Speakers

Michael Caristo

Dr Michael Caristo

Co-Founder and Partner, Genesis Capital
Dr. Michael Caristo is one of Australia’s most experienced healthcare investors. He is a founding Partner at Australia’s only healthcare-focused private equity firm, Genesis Capital, and over the past two decades has invested in over 50 businesses. At Genesis, Michael’s portfolio includes investments in clinical trials, GP clinics, dental clinics, and behavioural health.

Prior to co-founding Genesis Capital in 2017, he was a senior investment professional at Crescent Capital Partners. During his time at Crescent, he served as the interim CEO of Australia’s largest skin cancer clinic network and presided as Non-Exec Director over several of Crescent’s healthcare businesses spanning medical & travel insurance, surgical implants, and medical deputising.

Michael began his career at Bain & Co., and is a qualified medical doctor, holding a Bachelor of Science (Honours) and a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (Honours) from the University of New South Wales. He is also a published contributor to the field of stem-cell research.

Jared Connor

Jared Connor

Director, EY
Jared Connor is a Director in EY’s Financial Services Practice in Sydney. Jared has been servicing the alternative investments industry for more than 12 years with a focus on private equity and venture capital.

Jared has served clients in multiple EY offices, including Los Angeles and Boston, where he serviced prominent alternative asset managers. His experience in different jurisdictions has enabled him to gain experience over a wide range of investment structures, strategies and regulatory frameworks that align with the complexities of global private equity and venture capital fund managers. This has also enabled Jared to develop a comprehensive skillset on the challenges which present around valuation of companies at various stages in their life cycle.

Glenn Drayton

Glenn Drayton

Founder and Chief Scientist, Energy Exemplar
Glenn Drayton’s experience in power system modelling and economics spans more than 25 years. His academic studies coincided with the deregulation of the New Zealand, Australian and Singapore power markets, and Glenn’s work influenced the design of the energy-ancillary services co-optimization formulations in those markets. Glenn started Drayton Analytics (later renamed Energy Exemplar) in 1999 to produce a next-generation power market model based entirely on optimization, the result being PLEXOS. Glenn obtained his Bachelor of Science degree (Hons) in operations research and his PhD in management science from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. As Chief Software Designer, Glenn focuses on strategic concepts and developments and long-term product direction. He specialises in mathematical optimization applied to power system planning.
Justin England

Justin England

Managing Director, Five V Capital
Justin England has been investing and providing strategic advice across Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia for over 10 years. Justin has a genuine passion to build high-impact businesses in a world of increasingly globalised capital, technology, and people.

Five V Capital, as a partner to growing businesses across ANZ, has over $2bn in capital under management. The team prides itself on being a truly aligned, supportive and flexible partner. Since 2017, the firm has invested across a range of industries and has a particularly strong focus on software, technology-enabled B2B business services, and IT services.

Justin is a non-executive director of Automic (share registry software), Penten (defence cyber security), Orikan (parking technology) and Cyclotek (nuclear medicine).

He holds a Bachelor of Business from UTS and is a Chartered Accountant. Justin is also a qualified Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst.

Maria Enna-Cocciolone

Maria Enna-Cocciolone

CEO and Founder, INSKIN COSMEDICS GROUP
Driven by a deep passion for the professional beauty industry, and a desire to create greater transparency for skin experts and their patients, Maria Enna-Cocciolone founded INSKIN COSMEDICS GROUP in 2009 after 30+ years’ experience in the industry.

Today, INSKIN COSMEDICS has earned the reputation as a trusted industry innovator, pushing the Australian beauty frontier by providing cutting edge skin solutions that transform the skin from the inside out. Across its range are well respected brands – O COSMEDICS and GINGER&ME, and soon to be launched, INSKIN.CO. Each brand provides a unique, vertically integrated offering with product development, manufacturing and distribution occurring on their premises in Western Sydney. Both INSKIN and its brands have received prestigious recognition through multiple awards from the likes of Prevention Beauty Awards and Australian Beauty Industry Awards.

In 2023, INSKIN COSMEDICS obtained minority investment from the Australian Business Growth Fund. With this partnership, INSKIN COSMEDICS is well positioned to continue its expansion into global markets.

Throughout her career Maria has been an integral member of the professional beauty industry, having worked across aesthetics, sales, education, management and now as a business owner and Board member of Aesthetic Beauty Industry Council. Across her breadth of accomplishments, Maria is most proud of the team she has built and the culture she has created at INSKIN COSMEDICS. As an entrepreneur and business leader, Maria proudly embraces the strengths of being female: infusing professionalism with emotion, and compassion and kindness with providing empowerment.

