COMMERCIALISATION ADVISORY BOARD (CAB) BOARD MEMBER PROFILES OFFICE OF IP COMMERCIALISATION
Commercialisation Advisory Board (CAB) The CAB provides IP Commercialisation with advice and guidance for all stages of the commercialisation lifecycle. The Board evaluates all commercialisation projects and approves Kickstart investments. The Board consists of 11 members, comprising five external appointments and six members of Curtin staff. The current members of the board are listed below. Mr Larry Lopez Mr Larry Lopez, Principal Consultant and Co-Manager of Perth based Australian Venture Consultants (AVC), Chairman AVC is a management consulting firm providing strategic and advisory services to the global innovation industry. AVC's primary focus is working with clients to develop strategies to create commercial outcomes from the development of intellectual property. AVC is the exclusive Australian advisor for SVB Financial Group. Before moving to Australia in 2006, Lopez spent 17 years at SVB Financial Group, a publicly traded US bank holding company (NASDAQ: SIVB). During his tenure at SVB, he played a key role in growing the company from a small San Jose, California based community bank to a global leader in providing financial services for knowledge based companies. Prior to his retirement from SVB in 2006, Lopez was Managing Director, Private Equity Services, at SVB Capital, the venture capital and private equity arm of SVB Financial Group. SVB Capital manages a fund complex with over US$1.5 billion in committed capital. Lopez was President of SVB Private Bank and Woodside Asset Management, the company's private banking and wealth management divisions. He was also Managing Director of SVB Securities, a corporate and institutional asset management company with US$8.5 billion under management. Lopez was the Co-Founder and Managing Director of SVB's International Venture Capital Group, where he was responsible for the Bank's offshore venture capital investments and working with foreign venture capitalists, investors and businesses to facilitate venture backed foreign technology and life science companies enter the United States market. Larry currently serves on a number of VC advisory boards and is an active member of several non-profit boards. Mr Paul M Cheever Mr Paul M Cheever, Paul Cheever Consulting Over the past 38 years, Paul Cheever has held senior executive positions in merchant banking, banking, resources, investment and strategic consulting organisations, including senior finance roles in two top twenty Australian listed companies. He has often been associated with innovation, first in the 1970s and 1980s in connection with developments in Australian and global financial markets, and in this decade in the building of Australia's largest institutional venture capital portfolio. Recognition of his knowledge and experience has led to his past appointment as Chair of the Regulatory Committee of the Alternative Investment Management Association and Chair of the superannuation industry's Best Practice Committee. During the latter tenure, he led the development of ASFA's Risk Management Papers, which have received wide acclaim. Paul has been heavily involved in venture capital over the past 9 years, evaluating venture managers, designing and executing a venture co-investment program and building commercialisation relationships. He is recognised as the designer of today's new Commercialisation Collaborations which have brought long term institutional capital together with the new life science and other technologies emerging from Australia's leading Universities and Medical Research Institutes.
Paul holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Washington & Lee University, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Michigan and is a Fellow of FINSIA. Mr Michael A Quinn Mr Michael A Quinn, Innovation Capital Michael established Innovation Capital in 1999. He has been responsible for building the Innovation Capital team, and he has been involved in all strategic decisions relating to the firm. Michael's operational expertise has been central to the rapid development of Fund I's Investees. In 1983, Michael cofounded Memtec Limited which was acquired by US Filter in 1997 for US$400 million. At that time, Memtec was a world leader in advanced filtration technology, with 2000 employees and manufacturing plants in Australia, the US, and Europe. His experience also encompasses a broad range of other industries including banking, high technology plastics and medical device industries in Europe and Australia. Michael has advised and mentored numerous companies in operational, strategic and financial matters. As an executive and director he has participated in ASX, AIM, NASDAQ and NYSE listings. Since 1992, Michael has been a director of ResMed Inc (NYSE:RMD), a leading manufacturer and worldwide marketer of respiratory and sleep disordered breathing products for the home health care market. He is Chair of the audit committee. Michael is Chairman of the New South Wales Entrepreneurship Centre Ltd and a director of the Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering, a not-for-profit foundation at Sydney University. Both of these organisations are sources of deal flow. Michael holds a BSc in physics, BEc in economics and operations research, both from the University of Western Australia, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Mr Bill Tai Mr Bill Tai, Partner Charles River Ventures Bill Tai is a leading venture capitalist and sponsored athlete in kiteboarding. He has funded more than a dozen startups that grew to become public companies, serving on the Board of Directors of 7 publicly listed companies that emerged from his portfolio. He is currently Chairman of Maxthon Inc and Treasure DataBill is an active Angel Investor having personally funded companies such as Tweetdeck / Twitter, Tango.me, Treasure Data, Miselu, and VideoEgg (SayMedia). He is a partner of several funds at Charles River Ventures where he represents CRV on the board of Glyde, Maxthon and Scribd. Prior to establishing CRV's Silicon Valley office, Bill co-founded IPInfusion as Executive Chairman, Founded iasiaworks as Chairman and CEO, and founded Tradebeam as President. As an Olympic Ambassador for the International Kiteboarding Association, Bill was part of the campaign that earned kiteboarding a spot in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Along with pro kiteboarder Susi Mai, Bill also established the "MaiTai", a high profile annual networking event on Maui bringing together industry leading tech startup founders with pro kiters from around the world. With an MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Bill has also been named Adjunct Professor of Innovation at Curtin University in Australia. Bill has embraced Australia's progressive start up industry (as well as some of the world's best kiteboarding conditions) having funded companies here such as Bubble Gum interactive, Posse.com, Pygg.co, and Shoes of Prey.
