bangkok. He currently manages the US$100 million corporate venture capital fund for Siam Commercial Bank’s Digital Ventures group, which has made investments across the globe. Paul has studied at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and London Business School.

Fatimah Abbouchi is a successful entrepreneur who has been working in the corporate sector, within the field of Project Management for over 15 years, on portfolios up to $1B, across 16 different industries, globally. Fatimah is founder and CEO of Agile Management Office, an organisation disrupting the status quo with their alternative approach to enterprise governance. Agile Management Office is 100% female led and owned. Since their establishment in 2016, AMO has gained global interest across the United States, United Kingdom, Denmark, Malaysia and the UAE. AMO customers have included ANZ Bank, Coles Group, Airservices Australia, Jetstar, Commonwealth Bank and the Seven Network. Fatimah is writer, speaker and host of the ‘Agile Ideas’ podcast and blog. She has appeared in The Age, Nova100, Latte Magazine, and featured on CIO.com.au in the Business Telegraph UK. She’s also been invited to speak globally at the Aarhus University in Denmark. Fatimah is an avid LinkedIn user and has been named previously as one of the Top 100 LinkedIn Power Profiles. Additionally, Fatimah is a volunteer speaker for beyondblue since 2014, a national organisation that works to raise awareness about anxiety and depression, reduce the associated stigma and encourage people to get help. Since joining, she has volunteered at over 45 events nationally.

Priscilla is head of Virtual Reality for HTC

Australia/New Zealand. In her role, Priscilla

is focused on educating, inspiring and

creating awareness of Virtual Reality and

how this can influence and enhance how we

do things differently in the future.

VIVE is a first-of-its-kind virtual reality

platform developed by HTC and Valve for

total immersion in virtual worlds. Designed

from the ground up for room-scale VR and

true-to-life interactions, VIVE delivers on the

promise of VR with game-changing

technology and best-in-class content. VIVE

has been recognized with over 65 awards

and wide critical acclaim since its unveiling

in 2015. For more information,

visit www.vive.com

Steve Glaveski's mission is to unlock the latent potential of organisations and people to create more impact for humanity and lead more fulfilling lives. He is CEO and Co-Founder of Collective Campus, an innovation accelerator based in Melbourne, Australia with clients across the world. ‍He is the author of the forthcoming Wiley book, Employee to Entrepreneur, which hits bookstores around the world in December 2018, and previously self-published two books, including an Amazon bestseller. Steve co-founded Lemonade Stand - a children's entrepreneurship program, hosts the Apple Podcast charting Future Squared and is a co-founder of Konkrete, a blockchain-enabled fractional property platform.When he's not working, he can be found in the gym, at a heavy metal concert, hiking in the mountains whilst listening to the Joe Rogan Experience, riding his motorbike (or skateboard), reading a book, or doing an occasional bit of what barely qualifies as standup comedy!

As Co-founder and the Head of Conversational Design at inGenious AI, Andi designs and creates chatbots for voice and text-based interactions.

With a growing market emphasis on better, on-demand customer service, the challenges currently being experienced by organisations and their customers can be solved in new ways using organizations technologies such as conversational interfaces, machine learning, and A.I.

Andi is now working on creating engaging, conversational chatbots that solve real problems for users and next-generation. She has designed and built over 100 conversational experiences for some of Australia's biggest brands.

In early 2004, before Facebook and photo-sharing sites, Evgeny Tchebotarev created a community for photographers to meet, share photos and information. He initially developed this on top of a LiveJournal platform and then founded 500px as a company.

As Founder and COO, Chief Product Officer, and later Chief Photography Officer (CPO), Evgeny was responsible for bringing the 500px vision to life through operational excellence, product innovation, community engagement and maintaining a strong link between photographers and 500px team.

