Our Mentors

We are supported by the Queensland Government, City of Gold Coast and over 20 corporate and community partners, sponsors and supporters committed to driving a new digital economy on the Gold Coast.

We would like to acknowledge and thank all of you for your support and generosity.

INVESTMENT & FINANCE

Phoebe Dray

CPA

Phoebe Dray is a qualified and accomplished speaker, and business owner of namesake consultancy that provides innovative business programs, online courses, education and bookkeeping services. Her coaching programs & online courses help female entrepreneurs and business owners launch Profit into Cash with her Profit 2 Cash Launchpad program. Phoebe is passionate about helping female entrepreneurs gain confidence in their own business acumen with her programs & support. Enabling them to have a voice, trust in their own abilities and live the life of their dreams.

Jason Atkins

Cake Cofounder

Jason is CEO of Cake. Cake is a SAAS Fintech that helps businesses issue and manage their capital like a pro, without being a finance wizard. Jason has founded several businesses from the Gold Coast, and has a strong understanding of many startup disciplines on the business side of things – don’t expect too much technical advice! Jason is an ex-CFO and corporate finance manager and has worked across many sectors, from starts and SME to private equity and multinationals in Europe.

David Garnier

Founder of New Wave Capital

David has more than twenty years of experience in funding, corporate advisory and innovation. He has successfully launched and transacted funding requirements for IT & Communications, Digital Media and Transport companies throughout the Asia Pacific region. In addition David has secured capital funding for expansion whilst previously serving in executive and non-executive roles with leading private and public companies in Asia Pacific. David is the founder and Chairman of New Wave Capital, a Hong Kong based Investment Bank and Corporate Advisory firm. David has Bachelor of Commerce from Canberra University and is a qualified CPA. He is a board member of a number of private and public companies. David recently took up residence at the Gold Coast after 9 years in Beijing, China.

As a transformation mentor, confidence and performance coach she assists her clients to reduce stress levels, increase self-awareness and emotional intelligence; to be a better leader by changing old patterns and unsupportive beliefs that weigh them down.

MARKETING

Gavin Tye

Founder | B2B Sales & Lead Generation Strategist & Coach

Gavin is a sales and lead generation strategist and is the founder of Sales Market Fit, his passion is helping B2B SaaS startups and scaleup businesses develop their right sales strategy for the stage of their business growth.

Gavin Tye has had a sales career spanning more than 20 years, across many different industries. This vast array of experiences has allowed Gavin to learn many different lessons to apply to the complex world of B2B SaaS sales.

For the last 9 years, Gavin has been solely focused on successfully selling high-value SaaS to government and highly complex organisations as efficiently as possible by creating a repeatable framework.

Gavin spent almost 5 years working closely with the previous Chief Entrepreneur, Wayne Gerad, at his Queensland startup called RedEye where he developed and evolved his unique sales strategy for startups.

Gavin believes the key to differentiating your startup must begin with how sales are approached and the founder’s technical knowledge of the problems you solve are the key to building a scalable business.

Nathaniel Bedford

Facebook Ads Specialist

Nathaniel is a certified Facebooks ads expert, with a wealth of experience helping businesses grow their sales and lead generation through social media.

He has a rich history of designing, implementing and managing nation-wide promotions and strategic social media campaigns for established & well known brands across Australia.

His background is in digital branding and compelling copywriting, which he has brought to bear in building engaged audiences and helping Australian businesses transcend their goals.

He delights in aiding business owners navigate the ever-changing landscape of social media and identifying the most effective trends to use in high-ticket funnels.

Nathaniel believes that learning is a journey without a destination and endeavors to help business owners and start-ups whenever he can. He believes that by giving back to the community, we can all build a brighter future together.

Joe Brown

CRM Digital Strategist

Joe has spent over 20 years in the digital marketing and tech space helping businesses small and large grow their business with the latest digital marketing trends and techniques.

His strong passion and vast knowledge are shown most keenly in the integration and coaching of CRM software, marketing automation and lead nurturing.

From being a certified infusionsoft partner, to helping coaches & course creators manage thousands of followers, he has the creativity and experience to automate any business.

