Board

Board Members:

John Mactaggart
Jordan Green
John Ballard
David Malloch
Stewart Gow
Ruth Drinkwater

John Mactaggart, Chairman

Chairman, Australian Association of Angel Investors Limited
Non-Executive Director, Technology One Limited (TNE)

John has extensive experience across many industries, including export of animal products, food processing, industrial fasteners, manufacturing of building equipment and computer hardware and software. John is a director of a number of companies, including JL Mactaggart Holdings and Associated Construction Equipment Pty Ltd.

John, through JL Mactaggart Holdings, has provided venture capital to many companies. He has played an important role in guiding Technology One Ltd through its formative years as the nominee of JL Mactaggart Holdings, which is a Founding Shareholder of Technology One Ltd. John has been a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors since 1991.

Jordan Green, Deputy Chairman

Jordan is an imaginative business and technical professional grounded in science, technology, management and marketing.

Jordan is co-founder and Deputy Chairman of the Australian Association of Angel Investors; he founded and leads an angel investor group, Melbourne Angels, and was a founding partner and Managing Director of Melbourne Venture Partners, one of the best performing venture capital fund managers in Australia. In the last fifteen years Jordan has been active as an angel and venture investor on three continents and continues to pursue his interests in Australia and overseas as board member and board adviser to a number of private and unlisted public companies.

First qualified as an Electronics Engineer, Jordan has an MBA (MBS ’97) and a number of postgraduate qualifications in marketing, product development and managing innovation. Jordan has over twenty seven years first-hand experience in the strategic and tactical applications of engineering, manufacturing, computing and information technologies to business and industry in Australia, USA, Asia and Europe. He has been director, CEO, executive, or engineer for over a dozen technology and engineering companies since starting his career with IBM, including a Silicon Valley software company, Australia’s largest Internet registrar and an Internet Business Incubator. He has led international technology and business projects up to $500,000,000 in value. Jordan is active in community work, an occasional guest lecturer at the Melbourne Business School, a judge in the Melbourne University Entrepreneurs’ Challenge and has been an invited lecturer at Universities in Asia, Europe and North America.

John Ballard

John Ballard was Managing Director and previously CEO of GroPep Ltd until 2002, positions he held since the inception of the company in 1988. He was one of the founders of BioAngels Inc, of which he is currently Chairman. He is also a Director of BR Angels Pty Ltd, Applimex Pty Ltd, AdAlta Pty Ltd and Neubody Pty Ltd, as well as the not-for-profit companies, Australian Proteome Analysis Facility Ltd and the Australian Institute for Commercialisation Ltd. He is a biochemist by training, has authored more than 300 research publications and is an inventor of 10 patents. He was elected to the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 1997.

David Malloch

David is the Managing Director of Malloch Digital Design in Canberra, which he started in 1985, since then he has sold out twice including buying back the first business (doing a Bond/Packer). He was the founder of Capital Angels in 2004 and has invested in a few Canberra companies and is a director of one of them. Over 30 companies have presented at Capital Angels, with about 30% attracting funding and mentoring. David is a co-founder and director of AAAI and he was on the steering committee of the Innovation Summit in 2000. He is also the newly elected Vice President of the NSW Business Chamber and a member of the NICTA Electoral College.

Stewart Gow

Stewart Gow, Secretary

A lawyer for 10 years, Stewart is now Manager of Venture Capital Attraction for Invest Queensland and developed the award winning "Qld Capital Raising Pipeline" business mentoring and investment readiness programs operating in 17 cities. He co-founded Archers Angels, Brisbane Angels and the Australian Association of Angel Investors, is an angel investor and state representative for AVCAL. As Industry Fellow to the UQ School of Business he co-lectures in Commercialisation in Practice and is a judge of the $100,000 UQ Enterprise Business Plan competition. Stewart is the former Australian Vice Consul and Assistant Trade Commissioner for Information Technology in Silicon Valley.

Ruth Drinkwater, CEO

Over a career spanning 18 years, Ruth has developed experience in innovation and commercialisation activities across the university, government, investment and industry sectors. This experience comprises business management with a focus to achieve competitive outcomes on limited resources and investment management to achieve strategic goals. Ruth has worked with over 60 technology-based start-up companies through their incubation phase, pre and post investment. Her experience across these cultural divides has provided her with a keen understanding and insights into the effects of respective business cultures on business and economic activities in a broad range of industry sectors from biotech through clean tech and ICT to the cultural industries.

Ruth managed teQstart Pty Ltd, a co-investment fund owned by the Queensland Government. During Ruth’s term with the company the portfolio grew from 8 to 27 companies across ag-biotech, biotech, health, devices, ICT and clean tech. Co-investments were undertaken with 16 separate investment groups including venture funds and angel groups and individuals delivering knowledge, experience and relationships across industries, investment, R&D and professional service communities. Ruth also has general management, product development, strategic marketing, and relationship management experience from Uniseed Pty Ltd, UniQuest Pty Ltd, the Australian Institute for Commercialisation and the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland .

Ruth is currently active in the Brisbane angel investor community, is a member of Brisbane Angels and the Australian Association of Angel Investors. Her current focus is working with companies, government and the angel community to build the professional capability of angel investors and to strengthen investment availability to support early stage seed and start up activities.

Ruth has a Bachelor of Science Degree, a Masters in Business Administration and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Ruth is currently a Director of QUT Creative Industries Pty Ltd (recently re-branded as Creative Enterprise Australia ), a Director on the Board of Women in Technology and Chair of Women in Technology|Biotech and a nominee Director on the Board of a start up clean tech company.