Mr David Henderson Mr David Henderson, Abernethy Henderson Investments Pty Ltd David is a non executive director and an angel investor with more than 30 years experience in technology transfer, new venture establishment, marketing and the growth of technology-based businesses. Most recently, he was Managing Director of UniQuest Pty Ltd, the commercialisation company for the University of Queensland, 3 other universities and 3 public sector research organisations. During his tenure, UniQuest established some 70 start-ups and the portfolio raised over $500 million of investment and grants. Global sales of products that use technologies licensed by UniQuest now exceed $3 billion per year, and the company grew to be one of the largest university technology transfer operations in the world. Prior to joining UniQuest, David managed high- growth software companies in the USA and Australia, consulted for a number of globally recognised companies with Booz Allen and McKinsey, and established an export centre for Queensland Information Technology and Communications firms, which supported a tripling of exports over three years. David has a Bachelor of Engineering from The University of Queensland and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is an experienced director and has been on the Boards of a number of venture capital- backed companies, including two which moved to the USA, and Australia's largest biotech IPO to date. Professor Graeme Wright Prof Graeme Wright, DVC R&D, Curtin University Professor Graeme Wright is Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research & Development at Curtin University, responsible for all research, research training, and commercialisation and knowledge transfer activities. Professor Wright obtained his undergraduate degree from Curtin University and Master by Research degree from Murdoch University in Perth. He returned to Curtin to complete his PhD. Since 2004 Professor Wright has held senior roles at Curtin University including Executive Dean, Associate Deputy Vice- Chancellor Research Training and now Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research & Development. He has extensive knowledge and experience in education and research, and engagement with higher education policy at strategic level. Professor Wright has extensive experience on Boards and Committees of research centres and CRCs, liaison with industry and negotiation of funding agreements, and broad research knowledge in spatial information sciences. He is currently a non-executive Director of the CRC for Spatial Information. Professor Kevin Fynn Prof Kevin Fynn, Head of School, School of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Curtin University Professor Fynn is a distinguished research engineer, engineering manager, and electrical engineering practitioner. He has been closely associated with industry and engineering research and development for over 20 years, and has an outstanding record of design leadership and of building major research and development facilities. As director of the Western Australian Telecommunications Research Institute he was responsible for its overall strategic direction and its corporate performance. At an operational level, he was responsible for commercialisation and management functions. His success in running a commercially focused centre as evidenced by the funding the Institute received including: Cooperative Research Centres, WA State Government Centres of Excellence in Industry Focused Research, an
AusIndustry Technology Diffusion grant, ARC grant funding, and industry consultancies. Kevin has eight patent registrations and over 50 publications in diverse fields in Electrical Engineering. His commercial experience includes providing technology systems and services to the resources industry, establishing strategic relationships with leading ICT corporations, and has been involved in numerous industry projects including international companies such as Boeing (USA). He is a co-founder of Xelor, Sensear Pty Ltd., TheBuzz Corp Pty Ltd and TechnoAid Ltd. Mr Rohan McDougall Mr Rohan McDougall, Director, IP Commercialisation, Curtin University Rohan has been the Director of IP Commercialisation at Curtin University of Technology since 2008. He most recently spent eight years as the Chief Operating Officer at Biosignal, a publicly listed biotech company, where he was responsible for business development, project management and general operations activities. He has over seventeen years' experience in commercialisation of new technologies. This includes being integrally involved in the establishment of number of companies in the technology area, including Biosignal. He has played a lead role in negotiation and completion of numerous technology based agreements and partnerships with companies in Australia and internationally. Prior to his role with Biosignal, Rohan worked for 10 years in commercialisation of technology out of UNSW in a variety of roles progressing to a General Manager position at Unisearch Ltd. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree and an MBA from the AGSM. Mr David Menarry Mr David Menarry, Chief Financial Officer, Curtin University David has been with Curtin since 2004, during which time the University has increased its revenues by 70%. He is a Chartered Accountant (despite his Bachelor of Science degree) and a Graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He has over 20 years' experience in a variety of roles in the UK, the Netherlands and Australia. David has been a member of Curtin's Commercialisation Advisory Group from its inception in 2006. Professor Brett Kirk Prof Brett Kirk, Associate DVC R&D, Curtin University Brett Kirk graduated from his Bachelor of Engineering and PhD degrees from the University of Western Australia (UWA) in 1988 and 1992 respectively. He then joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Monash University (Clayton) as a lecturer from 1992 to 1995. In 1995 he moved back to UWA and was a member of academic staff in the School of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering from 1995 to 2010. In 2001 he was appointed Deputy Head of School and then Head of School for 2002 to 2010 inclusive. He was appointed Deputy Dean, External Relations in the UWA Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics from 2010-2011. He also held the position of Associate Chair of Academic Board at UWA for the period 2007-2011. In 2011, Brett moved to Curtin University to take up his current position as Associate Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research. As a researcher, Brett has pursued two parallel lines of research centering around the development and application of novel imaging technologies and analysis techniques for application in both biological and mechanical systems. He established and led the three-dimensional imaging laboratory at the University of Western Australia, with a complementary laboratory now being established at Curtin. He has extensive experience in the development of microscopy equipment and methods, totaling 25 years of research experience in these diverse fields. In bioengineering, he has very a strong research background relating to the degeneration and repair of orthopaedic tissues. This was initially connected with arthritic degeneration, and more recently with the development of tissue
engineered biological repair materials. Brett was also a member of the Board of Directors of Dreamfit for the period 2008-2012 and was instrumental to the establishment of this organization, which provides Engineering solutions to afford recreational opportunities for the disabled community. Brett Kirk was also appointed as a research program leader with the CRC for Integrated Engineering Asset Management (CIEAM) for the period 2006-2010, and is currently the Research Director for CIEAM following the Center's successful extension of term. He has also been elected and re-elected to the Board of Directors of CIEAM over the period 2005-2013.