Originally from Moscow, Ev has earned a BA in Commerce and Finance from Ryerson University in Toronto, graduating with honours in 2007. He began photography in 2002 and immediately became a fascinated with it when he sold three photos to magazines from his first roll of film. Since then he has spent the entirety of his professional career dedicated to the betterment of visual creativity, focusing on photography and design.

Ev remains an active photographer and community member, and has been honoured to judge many world class photo contests, including Red Bull Illume, Photo Life, and Sony World Photography Awards.

Since 2016, after leaving 500px, Ev travelled to Asia to consult companies, where for 2 years he was focused on helping companies to build Silicon Valley-style product management expertise.

In July 2018, Ev joined Skylum as VP of Growth Asia, applying years of hands-on expertise of working with Asian companies to expand Skylum’s award-winning products to the Asian markets. 

Rachel is the founder of Ingeniousli, a creative tech startup incubated by Aires, an artificial intelligence lab that she also founded. Rachel is also the co-founder of the Australia - Vietnam Leadership Dialogue and was a founding team member at muru-D, the startup accelerator backed by Telstra where she helped to set up muru-D and also led its China strategy. Rachel previously worked at the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance where she worked on the Gonski national education reform, taxi deregulation and Plan Melbourne. She holds a B. Com (Hons) from Monash University and has also studied filmmaking at the Victorian College of the Arts. Rachel is interdisciplinary and enjoys merging art and science to uncover innovative and creative solutions that will have social and cultural impacts. Rachel is an alumni of the Kairos Society, One Young World, the Clinton Global Initiative University and The Oaktree Foundation.

Nadine bio: Following a super slow tech startup fail, like many migrants, Nadine was faced with the realities of what it meant to be different. She stumbled upon the gig economy to make ends meet. Believing in entrepreneurship being the great equaliser, Nadine is now a community leader for Techstars Startup Weekends, organising and facilitating hackathons to help people of all backgrounds realise what they’re capable of. She’s now also using the lessons she’s learnt to build her startup, GiftSkout, which drastically decreases the amount of time spent picking gifts by providing fewer but smarter options.

Rohit is a founder, content creator and growth marketing expert. He was previously the Co-Founder & CEO of StageLabel where he helped launch and grow +150 brands globally. He now hosts The Startup Playbook Podcast and helps startups and organisations optimise and scale growth as the Director of Playbook Media.

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Rohit is a founder, content creator and growth marketing expert helping startups and businesses accelerate growth through his agency Playbook Media. His podcast (The Startup Playbook Podcast) hit No.3 on iTunes 3 days after launching and has published over 90 interviews with leading founders, investors and experts from Australia and overseas.

As the former Co-founder and CEO of StageLabel Rohit helped launch and grow 150+ brands globally. StageLabel was named as one of the top 10 startups to watch in 2014, alongside successful startups such as Canva, Pocketbook and Adioso.

Mandy Drury has a 20 year career working at the pinnacle of global business. She has worked extensively with leading television networks CNBC, Bloomberg TV, NBC, MSNBC and Australia's Channel 7. Her show anchor credits include Streets Signs, Power Lunch, Squawk Box, The Call, CNBC's Cashflow, Generation-e, Power Pitch, Trading the Globe, Business Centre Australia and MarketWatch, and contributor credits include NBC's Today Show, E! News, Channel 7 Sunrise, Jansing & Co, NBC Nightly News, The Rundown with Jose Diaz-Balart and many more. She was twice nominated as "Best News Anchor" at the Asian Television Awards. Mandy has interviewed political and business heavyweights such as Rupert Murdoch, President Donald Trump, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Mitt Romney, Jamie Dimon, T Boone Pickens, Bill Ackman, Ban Ki Moon and John McCain as well as Australian politicians such as Wayne Swan, Paul Keating, John Hewson and Joe Hockey. She has built ongoing relationships with many of them. Mandy has also worked extensively in the Asia-Pacific arena, interviewing and working with Prime Ministers, CEOs and finance ministers.

