[ { "role": "Shareholder Representative (for a quantum venture) & Commercial Strategy | Products & Technology Group", "company": "Telstra", "endYear": "2024", "endMonth": "7", "location": "Sydney", "startYear": "2021", "startMonth": "2", "description": "Key Responsibilities – Reporting to the Group Executive for Product & Technology, ownership and leadership of:\n\n•\tTelstra’s relationship with SQC, influencing key internal and external stakeholders to support the adoption, progress and growth of SQC (locally and internationally). This involved:\no\tliaising and collaborating with SQC’s Board, shareholders (including government, industry, and universities), CEO, Management, and key Telstra stakeholders (e.g. CEO and Group Executives).\no\tsupporting SQC's fund raising activities and special projects.\no\tkeeping Telstra’s stakeholders fully informed of SQC’s progress, growth and challenges through written and verbal communication, and advising them on strategies to help support and grow Telstra’s investment in SQC.\n\n•\tTelstra’s strategy to adopt, commercialise and to build sovereign quantum capabilities which involved:\no\tliaising the quantum ecosystem to accelerate the growth, and support development of Australia owned IP. \no\t‘connecting the dots’ across Telstra to support Telstra’s strategic, innovation and commercial objectives.\no\tidentifying, developing and managing strategic initiatives and programs of work, and planning and allocating resources (during cost cutting periods), and securing key strategic partner agreements, to deliver those initiatives." }, { "role": "Chief Strategy and Risk Officer", "company": "MTData (Wholly-owned Telstra subsidiary)", "endYear": "2024", "endMonth": "7", "location": "Sydney", "startYear": "2023", "startMonth": "7", "description": "Key Responsibilities - Reporting to the CEO, ownership and leadership of strategic and operational matters including:\n•\tintegration and alignment of MTData (a then stand-alone business) into Telstra, focused on effective governance and streamlined and cost-effective operations to ensure MTData is scalable and aligned with Telstra’s overall goals, governance and operating models.\n•\tshort and long-term vision of product and M&A strategy and its implementation, providing continuous strategic direction to respond to changing market conditions in the data and AI industries, to maintain a competitive edge.\n•\trisk and compliance (during a time of a changing regulatory regime), including devising a risk framework that includes identifying MTData’s top risks and a strategy to manage and implement those risks to ensure compliance." }, { "role": "GM, Strategic Partnerships and Commercial Strategy & muru-D Acting Managing Director", "company": "Telstra", "endYear": "2023", "endMonth": "7", "location": "", "startYear": "2020", "startMonth": "8", "description": "Key Responsibilities - Managing the muru-D P&L and cross functional teams, leading muru-D’s overarching vision, strategy and operations across APAC. Led and managed strategic global partnerships (e.g. Accenture, Apple, Meta, NVidia, Microsoft) to pursue common strategic objectives and grow revenue. Orchestrated by identifying and implementing strategic initiatives, developing strategic stakeholder relationship and effectively governing those partnerships.\nKey Achievements\n•\tBurdened by the costs associated with muru-D’s legacy portfolio, derived operational efficiencies and greater alignment to Telstra’s objectives, by: (i) devising a strategy to exit mis-aligned legacy investments, (ii) further investing in aligned investments, and (iii) optimising cross functional collaboration to inform and drive better decision making on legacy investments.\n•\tProvided thought leadership, advice and support to start-up investee company entrepreneurs, in areas such operation and scaling for growth, and fundraising advice as well as connecting investee companies to industry, government and investors and increasing awareness of those companies. \n•\tReformulated muru-D's GTM strategy, by collaborating with key stakeholders and leveraging my commercial acumen, to deliver a GTM strategy, investment thesis and plan, driving for alignment, and value for Telstra. \n•\tTransformed, and delivered a step-change to, key strategic relationships between Telstra and global technology players by:\no\tinfluencing/collaborating with stakeholders, building trust and credibility, to drive relationship engagement at all levels of the organisation (e.g. delivered, for first time in Telstra's history, Apple & Telstra CEO engagement)\no\tputting in place results focused governance structures\no\tcreating a mutually beneficial strategic pipelines of activity with measurable KPIs for success,\nresulting in unique partnership opportunities, giving Telstra a competitive edge against its global peers.\n•\tSuccessfully delivered partnership initiatives to support Telstra’s key strategy objectives. E.g. in a competitive, low margin gaming market, successfully led negotiations, exercising influence, to secure a cornerstone consumer Telstra and Microsoft partnership, on terms not provided to other telcos, enabling the launch of Australia’s first major cloud gaming partnership, whilst simultaneously showcasing and monetising Telstra’s network capabilities." }, { "role": "muru-D | General Counsel and Portfolio Manager", "company": "Telstra", "endYear": "2020", "endMonth": "8", "location": "", "startYear": "2019", "startMonth": "1", "description": "Key Responsibilities - Led and managed all legal, commercial, and operational matters, including identifying and negotiating strategic investment / divestment opportunities to maximise portfolio returns. Acting as advisor to investee companies participating in the muru-D accelerator program and thought leader for the start-up community.\nKey Achievements\n•\tAdvised on, and negotiated, over 50 capital raising projects with investee companies, which included collaborating with investors within the start-up ecosystem (VC firms, universities, angel investors, founders and others). \n•\tAt a time of cost cutting and when internal sentiment was to write-off the muru-D portfolio, by leveraging my commercial acumen, undertaking a detailed review and due diligence of the portfolio, turning around a struggling portfolio into a commercially viable strategic investment, now valued at circa $20m, delivering real returns. \n•\tAs part of Telstra's decision to scale-down muru-D and consolidate costs, leveraged my networks and pragmatic deal making skills to broker an out-of-the-box strategic partnership with a global law firm, to manage portfolio administration, allowing Telstra to derive return from legacy investments, which it otherwise would have forfeited." }, { "role": "Advisory/Secondments", "company": "Various", "endYear": "2019", "endMonth": "1", "location": "Sydney", "startYear": "2015", "startMonth": "7", "description": "Long-term full-time advisory work for various technology, private equity companies and top tier law firms, enabled through long term secondments.