Dan Fabbro

Dan Fabbro

Lead Global Economist, Macquarie
Dan Fabbro is Macquarie’s Lead Global Economist, with specific coverage of the Australian, Eurozone and Japanese economies. Prior to joining Macquarie in 2022, Dan spent more than 20 years at the Reserve Bank of Australia in a variety of roles across domestic and international policy areas, involving economic and financial market analysis. He was most recently responsible for management of the Reserve Bank’s international reserve portfolio, with a focus on fixed income and foreign exchange markets.
Josie Gorter

Josie Gorter

Investment Director, Potentia Capital
Josie Gorter is an Investment Director at Potentia Capital – an ANZ based growth capital and private equity investor focused on the software, technology and tech-enabled services sector.

Josie joined Potentia in 2019 and has been active in the acquisition and management of several of Potentia’s portfolio companies. Within the Potentia portfolio Josie currently sits on the Board of Micromine (mining software), SuperChoice (superannuation software) and Nitro (document productivity software).

Prior to joining Potentia Josie was in Investment Associate at Coast2Coast Capital, a global mid-market private equity investor focused on the consumer, retail and healthcare sectors; and a Senior Associate at Citi Investment Bank covering General Industrials and Financial Sponsors.

Victor Ha

Victor Ha

Partner, Quadrant Private Equity
Victor Ha is a Partner at Quadrant Private Equity having joined the firm in 2014. He has been involved in the acquisition, portfolio management and divestment of a range of current and former Quadrant investee companies including the Real Petfood Company, Canberra Data Centres, ICON Cancer Care, Estia Health, APN Outdoor, BBQs Galore, Amart Furniture, Partnered Health and Fitness and Lifestyle Group. Prior to joining Quadrant, he worked in the Investment Banking Division of Morgan Stanley.
Adrian Herbert

Adrian Herbert

Managing Editor, Private Equity Media
Adrian Herbert has worked as Managing Editor of Private Equity Media since 2006 and led a management buyout of the business in 2012. Private Equity Media is Australia and New Zealand’s first and leading private equity and venture capital publisher. The company is working to develop this position to serve the entire private capital investment community in the two countries.
Fiona Holyoake

Fiona Holyoake

Partner, Tasman Capital
Fiona Holyoake is a Partner at Tasman Capital. Her Investment, Industry and Transaction experience spans energy, technology, infrastructure, financial services and real estate as Portfolio Manager and Investee Board Director in Private Equity, and Venture Capital funds as well in Corporate M&A and Strategy roles for Deutsche Bank and Origin Energy across Asia, USA and Australia.

Going from “black to green”, her first energy deal was the sale and refinancing of Yallourn Power Station in the infrastructure fund at DB Capital Partners. Prior to Tasman, Fiona was a Managing Director at PwC and advised domestic and international corporates and state-owned entities on investments in the energy transition, renewables, clean-tech, carbon market, circular economy, and transmission infrastructure sectors.

Tom Humphrey

Tom Humphrey

Partner, Blackbird Ventures
Tom Humphrey is a Partner with Blackbird Ventures, a venture capital firm supercharging Australia and New Zealand’s most wild and ambitious founders right from the beginning.

Since 2012, Blackbird has raised $2.5B in funds and invested in over 120 companies including Canva, Zoox, SafetyCulture, and Culture Amp.

Prior to investing, Tom spent 8 years in operations. He was the COO of OurDeal, a D2C ecommerce company which grew to 80 people and exited to News Corp in 2011 returning over 4x to investors. He then moved to San Francisco with his sister to launch Kanopy, a B2B video streaming platform which exited to KKR in 2020 returning 13x to investors. Immediately prior to Blackbird, Tom was a Partner at US-based Access Ventures.

Adam Lindell

Adam Lindell

Founder, Polar 993
Adam Lindell is the founder of Polar 993 and has more than 25 years’ experience in funds management, structured finance, property, compliance and law.

Adam was the founder and CEO of Labassa Capital and prior to that he co-founded Merricks Capital. At Merricks Adam was the Chief Operating Officer and Head of Structured Credit.

Prior to Merricks, Adam was a Partner of the national law firm Dibbs Abbott Stillman and was a Senior Associate at Middletons (now known as K&L Gates). Adam practiced as a commercial lawyer focused on Corporations Act, M&A and financial services. Adam retains a Legal Practicing Certificate.

The experience that Adam has is unique as he has worked in the 3 core areas of funds management being, structuring/compliance, fundraising and portfolio/investment management. Adam has been a non-executive director of an ASX listed company and currently sits on boards as a Non-Executive Independent Director.

Adam holds a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) from Monash University, and a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from La Trobe University.