•Proven Entrepreneur & Visionary for 15+ years

•Previous Successful Exits

•Winner of Australian Entrepreneur of the Year Under the Age of 30 (2008)

•Winner of Australian Pet Product of the Year (2006)

•Winner of New Inventors, People’s Choice Award (2006)

•Australian Institute of Export - TOP 50 (2007)

•International Design Award (2008)

•Proven Leadership to Teams in 88+ Global Markets (2004 - Current)

•Proven in Formulating Business Plans, Unique Positioning & Product-To-Market Strategy.

•Proven in Creating & Delivering World Class User Experiences & Products

•Experienced in Leading, Motivating & Mentoring Team Members

•Experienced in Growing a Business from Concept to Commercialization

•Winner of Best Overall Mobile Application (USA, 2015)

•Winner of Melbourne Design Awards (2018)

•Winner of Westpac Business of Tomorrow (2018)

My friends and family say I'm cursed with ambition, afflicted with initiative, dammed by an unquenchable drive for success and more! But that’s not my fault; I was merely born with and molded by my father’s highly successful entrepreneurial flair and zest for concept creation.

I visualize, map, create & deliver on everything I promise... with passion & integrity.

Marisa is a global start-up advisor, investor, entrepreneur and speaker, who is incredibly passionate about elevating women to higher levels and building a collaborative tech ecosystem. As an entrepreneur, Marisa has built three global businesses from idea stage to revenue producing, and worked in Australia and New York for companies such as SAP, Microsoft and Workday.

Whilst living in New York, Marisa founded ELEVACAO a global not for profit empowering women entrepreneurs to build and launch successful tech businesses. Since ELEVACAO’s launch mid 2015, we've helped over 120 women get pitch ready for investment funding across San Francisco, New York, Sydney and Melbourne. A 2016 alumni company is currently preparing for IPO in 2019.

Casey is a serial entrepreneur who Cofounded and grew Couchsurfing.com to a community of more than 15 million members. He founded Upstock - a way to modernise the antiquated stock option system by offering a replacement that is simple, fair and inspiring to everyone. He has also built Wonder, a 360 peer feedback app and Mastly, equity as a service. Justin has a passion for building talented, diverse teams and bringing groundbreaking ideas to life.

Blake Hutchison is the CEO at Flippa. The business is on a turnaround mission, repositioning itself as a marketplace to buy and sell businesses. Prior to Flippa Blake built Luxury Escapes working directly for the founders. Blake was pivotal in building Luxury Escapes into the business it is today -- a $300 million luxury travel retailer. Blake has also worked at Xero on the Australian leadership team, he founded a marketplace for Australian specialty goods and worked in the startup scene based in San Francisco. 

Simon Hudson is the Founder & CEO of Cheeze,

Inc - a technology company that owns the Family

Sharing app, Privy.

Prior to founding Cheeze, Simon was the CEO of

tech startup Brndstr based out of Dubai. Over the

past 6 years, Hudson has become a key figure in

the Dubai Startup scene, he was the 12th Chapter

Director for Startup Grind launching the Dubai

Chapter in 2012.

Sheree Rubinstein is on a mission to put Australia on the map as the number one destination in the world to be a female entrepreneur. Former corporate lawyer Sheree is the Founder and CEO of One Roof, Australia's leading co-working space dedicated to women-led businesses. One Roof is currently home to 85 women-led small businesses and startups. So much more than a co-working space, One Roof provides everything women need to succeed in business all under one roof. Sheree has been recognised as an expert on curating environments and programs dedicated to women and regularly speaks on the topic of female entrepreneurship and women in co-working. Sheree is a 2018 AFR 100 Women of Influence, 2017 Telstra Business Women's Award Finalist in the Entrepreneur Category, was awarded the 2016 Victorian Young Achiever's Leadership Award and is on the board of the Victorian Women's Trust.

