Meet The Entrepreneur

State of Play

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Meet the Entrepreneur is our semi-annual speaker series which is co-sponsored and hosted by Ernst & Young at their Sydney CBD office. 

This professional networking event features a moderated panel discussion between industry experts on a chosen topic.  After the discussion, a Q&A session winds up the formal part of the evening.

 Hosted networking occurs both before and after the discussion.

This event's theme will be State of Play - What are the myths and realities about the VC industry in Australia, how does it compare to the rest of the world, and does the quality of entrepreneurship and innovation in Australia "stack up"?

Does Australia have enough critical mass to be a world leader in innovation? Are we creative enough, do we have a big enough appetite for risk, or are we just gamblers? Come hear our panel of venture capitalists, innovators, and entrepreneurs discuss this topic guided by the expert moderation of noted journalist Valerie Khoo.

Please join us for a lively discussion!

Panellists will be:

 

Melissa Widner - General Partner at SeaPoint Ventures

Melissa is the cofounder of 7Software, an enterprise software company providing web-based applications for corporate e-procurement. As CEO, Melissa managed the company from inception to a successful acquisition by Concur Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: CNQR), resulting in a 10X return to investors. Previously, Melissa was the CEO of Northwest Supply, an industrial products manufacturer and distributor, where she managed the company to an acquisition, resulting in a 15X return to investors.

She was the founder and President of the Northwest Chapter of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and a member of the board of the Alliance of Angels. Melissa served as a lecturer at the University of Washington's Graduate School of Business where she taught courses on venture capital and entrepreneurship. Melissa is a founding member of the Sydney Angels, a group focused on investments in early stage companies.

She is an active angel investor, who has structured and led financing rounds for technology and consumer goods focused companies. Melissa served as a board director on several US based venture backed technology companies as well as a director on the University of Washington, Bothell's Business School Advisory Board. Melissa holds a Masters degree from Stanford University and a Bachelor's degree from the University of Washington. Melissa relocated to Sydney in 2009.

Gary Zamel - Managing Director of Latitude Investments Pty Ltd

Gary Zamel graduated from the University of NSW in Mining Engineering in 1975.  He spent nine years with Voest Alpine Austria, a steel, mining and tunneling technology start-up in Australia.  He has since founded a number of companies in the mining industry.  These companies have included Mine Site Technologies Pty Ltd, Jellinbah Resources, operating a coal mine in the East Bowen Basin, Queensland anduy78 Pacific Tunneling.

He has been involved with Ringwood Superabrasives Pty Ltd as a Director and venture capital investor.  He was a venture capital investor in Benthic Geotech Pty Ltd, a remote offshore drilling technology company, and in ZORK Pty Ltd, an Adelaide-based firm that has developed new wine closure technology.  Gary Zamel is a member of the University of NSW Minerals Industry Advisory Council.

 Gary has recently established Nubian Water Systems Pty Ltd to focus on solutions for water recycling and purification.  Nubian has finalised the commercialisation of a unique grey water recycling appliance which will be marketed across the globe.

 With a desire to assist in the formation of the next generation of entrepreneurial engineers/scientists with commercialization skills, Gary is a major contributor to the establishment of the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UNSW.

 

Adrian Bunter – Director at Posse, Director at Hall Capital Strategies Pty Ltd

Adrian has over 16 years experience in providing consulting, due diligence, audit, taxation and corporate finance experience to private, listed and public sector clients. This experience has covered businesses across a wide range of industries.

Prior to joining Hall Capital, Adrian was a Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Private Clients and then Mergers & Acquisitions groups. Adrian has had significant experience in advising clients on commercial, business management and strategic issues covering all facets of their business. Adrian has strong skills in looking at business and operational issues faced by clients, whilst ensuring the financial and value building requirements of the client are met.

Adrian's mergers and acquisition and other corporate finance transaction experience has covered the full spectrum of business life cycles ranging from early stage start-up companies, through to business expansion and ultimately to the final business sale. Generally, Adrian has worked on transactions ranging in value from several million dollars to $150m+.

In addition to having been involved in over 30 acquisition or sale transactions, Adrian has also provided advice and guidance to many more companies about growth strategies. Adrian has undertaken significant early stage, high growth and commercialisation work with clients over many years, is an investor and mentor to early stage businesses and also sits on the management committee of Sydney Angels.

Adrian's consulting and advisory experience is balanced from also having worked directly inside commercial environments having completed several medium term secondments in large organisations assisting with special projects including acquisitions, divestments and restructuring.

Adrian is a graduate of the University of Technology, Sydney, with a Bachelor of Business and has also completed a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance (Corporate Finance) with FINSIA/Kaplan. He is a Chartered Accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia, and a Senior Associate of the Financial Services Institute of Australia.

Benjamin Ranck – CEO, All Over Geo

Benjamin brings more than 10 years of commercial experience in both development and management based roles. He returns to Australia after 5 years in the United States which included acting as CTO and co-founding a data-mining technology company, ChatterSpike Inc. Benjamin's international experience, spans both technology startups and Fortune 100 and 500 companies. His most recent venture, All Over Geo, which he co-founded in 2009 brought innovative iPhone and iPad software to the construction industry. He is passionate about high-growth entrepreneurship and believes strongly in technology and innovation.  Benjamin is currently working on bringing the Founder Institute to Sydney, a pre-seed incubator program designed to globalise silicon-valley and help budding entrepreneurs build meaningful and enduring technology companies.

Peter Gray – Senior Manager, Australian Technology Showcase

Following a degree in Architecture at Sydney University, Peter Gray started his first business, Boomwalla P/L, in 1977, selling printed T-Shirts at Paddington Markets .  Over the next 15 years, the company grew to be one of the largest textile printers in Australia.  But with the dismantling of tariff protection for the clothing industry, a staff of 30, a factory full of equipment and a diminishing client base, he needed  to move from a bespoke service to designing his own products.

 So in 1992 he started ISC, designing and producing licenced sportswear for the Sydney 2000 Olympics, the ACB, the AFL and the NRL.  With a staff of 70, an eight-figure turnover and a disagreeable bank manager, he sold both businesses in a trade sale in 2000.  Peter then took a position as NSW Manager of Software Engineering Australia, a Federal government initiative supporting process improvement in the Australian Software industry.  In 2002 he established Fairly Big Ideas, a management consultancy assisting SMEs .   In 2005 he joined the NSW Department of State and Regional Development, taking on management of the Australian Technology Showcase in 2007.  In 2009, he developed a complementary program, supporting innovative technology: the Innovation Pathways Program.

Meet the Moderator:

Valerie Khoo is a journalist and small business commentator who writes predominantly for Fairfax. She is also founder and managing director of the Sydney Writers’ Centre in Milsons Point, Australia's leading centre for writing training.  Last year, the Sydney Writers' Centre was a winner in the NSW Telstra Business Awards.  In 2009, it was named by Dell as one of the 10 most innovative small businesses in Australia. Valerie's popular Enterprise blog appears in smh.com.au, theage.com.au, watoday.com.au and brisbanetimes.com.au.

Valerie regularly moderates and hosts business events and panels around the country.

 Please join us for a lively discussion!

 Thanks to our generous sponsors, we are able to offer this event for free!

CIE Sponsors: 

Thank you for your attention, and please join us in the CBD for this event!

Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Australian School of Business
UNSW Kensington
www.cie.unsw.edu.au
cie@unsw.edu.au
+61 2 9385 9730

Register Now!