Joe continues to push the boundaries of innovation in the CRM space and has helped all manner of clients to fully automate sales funnels, outreach processes, and eliminate mundane manual tasks that take away from scaling up a business.

His joy is seeing business owners reclaim valuable hours of time every week to spend more stress-free time working on the business and not in the business.

COMMERCIALISATION

Laura Campbell

Head of Commercial & Creative - Talenthouse

Brand purpose advocate + commercial & creative solutionist.

Laura brings the special sauce of commeRcial pragmatism, creative problem solving and an infectious energy that inspires people to get out of their comfort zone, push boundaries, experiment, fail fast and adapt.

17 years of commercial, creative, innovation and strategic expertise in the worlds of advertising, marketing and consultancy. Laura has worked across start-ups, scale-ups, acquisitions, mergers and multinational organisations including Bauer Media, AOL, DMG group. She specialises in translating business challenges, market opportunities and industry insights into new products and services that drive incremental revenue streams.

Laura recently moved back to Australia after 11 years in Europe, having worked within senior leadership and business development roles across multiple sectors. She brings a wealth of global experience, relationships, mistakes, pivots and key learnings. Seriously passionate about championing brand purpose, doing meaningful work and having a positive impact on people and the world around us.

Tristan Senycia

Business Model Optimisation - Startup & Small Business Strategy

Tristan is a highly resourceful and purpose-driven General Business Advisor & Product Strategist, having worked in Large Corporate, Not-for-Profit, Small Business & Startup Organisations.

This gives him the perfect background to help deliver the Commonwealth Government’s Digital Solutions program as a General Business Advisor, Business Developer & Strategic Stakeholder Liaison.

Tristan has worked within the following industries:
– Business Strategy/Advisory
– Information Technology
– Commercial Construction
– Building Engineering

Tristan has recently returned to Australia after several years working internationally in Europe & United Kingdom within the tech startup & scale-up sector. This experience has cultivated his strategic planning abilities, tenacity and social & emotional intelligence.

Tristan helps Startups, Scale-ups and Small Businesses by performing 360 Diagnostic Reviews & Health Checks to identify factors that are inhibiting growth / performance.

The output of these reviews is a detailed action plan/playbook for the business owners to undertake to improve their operational performance, marketing performance & financial performance.

Sam Coen

Co-Founder at Playrpath & Business and Projects Development Manager at RDK Sports International

Experienced in developing people strategies for high performing people and teams. Achieved through a holistic approach to Leadership, culture, values and personal development. Proven record of establishing key stakeholder relationships and with Corporate, Government and Community bodies, and align activities to stakeholder engagement strategies, professional development and customer relations.

TECH

Steve Dalton

Electronic and Software Engineer at Refactor

Steve is an Electronic and Software Engineer, Entrepreneur and Gold Coast Community connector.

He is founder of Gold Coast Techspace, the Gold Coast’s very own makerspace and geek hub and Refactor, an Agile Hardware and Software consultancy. His own startup secluded.io specialises in low-power, cloud connected sensors designed for low cost and secluded environments.

He regularly takes part in startup education activities such as Startup OnRamp and sits on many advisor boards as technical expert.

Chris Gray

Managing Director, Agnes

Chris is an Australian business advisor, company director and investor. Chris has more than 20 years’
experience in technology, private equity and investment in Australia and the UK.

Chris established Agnes to enable a community of entrepreneurs to work on care models and
technology solutions that improve the health & wellbeing of the elderly and most vulnerable in our
community.

Prior to this, Chris’ co-founded iCareHealth, the leading clinical care and medication management
software for aged care providers in Australia and the UK. iCareHealth Australia was successfully
exited to Telstra Health in 2014. The UK operations of iCareHealth were acquired by the Access
Group in 2018.

In 2001, Chris was part of the management buyout of D&B Australia and New Zealand. D&B was
successfully exited to Carnegie Wylie in 2007.

Chris is also a co-founder of 5point Foundation, a private ancillary fund that supports not-for-profit
organisations who solve issues affecting children and families.