Tim Reed joined MYOB in 2003, and was appointed CEO in 2008 after holding several senior management roles in the business. He’s passionate about the potential of digital technology to transform society and help businesses succeed. Tim has overseen MYOB’s transformation to become a modern tech company that delivers innovative accounting and business management tools to more than 1.2m businesses across Australia and New Zealand. His previous career spans Asia, Europe, the United States and Australia and prior to joining MYOB, Tim worked in Silicon Valley for several companies in the fast-paced global technology and internet markets. Tim is an engaging leader who reflects on and discusses how artificial intelligence, automation and the changing nature of work are revolutionising the face of business. He is an active member of Male Champions of Change and believes in harnessing the power of diverse and supportive workplaces to drive innovation. He sits on the board of the Business Council of Australia and chairs the BCA Innovation TaskForce, responsible for advocating an effective innovation system and promoting the productivity and competitiveness of Australian industry. Tim received his MBA from Harvard University, graduating as a Baker’s Scholar, and holds a BCom degree from the University of Melbourne, graduating with First Class Honours.

Co-founder and CEO of Weploy, Tony Wu has worked in business development and relationship management roles at Michael Page and Telstra, but his true passion has always been entrepreneurship. While studying the Bachelor of Business Entrepreneurship at RMIT, he experimented in projects ranging from marketing and brand consultancy to entertainment and fashion. In 2013 Tony was selected for StartUpSmart’s Future Makers list of young entrepreneurs under 25. When Tony isn’t working or out trekking with his life partner, Ly Nguyen, he is training in his other passion, Brazilian jiu-jitsu. His self-motivation and passion for innovation combined with his recruitment experience makes him a driving force behind the success of Weploy

Justin Wu is a growth marketer & Information Architect. He is a Cofounder of Blocknauts, a blockchain growth advisory & media group, Cofounder of BlockchainNW, Seattle's First Blockchain Conference. Justin is a keynote speaker & advisor for over 12+ blockchain companies from tokens to apps. Focused on building community, branding and growth. He’s been featured on Wall St Journal, NASDAQ, and Entrepreneur.

Judy is an outstanding leader who is driving, and strengthening the startup community in her role as Startup Victoria CEO spent her whole life creating more innovators and better innovators, Judy now spends her time creating more founders and better founders, engaging deeply with Victoria’s startup community and leading the organisation’s new strategic direction to support founders throughout the state.

Judy has built a reputation as a world-class thought leader and keynote speaker on all things innovation. Before joining Inventium, she managed the National Innovation Program for Deloitte Australia, helping people to tackle client challenges, generate creative solutions and ultimately capture the value being created in the market. Judy is now the CEO of Startup Victoria, a not-for-profit, membership-based organiser of the biggest startup events in Australia. Startup Vic’s community numbers more than 15,000+ practising and aspiring startup founders. Judy's focus is on helping Victoria become a world-class startup ecosystem. As an entrepreneur at heart, Judy is also working on 2 startups of her own. If you buy her a whisky - she'll tell you all about them!

David Swan is a tech reporter for The Australian. With deep experience across start-ups, business and tech David is uniquely positioned to cover Australia’s fast-growing technology ecosystem and how it’s changing how we work, live and play. David writes regular features and regularly appears on TV and radio.

Jason is the Chief of Staff at YBF Ventures and a YBF Board Member. Over his last six years with YBF Ventures, he has been an investor and advisor to startups. He is an alumnus of the Melbourne Accelerator Program.

Dr Annie McAuley is an experienced researcher and manager, plus mother of two remarkable children. Annie founded TalkiPlay to engage her youngest child in early speech development. Annie applied her medical science PhD research background with her own experience of language loss following an earlier traumatic brain injury – to change the way we interconnect with language literacy, to improve the educational outcome for the 1 in 5 preschool children struggling with speech delay – so children like her daughter can thrive.

TalkiPlay technology transforms the home and classroom into language playgrounds with interactive talking objects – to make learning speech fun for children and simple for parents.

