Speakers
Dr Michael Caristo
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 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
Justin England
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
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
Josie Gorter
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
Adrian Herbert
Fiona Holyoake
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
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 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 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
Daren McKennay
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
Daan Oranje
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 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
Dr Silvia Pfeiffer
Jonathon Pruden
Managing Director, 333 Capital
His most recent engagements have been across the transport, education and consumer industries.
Kell Reilly
Partner, AirTree Ventures
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
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
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
Principal, KKR
Malcolm Thornton
Julian Turecek
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
John White
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
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