Ghazaleh Lyari

Ghazaleh Lyari

Co-Head of Investments, Australian Business Growth Fund
Ghazaleh Lyari joined ABGF in March 2021 from CHAMP Ventures. With a career spanning almost three decades, she has a diverse set of experiences across the technology industry, investment banking on Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and founding and running her own business. Ghazaleh has a track record of supporting and investing in SMEs across a broad range of sectors in Australia, and building strong relationships with SME founders as a dependable partner through their growth journey. She is a member of ABGF’s investment committee.

Ghazaleh grew up in Tehran, living through war and revolution, and moved to Australia as a teenager. She graduated from the University of New South Wales with a Bachelor of Science (double majors in Physics and Computer Science) and subsequently obtained an MBA from The Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago. She now lives in Sydney with her husband and son.

Ghazaleh is a strong advocate for diversity and equity in the workplace, dedicating her spare time to mentoring female entrepreneurs as well as young women interested in business and finance.

Virginie Maikim

Virginie Maikim

Origination Lead – Corporate and Leveraged Finance, Macquarie Group
Virginie Maikim is an Origination Lead in Macquarie Bank’s Middle Market Leveraged Finance team where she focuses on providing structured and acquisition growth capital for Australian companies. She joined Macquarie in July 2023 from JPMorgan where she spent 4 years establishing the bank’s mid cap corporate banking business. Prior to this, she was an Associate Director in PwC’s Sponsor Coverage team after starting her career in the Transaction Services team.
Daren McKennay

Daren McKennay

Partner, Crescent Capital Partners
Daren McKennay is the Healthcare Partner at Crescent Capital Partners and has over 30 years’ of operational and private equity experience in the healthcare sector. His past and present healthcare portfolio includes PRP Diagnostic Imaging, MyHealth, SunDoctors, Nucleus Network, Pinnacle Rehabilitation and Healthcare Australia. Daren was co-founder and Chief Executive Office of LifeHealthcare Group Limited a company Crescent invested in 2006 and successfully exited via an ASX listing in December 2013.

Prior to joining Crescent, Daren’s executive experience spanned a wide range of healthcare businesses where he has held Chief Executive positions in the Acute Private Hospital, Diagnostic Imaging and Medical Device sectors. Daren holds a Bachelor of Business from Edith Cowan University and an MBA from the University of Western Australia. Daren is also a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Crescent Capital Partners (Crescent) is a Sydney-based private equity firm investing in middle market companies located in Australia and New Zealand with enterprise values between A$50 million and A$300 million. Crescent was formed in 2000 and has established itself as one of Australasia’s leading mid market private equity firms. Crescent’s investment focus is on high growth companies and sectors, or in industries that are undergoing structural change or that lend themselves to consolidation. Crescent’s role is to accelerate and support the senior management teams of these businesses in reaching their aspirational targets and goals.

Crescent has particular experience and skills in financial services, healthcare, branded and industrial businesses. In particular, Crescent has been the most active private equity manager in healthcare transactions in Australia measured by the number of investments made in the past 10 years.

Patrick O’Day

Patrick O’Day

Managing Director, Lazard Australia
Patrick O’Day is a Managing Director at Lazard Australia, having joined the firm in 2009. Patrick provides a broad range of advisory services, including public and private M&A advisory, strategic advisory, shareholder advisory and capital market’s advisory. Patrick works across a number of sectors including technology, healthcare and industrials. Patrick’s experience includes four years in Lazard’s headquarters in New York.
Daan Oranje

Daan Oranje

Co-managing Partner, Stafford Capital Partners
Daan Oranje is the co-managing partner of Stafford Capital Partners’ Timberland business.

Daan oversees the portfolio management, investment sourcing, due diligence, negotiation, and research for the team’s timberland investments. Daan has been with Stafford for 17 years and is based in Sydney and sits on the investment committees for the firm’s core defensive and impact-driven timberland strategies.

Daan is a qualified Forester and recognises the significant opportunities that timberland can offer for investors looking to make a positive difference for their beneficiaries and the planet.

Fiona Pak-Poy

Fiona Pak Poy

Fiona Pak-Poy is an experienced Chair and Non-executive director. She has been involved as a director, advisor and investor in a wide array of industries including software, healthcare, e-commerce and financial services.

Fiona is a Chair of Tyro Payments Ltd (ASX:TYR), Non-executive director of WiseTech Global (ASX: WTC), Silicon Quantum Computing and Kain Lawyers. She is a Member of the Investment Committee of HMC Capital Partners Fund 1 and a member of the Business Advisory Council for Anacacia Capital. Fiona is a Mentor for the Minerva Network, an organisation that supports elite Australian female athletes and is a Member of the People Committee of Hockey Australia.

