Startups Fuelling Startups

ZOOM LINK

The official program will be kicking off at 2.00 pm and you can access the virtual event via Zoom here: Virtual Event Link | Startups Fuelling Startups.

Hosted by Advance Queensland and the Office of the Queensland Chief Entrepreneur Startups Fuelling Startups will bring together a range of startups who can help you achieve business success!

In the early stages of business, it's hard to find funding, to find and employ key business personnel like HR, marketing, and accounting. This event will highlight a range of startups and businesses that have a unique understanding of the startup landscape in Queensland helping supply these important services.

Program and Speakers

2.00pm Welcome

Chris Titley, Director, Sub11

Chris has over 20 years in financial services experience here in Australia and the UK. Since 2015, Chris has conducted over 400 interviews with emerging technology companies as well as ASX listed businesses and regularly contributes to Linkedin via short form content. Chris was a Stockbroker at Morgans Financial since 2010 , before forming Sub11 (in partnership with Euphemia) in May 2022.

Wayne Gerard, Queensland Chief Entrepreneur

Brisbane tech superstar, Wayne Gerard has been appointed as Queensland’s 4th Chief Entrepreneur. As the CEO and Co-Founder of global company RedEye, he is a key leader in Queensland’s innovation ecosystem and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the role. Wayne is passionate about cementing the value of having a competitive and sustainable innovation ecosystem in Queensland.

In 2015, he was named Queensland Entrepreneur of the Year. He has also been a serving member on several boards, including StartUpAus and the Premier’s Business Advisory Council. He will work alongside a newly established Advisory Council for Innovation. Together they will focus on maximising the support available to help open doors to the expertise and networks our innovation community needs to succeed in the new economy

2.25pm Tackling Talent Attraction and Herding Humans

Aaron Brown, Founding Account Executive, Australia/Singapore, Deel

Early in Aaron's career, he noticed that helping business leaders "cut-through the noise" was his strength. Since then, and to expand his mission to help the business community in Australia, he has pursued opportunities to work for organisations that believe there are "better" ways to do things.

Expanding internationally isn't easy as a startup or scale-up. It's overwhelmingly apparent that you've either got to be cashed up, a risk-taker or time rich to grow across the globe. Most startups and scale-ups don't have that luxury.

Deel helps organisations reduce risk and costs as they grow across the globe. Through SaaS, they provide businesses self-serve access to the appropriate legal and payroll infrastructure, to hire and pay anyone, anywhere in minutes.

Kirsty Jackson, Marketing & Community Director, Freelancing Gems

Kirsty is the co-founder and director of marketing and product at Freelancing Gems. She lives and breathes technology and digital start-ups, previously the CMO for a global edtech business Cohort Go, where she was part of the Executive team that saw 100,000 students using their platform within 2 years.

She has over 12 years of brand and marketing experience across technology, health, tourism, education and government, but finding her passion with startups and female advocacy is what finds her here at Freelancing Gems.

She is a multi-passionate individual with a love for brand creation, a passion for leadership, and a fascination with human behaviour - what influences us to act, respond and make certain decisions.

A true supporter of working mums, Kirsty has a point of view on women’s issues, the future of work for women and how mums still make major contributions in their careers while doing the mum juggle.

Kirsty is a mum to Harvey and August and wife to Ryan who together enjoy investing in and creating businesses. She wastes no time on bad wine, is the realist on the Freelancing Gems team and can’t wait to get back to the snow now that we can travel again.

Sally Murphy, Founding Director, Purple Playground

Sally Murphy is a HR professional with a tonne of experience in a variety of HR disciplines, obtained from a HR career spanning over 17 years.

As the founding Director of Purple Playground - Outsourced HR & Recruitment Solutions, Sally now focuses her energy on helping startups, scale-ups and organisations doing business for good such as Social Enterprises and NFPs.

Sally believes that the people and culture of an organisation is a key driver of business success and it all starts with strong HR foundations. Afterall, what’s the point of having a great startup idea if you don’t have a high performing team to make it happen. Strong HR foundations help your organisation to scale sustainably, be investment ready and give you that competitive edge.

Sally and her team at Purple Playground help Innovative Founders to find great talent, and structure their teams to go from startup, to scale-up and beyond.

3.05pm Money Mojo

Amanda Fay, Founder, The Pitch Portal

Amanda is the Founder of The Pitch Portal; a marketplace for early-stage businesses to showcase their work and leverage the opportunity to attract skilled professionals willing to explore alternative remuneration. Having worked in professional services for twenty years, Amanda developed the idea for the platform from a personal desire to invest in great business opportunities by using her time as collateral. Today, The Pitch Portal has over 1500 users and has generated service value to the tune of $1-million.

Dr Chris Booth, Investment Partner, 42 Ventures

Dr Chris Booth helps high growth ventures – and funds – to source capital and to enter international markets. Over two decades’ practical experience is from ventures in life sciences, e-commerce, cybersecurity and environmental engineering, to innovative financial services and corporate data businesses. His academic grounding grew from biotech to applied finance & business admin (he even wrote a book on VC investment) and financial experience spans angel & VC, investment banking and family office environments. Passionate about driving innovative offerings to market, globally, Chris provides a unique perspective as a technologist, investor and international business advisor.

Jason Atkins, Co-Founder, Cake Equity

Jason Atkins is Co-founder of Cake Equity. Jason has mentored 100s of startups on capital raising and is an active early stage startup investor. He has worked in Australia and Europe in global multi-national and small-medium business environments. In that time he has been responsible for key most functions in business. Now at Cake, they know Startup founders do not want complex legal, accounting and tax issues when raising capital and giving employee options. The traditional process is beyond a nightmare. And from experience, he knows that even after many meetings, emails, reading of complex documents and thousands of dollars, founders don't understand the documents they're using. At Cake they are on a mission to change this. Founders want to quickly and easily understand how to issue options to their team. And when raising, they want a good deal using industry standard terms that will protect them!

3.45pm The Business of Startups

Angela Young, Associate Director, BDO for Startups

As Associate Director, BDO for Startups, Angela is responsible for providing business advice to, and implementing programs specifically designed for, startup and scaleup founders and entrepreneurs.

Angela works with clients to help them achieve their business goals and create exceptional companies for tomorrow, by believing in the founders of these startups and supporting them ‘before they are famous’.

With more than 20 years’ experience in supporting the growth and development of startups and SMEs, Angela understands that every client is different, so the way she works with them is tailored according to their specific needs.

Kirby Amos, Senior Associate, McCullough Roberston Lawyers

McCullough Robertson Lawyers works with clients from start-up and early stage, to investment, commercialisation, and subsequent growth, supporting innovative sectors including information technology, life sciences, biotechnology, financial services and FinTech.

Their expert team has the finger on the pulse when it comes to emerging legal issues and trends, advising on initial setup and structuring, intellectual property, commercial contracts, IT, privacy, capital raising and other corporate transactions.

Kirby Amos is a Senior Associate within the Digital and Intellectual Property team in Brisbane. She specialises in structuring and negotiating complex commercial arrangements, including for the protection and commercialisation of intellectual property.

Gerard Doyle, Founder & Consultant, Fractal

With more than 20 years of experience, Gerard is a veteran of digital marketing. Gerard’s career is a blend of agency and startups, which he uses to provide a unique and innovative approach to his digital strategies. Gerard’s startup experience uniquely positions him to help businesses navigate through rapidly evolving marketplaces that are constantly under the threat of disruption. After spending 10 years in London, Gerard has vast international experience working with some of the biggest global brands including HP, GM, Microsoft, Coca Cola and Burberry.