Dr Annie McAuley created TalkiPlay to engage her youngest child in early speech development to build her confidence in communication. Annie applied her medical science PhD research background with her own experience of language loss following an earlier traumatic brain injury - to create a learning experience that empowers self-confidence for children to accelerate theirl anguage through interactive play!

Brendan is an experienced technology entrepreneur and mentor. Founder of ShopFree.com back in 1999 and RecipeLover in 2004, he has spent a career in technology startups.

Brendan currently is APAC Director of cloud email provider SendGrid. He is also an ambassador and pitch coach for Rise (Hong Kong) and Web Summit (Lisbon), Director of Startup Grind in Sydney and is the Entrepreneur in Residence for the Qantas Avro Accelerator. 

Venessa Paech is an internationally regarded online community manager and strategist. Previous roles include Head of Community for Lonely Planet, Senior Manager for Community and Content Strategy at REA Group, Global Marketing and Communications Manager for Envato, Community Manager at Australia Post and Managing Editor for Arts Hub. Currently she is Director of Marketing and Community for Aussie edtech startup EdSmart.

In 2009 Venessa founded the Australian Community Manager Roundtables which in 2011 grew into Swarm, Australia’s annual conference for community pros. She co-founded the Australian Community Managers network (ACM), which hosts a 4000+ strong Facebook group, produces the annual career survey for Australian community managers, and the national Community Management Code of Ethics. Venessa is a founding member of the Global Community Management Leadership Group (with fellow community leaders from five nations), and is working locally with industry, government and researchers to grow and mature community management in the region.

Venessa developed and is teaching the first tertiary online community management unit at the University of Sydney, launching in Jan 2019. She is a published academic and is currently working on automation, AI, and online communities. She is passionate about start-up culture and is an angel investor, with a focus on social purpose and technology-for-good ventures.

Dr Claire Jenkins is a life-long animal lover, a passionate problem solver and co-founder and

CEO of Vetchat.

Having spent the past 15 years caring for animals as a neighbourhood vet in Melbourne,

Sydney and the United Kingdom, Claire was frustrated by one recurring problem. Every day,

all over the world, people put off bringing their pet to the vet, concerned about wasting time or

money if their animal is just having a bad day. Too often this results in more intensive treatments

or, in the worst cases, the loss of a beloved furry friend.

So Claire created VetChat to allow pet owners to have quick and easy access to qualified

veterinarians. 

Chairman of Tinjoy Health Group, Yuelin Liu graduated from Tsinghua University EMBA. He is the Executive Director of the China Overseas Chinese Merchants Association, Executive Vice President of Shaanxi Overseas Chinese Merchants Association, and Chairman of Shenzhen One Belt and One Road Investment Development Group. He started his business in 2007 and has made great advances in the industry many times. In 2015, he was awarded the title of ͞Outstanding Young Entrepreneur͟ by Zhang Sujiu, the Honorary Chairman of the American Chinese Association Union.

Zoë Condliffe is the CEO & Founder of She’s A Crowd - building a global dataset of stories about

sexual assault and gender-based violence. She is a PhD Candidate at Monash University’s

XYX Lab, researching the digital democratisation of the female narrative. She is one of the 2018

Women’s Weekly Women of the Future for the Innovation and Technology category and her

company is listed as number seven on Smart Company’s Smart 30 list. Zoë was named one of

the Top 100 most influential, creative and provocative people in Melbourne by The Age when

she was 21. She then went on to co-found international development projects, consult in the

social enterprise space and gain a Master of Community Cultural Development.

Zoë is a gender equality advocate with a background in international development, project

management and building youth-led social change movements. She has worked on building

digital solutions for social problems within the international development sphere. As an artist she

creates work that centres around female collective storytelling as healing from gender-based

violence. She is a Young Social Pioneer with the Foundation for Young Australians, a fellow of

the Oaktree Leader’s Trust, alumni of the Global Engagement Summit, and the winner of Anthill

Magazine’s 30under30 young entrepreneurs award.