Past board roles include ASX listed, government and private companies backed by VC and PE – including MYOB, iSentia, Novotech, Audinate, PageUp People, the Securities Industry Research Centre of Asia-Pacific (SIRCA) and Innovation Australia. Previously Fiona worked as an engineer, strategy consultant for the Boston Consulting Group and a partner in a venture capital fund. Fiona holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an Honours Degree in Engineering from the University of Adelaide.

Nicholas Pejnovic

Nicholas Pejnovic

Principal, The Riverside Company
Nicholas Pejnovic has 15 years experience across investment banking, strategy consulting and growth investing. He started his career as an investment banker at Macquarie Capital before moving into strategy consulting at Bain & Company. Nicholas is now a senior member of The Riverside Company’s local private equity team, having joined the firm in 2016. At Riverside Nicholas partners with Australian businesses to support and accelerate growth both domestically and offshore, with a particular focus on software and technology, healthcare and business services. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and Finance, a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, and an MBA from the University of Melbourne.
Silvia Pfeiffer

Dr Silvia Pfeiffer

Founder and Director, Coviu
Dr Silvia Pfeiffer is the Founder and Director of Coviu, a cloud application that enables healthcare providers to set up video consultation services for patients and to collaborate on patient cases with peers. During the pandemic, Coviu became Australia’s leading telehealth software provider having delivered over 10m video consultations since and expanded into the US. Coviu is a spinout from CSIRO and has raised $7.8m of VC funding over the years. It’s Silvia’s second startup. Silvia has more than 20 years of experience with Web video businesses having worked in technology innovation at Google, Mozilla, NICTA, and CSIRO. She co-edited the standards that made video a prime citizen of the Web and underpin not just the likes of Netflix and YouTube, but also her startup Coviu. Silvia has a PhD in computer science, a masters in business management, has published two books on HTML5 video and most recently one for healthcare businesses to help them set up video consultations sustainably.
Jonathon Pruden

Jonathon Pruden

Managing Director, 333 Capital

Jonathon Pruden is a Managing Director at 333 Capital, a boutique corporate advisory firm with offices along the east coast of Australia. He has had exposure to a broad range of transactions having spent nearly 20 years in Investment Banking, first at Macquarie Capital before moving to 333 Capital where he specialises in mid-market M&A, capital raisings and complex situations.

His most recent engagements have been across the transport, education and consumer industries.

Kell Reilly

Kell Reilly

Partner, AirTree Ventures

Kell Reilly is a partner at AirTree Ventures, a leading venture capital firm backing Aussie and Kiwi founders building the iconic technology companies of tomorrow. With 100+ portfolio companies and over a billion dollars of funds under management, AirTree has been an early investor in breakout successes such as Canva, Go1, Employment Hero, Linktree, Immutable and A Cloud Guru.

Kell returned to Australia in 2024 after 13 years in Silicon Valley. He was previously a Managing Director at General Atlantic, leading their Silicon Valley office and previously worked at leading global investment firms such as Dragoneer Investment Group, D1 Capital and Pacific Equity Partners. He’s led private investments into generational technology companies, including Airbnb, Atlassian, Gusto, Samsara, Slack, Spotify and Uber.

Kell holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) from the University of New South Wales and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Rachel Slattery

Rachel Slattery

Director, Slatterys

Rachel Slattery is a creative leader who has been instrumental in guiding and nourishing communities of curious minds in Australia around frontier tech and better ways of working. Starting her career in book publishing, Rachel was enticed by the Internet into the technology arena and established her own business, Slatterys, 20-odd years ago. Over that time, Slatterys has collaborated with leading ICT industry associations, government agencies and leading tech companies to help them better gather and connect to their communities. Slatterys is the mastermind behind leading conferences, including the Agile Australia (AgileAus) Conference established in 2009 and Tech23 – celebrating Australian deeptech startups, that Slatterys managed for 14 years before successfully handing over to new custodians, Cicada Innovations.

Rachel is passionate about reinventing ageing and encouraging new thinking and innovations to unlock the potential of our later lives through her latest venture, Silver Futures. Silver Futures is poised to help people rethink how they approach the second half of their lives to ensure a longer, healthier, contributing future.

Les Szekely

Les Szekely

Co-Founder and Partner, Equity Venture Partners
Les Szekely has been an active angel and VC investor since the week after the dotcom bubble burst in March 2000. For a quarter century he was one of Australia’s foremost tax consultants for private businesses until leaving his role as a tax consulting partner with Deloitte in 2009 to dedicate himself fully to startup investing and non-executive directorships. He founded Grand Prix Capital that same year.