\n\nDataSpark (Wholly owned SingTel subsidiary) | Strategic Advisor \nData company commercialising geospatial, temporal mobility data to deliver intelligence.\n\nKey Responsibilities – Setting-up and scaling this start-up business. Evaluated current processes and recommended to deliver operational efficiencies and maximise returns and implemented changes to address regulatory requirements to deliver compliance.\n\nKey Achievements\n•\tBy leveraging deep subject matter expertise, set up foundational operational and data governance structures, and delivered DataSpark’s commercial, regulatory, governance and legal strategy, with defined outcomes. This covered areas such as technology infrastructure requirements, legal mechanisms and disaster responses.\n•\tUsing my advanced deal making capabilities, secured key data partnerships and cornerstone enterprise contracts (e.g. with Transport for NSW, oOh!media), amounting to tens of millions of dollars. This delivered on key business objectives such as achieving on-going revenue streams, contributing to DataSpark's viability.\n•\tIn a climate of cross jurisdictional inconsistencies and confusion of regulatory obligations, coached and educated the APAC team, to deliver a step change in culture towards industry best practice, on privacy and regulatory governance.\n\noOh!media | Acting General Counsel\nOutdoor advertising and media company, which also owns online platforms targeted at hard-to-reach audiences. \n\nKey Responsibilities - Member of the senior management team with P&L and budget responsibility. Managed legal and admin reports.\n\nKey Achievements\n•\tAt a time of caution by the ACCC on the impact of industry competition and falling out of home revenues, by leveraging my subject matter expertise and deal making capabilities, advised on and managed the transaction, relating to the acquisition of Adshel by oOh!media, for circa $570M, providing an avenue for strategic revenue growth.\n•\tDuring competitive period in the advertising industry, by leveraging my capabilities in negotiating, secured a vital strategic partnership with Quantium, impacting the oOh!media share price and differentiating it from its competitors, by enabling the use of data products in targeted media campaigns.\n•\tIdentifying complacency due to lack of career direction and growth of an underperforming team, produced an uplift in efficiency and engagement of the team, through the process of salary benchmarking, role shifts, guiding, mentoring, and setting a new vision for an otherwise disengaged team, created an uplift in engagement and productivity.\n\nPotentia | Advisory Commercial Director and General Counsel\nSpecialist private equity investor focussed on technology and tech-enabled businesses.\n\nKey Responsibilities - Member of the senior management team with P&L and budget responsibility. Managed 5 direct legal, cross functional reports (risk, legal, company and secretarial), based across APAC.\n\nKey Achievements\n•\tAs part of the process of delivering post-merger integration of Ascender into Potentia, identified misalignment between organisational goals, risk appetite and resource allocation, transformed a cross functional APAC team, through: (i) setting-up a global outsourcing arrangement for global subsidiaries, reducing regulatory exposure and representing a reoccurring cost saving of $0.5M per year; (ii) upskilling risk and legal functions; and (iii) stopping work which did not deliver significant risk reductions, relative to cost.\n•\tCreated costs saving restoring, to Ascender, a SaaS business, to put it in a position of positive return to Potentia (its shareholder), by delivering of change programs and securing unique partner deals.\n\nAdvisory Special Counsel | Corporate & Technology Group, Allen & Overy\nGlobal law firm, with a dedicated sector group in the communications and media sector. \n\nExample Key Responsibilities - Part of a deal team, tasked to cultivate a strategic joint venture, to the value of over $1bn, between two major telecommunications providers in Indonesia, partnering to share 4G network coverage, which included advising on a complex service provider agreement between the JV and each telecommunications partner." }, { "role": "Chair, Audit and Risk Committee (ARC)", "company": "Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC)", "endYear": "2024", "endMonth": "7", "location": "Sydney", "startYear": "2021", "startMonth": "2", "description": "Selected by the SQC Board and the Telstra Group Executive to participate in the ARC, then promoted to Chair.\nProvided strategic leadership and oversight on risk, governance and financial management, working alongside SQC’s Board, management team on matters including financial governance, controls, audits and developing fit for purpose reporting for the Board. Contribution, alongside the Board, to SQC’s strategy and planning, including contribution to long term funding strategies." }, { "role": "Senior Lawyer (contract)", "company": "Optiver", "endYear": "2013", "endMonth": "2", "location": "Sydney", "startYear": "2012", "startMonth": "2", "description": "" }, { "role": "ANZ Managing Counsel", "company": "Avaya", "endYear": "2012", "endMonth": "2", "location": "", "startYear": "2011", "startMonth": "2", "description": "" }, { "role": "Board Member", "company": "muru-D (a Telstra subsidiary)", "endYear": "2024", "endMonth": "2", "location": "Sydney", "startYear": "2023", "startMonth": "2", "description": "Equity fund and vehicle for Telstra to partner with early-stage start-up and scale-up companies. Portfolio value is circa $20M and holds investments in 90 companies, located in Australia, Asia, and the US.\nSelected by Telstra senior executives and other muru-D board members, having extensive knowledge of investments, operations, and the startup ecosystem. Oversight and ownership of muru-D’s corporate objectives and strategies, working alongside Telstra, to ensure alignment with its overall product, innovation and commercial strategy." } ]