Danielle Owen Whitford is a former Business Executive that moved into the world of startup in 2018. A boundary pusher throughout her career, Danielle has constantly challenged the notion of “we can’t do it differently, so we live with what we have”.

Pioneera, is an AI platform using natural language processing and machine learning to predict and prevent workplace stress. A suite of tools using data to reduce stress and promote wellness, including an AI buddy called Indie, to help you manage 

Danielle is also the founder and CEO of Execs with Soul – working with people and organisations to help bring the soul back into businesses and improve business success.

In 2018, Danielle was a part of SheStarts’ second cohort of founders where she’s using technology and curiosity to create a new normal. Danielle founded Pioneera to tackle the crippling issue of workplace stress, using the simplest of approaches – our words and behaviour.

Willix born and raised in Medan, He graduated as Valedictorian (Top of his class) from Melbourne University in Bachelor of Engineering (Mechatronics) and Bachelor of Computer Science. He recently completed an executive degree from Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He spent the last 14 years in Australia. He has now returned to Indonesia to the growth of Indonesia's digital landscape through Bukalapak.

As a nation's largest online marketplace, Bukalapak has an active role in the advancement of the national e-commerce industry through the empowering of Small to Medium Enterprises(SMEs). Previously, Willix was the Senior Vice President of Growth in Freelancer.com, a company based in Sydney, Australia. As a second in charge at Freelancer.com, Willix oversaw all revenue, product management, engineering, data science, and talent and customer operations of the business.

As a Communications Specialist Selina finds and shares unique stories that draw people in. Working in tech often involves putting concepts in plain language for a non-tech audience. With a background in both internal and external communications, Selina creates strong and meaningful relationships to drive the best outcome for all parties. Her work has involved uniting geographically dispersed teams and lifting the reputation of companies both locally and internationally.

Roop an experienced entrepreneur with nearly 20 years of experience in Customer Engagement, New Product Development, Product Management, Digital Media and New Venture Creation. His involvement with startups has had a big role to play in achieving this diversity. He has designed and built products for the advertising, classifieds, education and recruitment sectors and has led 20-30 person technical and design teams to achieve these outcomes.  He has worked in Australia, US, Denmark, India, Indonesia and Singapore where he has acquired and managed clients as well as vendors. Having been an entrepreneur more than once, he also possesses a strong understanding of corporate structure, team building and intellectual property. He has capital raising experience as well, raising more than US$2 M in funding across his entrepreneurial stints. He has been working in the Customer Engagement space over the past few years and has been using a combination of Customer Interaction and Engagement Data to build and deliver Smart Automation - Digital Marketing without the D-I-Y element (Check out his current company, https://www.engag3d.com). This work relates back to his Doctoral research in developing the core idea of the Customer Engagement Journey.

William founded Liven,

the rewards-based lifestyle payment platform, while working full time as a commercial lawyer, where he spent 6 years in commercial law and consulted for hundreds of restaurateurs, garnering deep insights into the hospitality industry. He has spoken as a thought leader for reputable institutions such as the Government of Victoria, General Assembly, and Mayfair 101 and was included in the SmartCompany Smart 30 Under 30 (2018).

Liven currently has over 400,000 users and more than 1000 venues in Melbourne and Sydney.

As Director for Australia & NZ at Zendesk, Rod is responsible for working with customers to transform their digital customer experience. Rod’s experience of the 18+ years includes regional & local executive positions with Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Accenture, Salesforce.com, SAP and Microsoft, where he helped many retail and eCommerce customers across the A/NZ and APAC region.

Rod is an Advisory Board member at Synetek Systems and Tailored Prestige Wines and is a Non-Executive Director of Katydid Consulting. Rod is passionate about the Startup community being an Advisor to The Bakehouse Incubation lab and an investor in several Local/Regional SaaS companies.