Adam Leeflang

Building scale into Operations

I help organisations operationalise ideas ready for scale.

Accomplished and pragmatic business and operations leader focused on building resilient teams, scalable operations and creating a global business capacity.

Over the last 20+ years, I have led numerous transformational business changes. Some highlights include:

member of the Executive team for Opmantek, leading the growth strategy and scaling Opmantek Marketing to a global audience with full pipeline management
scaling IPSTAR operational aspect to support the network deployment of 5,000 VSAT to over 100,000 VSAT to benefit remote and rural Australians and developing the strategy to promote and execute on the nbn Skymuster Plus Platform,
improving visibility in various complex technical operations to see SLA performance and operational understanding of deliverables for major contract telecommunications outsourcing.

Experience working on various industry panels determining wider industry improvements for the Telecommunications Industry, playing supporter and devil’s advocate as required. Key speaker for various audiences including ACCC, ACMA, Australian Government and community groups such as ACCAN and Broadband in the Bush. I have written papers that promoted sensible points of view that became legislation for instance changing the Points of Interconnect strategy for nbn’s Skymuster.

Technology is undoubtedly a major business enabler and I strongly believe we should continue evolving it with the aim to improve the lives of individuals and society, not just their organizations.

Law

Clayton Glenister

Managing Partner of MBA Lawyers and Company Director

Managing Partner MBA Lawyers, Director Southport Sharks Australian Rules Football Club Ltd, Chairman Intelligent Infrastructure Solutions Pty Ltd, Chairman SafeCam Technologies Pty Ltd,

Tessa Calver-James

Senior Associate at MBA Lawyers

Tess is an experienced Associate Lawyer of MBA Lawyers who practices in Corporate and Commercial Law. She has assisted many businesses and organisations in structuring, governance, compliance and commercial matters and have a strong passion for startups and seeing them succeed. The world needs more innovation to keep progressing forward and startups are key to this.

Geoff Smith

Chairman at Sports Gold Coast

Geoff has practiced as a lawyer in the city of Gold Coast for over 40 years, as partner, an in-house corporate lawyer and now a consultant. He has acquired a wealth of experience ranging from major commercial litigation; working on significant resource projects and now more recently innovation companies.
As a corporate lawyer Geoff was involved in the negotiation and completion of a billion dollar iron ore project in Western Australia; the acquisition of a major nickel refinery and purchase of an international Hotel resort.
Geoff is engaged as a Consultant by McLaughlins Lawyers which has been serving the Gold Coast community for 60 years.

HR & Recruitment

Sheb Giner

Occupational Health and Wellness Specialist

Sheb Giner, an inspiring, high energy Motivational Speaker, Therapist who shares powerful coping strategies from her 15+ years in Clinical practice and her on-going commitment towards personal growth. Her mission is to help evolve people on how to break free from pain and suffering using a Cup of Calm to boost resilience, happiness and clarity.

As an accredited Exercise Sport Scientist, Nationally Recognised Accredited Clinical Hypnotherapist and Strategic Psychotherapist, Sheb is hugely involved in advocating for holistic health and mental wellness. Sheb is part of Gold Coast City Councils Active and Healthy program teaching the community meditation and mindfulness practice. Sheb worked hands on as a clinician for 10 years in her own private practice and 5 years in corporate in Occupational Wellness.

Today, Sheb runs a successful clinic at Chevron Island helping people suffering anxiety and stress by transforming their life and experience break throughs by helping them become better versions of themselves. Sheb is the founder of MindHealth Services where she works with high performance individuals and teams to prevent burnout and stress through a proven holistic education and transformation system, evoking a daily Cup of Calm that creates permanent change.

Sally Murphy

Founding Director Purple Playground HR & Recruitment

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

Sally believes that the culture of an organisation is a key driver of business results and it all starts with a robust HR Strategy. Afterall, what’s the point of having great tech if you don’t have a team to develop it, sell it, or lead the way.

Sally will help you to structure your team to be investment ready and get you that competitive edge.

Are you interested in becoming a GC Hub mentor?