In 2014 Les founded the VC fund manager Equity Venture Partners (EVP) with Howard Leibman. EVP has grown to become one of the largest Australian VC managers for private investors, handling over $280m of FUM for “sophisticated investors”. EVP invests in digital disruptor businesses with a specialisation in B2B SaaS. It has a portfolio of over 40 active investments. Les chairs the EVP Investment Committee.

Les is also chair of the listed boutique fund manager Microequities, which invests over $550m of FUM for sophisticated investors and is a director of the listed unicorn Siteminder. He was the first external investor in Siteminder, Microequities, Compareclub and Rezdy and continues as a director of all these businesses as well as Shippit. His particular investing interests include traveltech, B2B SaaS and fintech.

Aaron Tan

Aaron Tan

Principal, KKR

Aaron Tan is a Principal within KKR’s Tech Growth practice, leading coverage for technology growth equity investments across ANZ. Prior to joining KKR, Aaron was an Investment Director at OneVentures, an Australian venture capital firm, where he focused on growth investments in the software and internet sectors. He received a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Melbourne.
Malcolm Thornton

Malcolm Thornton

Head of Impact Capital, Clean Energy Finance Corporation
Malcolm Thornton is the Head of Impact Capital at the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Malcolm leads the organisation’s investment strategy for equity investments across venture capital, growth equity and private equity. Malcolm has more than 25 years’ experience in early stage and high growth company investing, including most recently as Head of Corporate Development ANZ with Cisco. Malcolm holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Physics/Computer Science) and Master of Applied Science (Medical Physics) from Queensland University of Technology and a Master of Business Administration from Melbourne Business School, University of Melbourne.
Julian Turecek

Julian Turecek

Co-Founder and CEO, AspiraDAC

Julian Turecek is Co-Founder and CEO of AspiraDAC, an innovative Climate Tech company pioneering solar-powered Direct Air Capture in Australia.

Julian is also Executive Director of AspiraDAC’s parent, Corporate Carbon, which is one of Australia’s largest carbon abatement project owners and developers, with over 10 million carbon credits created to date across numerous industrial and land-based methodologies.

Julian brings to the business an extensive three decade career in the energy industry at the forefront of the transition, including at Origin Energy, Energy Australia and BHP Petroleum. His experience spans senior management roles in trading, policy & government affairs, business development including M&A, project and asset management across all forms of power generation and upstream gas, including most recently leading the Yallourn Power Station and Mine with its workforce of over 500 people. He also brings venture capital experience having invested two cleantech funds across 2008-2012.

Julian holds Bachelors degrees in Chemical Engineering (with First Class Honours) and Commerce from the University of Melbourne, and a Masters of Applied Finance from Macquarie University, where he also taught a post-graduate course in Carbon Finance.

Jacob Van der Wiel

Jacob Van der Wiel

Director, EQT Partners
Jacob Van der Wiel is an investment director with EQT’s mid-market growth team based in the Sydney office of the Stockholm-based firm. He is responsible for software investments in Australia and New Zealand and co-ordinates EQT’s software coverage across the Asia-Pacific region. Jacob started his private equity career with Vista Equity Partners in Austin, Texas. He joined EQT in 2017.
John White

John White

Founding Partner, Next Capital
John White is one of the founding partners of Next Capital, following the firm’s successful spin-out from Macquarie Bank in 2005. Since that time, White has overseen the acquisition of, and been involved in the ongoing management of, a number of portfolio companies, including NZ Bus, Funlab, Vitaco, Noisette Bakeries and Discovery Holiday Parks. He remains a non-executive director of some of these companies as well as the recently acquired Jucy Rentals and TMX Consulting entities.

Previously, White worked in the corporate finance group at Deutsche Bank in a number of roles, including the Head of the Australasian Telecommunications and Media Advisory Group, and at Ferrier Hodgson where he worked on corporate reconstruction and management and sale of distressed assets in both Australia and New York (with the firm’s affiliate Kahn Consulting).

Paul Williams

Paul Williams

Executive Chair, Automic Group
Paul Williams is an accomplished business leader with twenty years’ experience spanning general management, senior leadership and board roles across companies in the registry, pharmaceutical and health sectors. He is experienced in managing teams, driving corporate growth and executing successful sale and exit strategies, as well as overseeing change management and company integrations. He has extensive knowledge of data and technology platforms, and an in-depth understanding of commercial value that proprietary software systems hold for businesses. Paul founded Automic in 2016 and is now the Executive Chair of the Company. He is focussed on revolutionising the share registry industry in Australia and globally.

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