Business Adviser, Western Australia

With more than 20 years of senior experience in marketing and operational management within large international organisations, Gabor has amassed a wealth of experience and competencies in developing and implementing integrated growth strategies for both revenue and profitability. In the past seven years he has applied his business planning and hands-on skills to assisting SMEs in food, agribusiness, manufacturing, and services to mining sectors, helping them to build resilience and internal capabilities, profit from growth opportunities and weather downturns.

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Innovation Facilitator, Western Australia

Ken has extensive business experience in operations and commercial roles as well as public sector advisory roles in the UK and Australia. He has worked with a boutique UK intellectual property firm helping companies identify, protect and exploit their intangible assets, and was part of a team delivering IP backed finance for high growth companies for a major UK clearing bank. He has spent many years in commercialisation roles including overseas business development, technology acquisitions and university spin-outs.

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Innovation Facilitator, New South Wales

Mary has worked in the SME and university environment in water recycling, analytical mining services, IT, medical devices, biotech, silica components for the electronics industry, marketing and finance analytics. Her business experience has been in the establishment, construction and operation of USFDA manufacturing facilities for the export market. She has worked as a catalyst, facilitator and champion of applied academic research for a number of years.

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Innovation Facilitator, New South Wales

Gary has two decades’ experience at the nexus of industry, academia and government, facilitating the commercialisation of corporate and academic research. With a background in photonics and laser engineering, his product management activity has led to new photonics and sensing products, services and processes in Environmental, Life Science, Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Military applications. He co-founded a fibre photonics company and grew it to over £1M GBP of bootstrapped sales in four years. Gary has worked in the Scottish Government's economic development agency, where he implemented a technology transfer scheme designed to encourage early stage interactions between companies and academics. He is a former consultant to the international Society for Photonics Instrumentation Engineers and council member for the Scottish Optoelectronics Association.

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Innovation Facilitator, Victoria and Tasmania

Jim works with SMEs to generate IP for the creation of profits and jobs, using skills developed over a career that saw him enter business at an early age. Since 2008, he has also supported a Papua New Guinea NGO, while his overseas experience includes time in the US teaching at Chicago’s DePaul University, part of a team driving an instruments start-up firm in North Carolina, and living in Ghana and travelling parts of West Africa.

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Business Adviser, Western Australia

Don has performed more than 200 business evaluations across Western Australia. He has a general management background, having held senior positions in both large corporates and SMEs, giving him relevant experience in manufacturing, food processing, exporting, running co-operatives, and operating and marketing service providers on a B2B and B2C basis. Specific experiences include leadership and people management; strategic development; performance management; budgeting; tendering; costing; implementation of systems and procedures; directorship and the efficient running of boards; and facilitating to family business.

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Innovation Facilitator, South Australia

Andrew has participated in collaborations between SMEs and research organisations in many different roles: as a postdoctoral researcher on a linkage project, as a researcher in industry coordinating projects with academic partners, and as a Director in a start-up company that successfully licensed IP to a major whitegoods manufacturer. Originally studying optoelectronics and laser engineering, Andrew moved into fundamental research in biophysics before returning to applied research in the field of optical sensing; here he gained experience of sensor development, early phase prototyping, and project management. Facilitating connections between SMEs and the research community is aided by the 3 years Andrew spent in technical sales of scientific equipment within Australia, wherein Andrew became familiar with the research capabilities of a broad section of the Australian research community. As an innovation facilitator in South Australia, Andrew is passionate about providing opportunities for SMEs and PFROs to collaborate for impactful outcomes.

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Digital Solutions Adviser, South Australia

Jeff has over 30 years of IT consulting experience, working with clients across many industry sectors in Australia and New Zealand. Specialising in solving complex supply chain problems, he has worked for SME businesses as well as large corporates to put together workable software solutions that help make businesses more competitive. With the ability to translate complex IT concepts in to understandable business language, Jeff has helped many enterprises improve their business processes and deliver value through intelligent selection and implementation of software systems. Prior to joining Business Foundations, Jeff worked in a range of organisations including enterprise software vendors, State Government, packaged software resellers, and software development houses. His background includes roles in software development, systems analysis and design, package software implementation, customer support, software selection advice and in-house I.T. Manager.

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Business Adviser, Western Australia

Yonca is a business advisor with extensive international organisational development, leadership and consulting experience. Yonca has significant experience in business strategy, human resources transformation, operational reviews and change management with constant focus on business improvement. She has worked across the resources, health, utilities and public sectors in Australia and Europe.

An engaging business consultant and advisor, Yonca is passionate about developing an organisation’s capability to execute its strategy, transform and continuously improve ways of working. Yonca is a published author in her areas of expertise.

Yonca holds a MSc in Human Resource Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science, has a BSc in Geology from the Technical University of Istanbul and a Doctoral degree from the University of Leicester School of Education.

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Digital Solutions Adviser, Queensland

Tyson is a digital native. He co-founded an interactive digital agency in his early 20’s, servicing a range of clients in Defence, Government and Private sectors.

Tyson has also co-founded a number of technology startups, predominately focused on platform development and B2B cloud based Software as a Service (SaaS) products - currently serving as the co-founder and CEO of Carisma.io.

Tyson has a particular passion for facilitating connections between Australian start-ups and SMEs - helping businesses navigate a complex environment of ever-evolving tools and software packages. He believes it’s incredibly rewarding to see the collision of new ideas between young, nimble teams and the organisations with the experience and resources to execute project plans at greater scale.

Tyson has a Bachelor of Business (Advertising) / Bachelor of Creative Industries (Communication Design). He has tutored Marketing at QUT and combines this theoretical understanding of marketing principles with the tools increasingly available in a rapidly changing digital landscape.

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