I am a social scientist and engineer, advocate for innovation and entrepreneurship, author and university professor, program director, strategic advisor and expert dedicated to solving social complexities with creativity and humanity.
25 years of international work experience in engineering, strategy consulting, and academia has made me acutely aware of the conditions that support sustainable and strategic transformation for individuals, organisations and society.
From researching creative collaboration to growing corporate innovation capabilities, from volunteering in my community to developing future of work skills for federal and state governments, from planning scholarly conferences and student pitch events to giving executive leadership training, from crowdsourcing ideas for climate adaptation to evaluating on-demand transport solutions, from developing social entrepreneurship policy to peer-reviewed publishing.
I like shaking up how we think and do so that new ways and possible futures or surprising partnerships can emerge.
My teaching, research and consulting is in strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship with a special interest is design thinking, data science, urban planning and open innovation. I work at the Business School of the University of Technology Sydney where I am Associate Professor and Director Entrepreneurship. I look after the Executive MBA and the Bachelor of Entrepreneurship (Hons) degrees.
I have always been curious about how things work and how to make them better: taking things apart, asking lots of questions, fixing and building stuff. From being fascinated with technology, I went on to study behaviour to understand the role that humans have in making innovation happen.
Collaborative human ingenuity is what interests me most.
I collaborate broadly and have published my work in academic journals and books. I have been granted numerous research and teaching grants as well as honours for my innovative and practice oriented approach.
I provide insight into emerging trends, alternate perspectives and fresh ideas to a number of private and government organisations including the City of Sydney, Business Events Sydney, Transport for NSW, the NSW Government, the Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade and many others.
I always enjoy meeting people and making new connections. While I spend the most time in Sydney, I enjoy regular visits to other favourite places including Berlin, Vancouver and New York.