Management & Leadership

My PhD presents an examination of business angels through three research papers focusing on academic, practice, and policy. This triumvirate identifies what we know about business angels - the academic - how they make decisions - the practice - and, finally, the interaction of government and business angels.

A provide a critique of micro and macro issues, giving rise to new investor archetypes (both angel investors and other early stage investors, a question the extent of angel human and social capital, develop the first model of the Australian Finance Escalator, and discuss the fragmentation of the Australian angel finance market.

In addition to extensive knowledge and experience in entrepreneurial finance, I also have understanding and experience with:

• Investment decision-making

• Behavioural finance

• Public policy development

• Risk management

• Capital budgeting & working capital management

• Financial markets and institutions

• Securitisation and asset valuation

• Capital structure & dividend policy

• Interest rate determination & FX markets

• Risk, return, & statistical analysis

• Financial analysis & forecasting

• Investment harvesting

• Agency management

International business management is a three way balancing act. Businesses must balance local responsiveness, building economies of scale, and taking advantage of price differentials. This is the Triple A model - Adapt, Aggregate, or Arbitrage.

There are 3 ways to gain competitive advantage in foreign markets:

1. Locate activities among nations in ways that lower costs or achieve differentiation

2. Efficient & effective transfer of the firms competencies and capabilities from nation to nation

3. Co-ordinating these dispersed activities in a way domestic only competitors cannot.

This is all fairly straightforward. The biggest challenges is dealing with culture. Think of culture as a mental program. Past generations found ways of dealing with problems that work, so they pass them on to the next generation. Understanding this, rather than wondering how deeply to bow in Japan, or whether you can have an afternoon cappuccino in Italy, is the beginning of the path to a Global Mindset.

I have extensive experience and knowledge in International Business (having operated in the UK, France, Switzerland, and China. This includes:

• A developed Global mindset

• Cross-cultural management and paradigm switching

• Cross-culture frameworks and models

• Internationalisation strategy

• Cross-cultural negotiation & decision-making

• Foreign market entry strategy

• MNE coordination and structure

• Global value chain management

We need to ‘undo’ how we think about strategy. We have reified it, simplified it, and created lots of abstract thoughts on the topic. A quick Google search of ‘competitive strategy’ shows us just how much information is out there. But the reality is, strategy is just a plan.

Businesses already know what the goal is - maximising shareholder wealth. A strategy is simply the way we achieve that goal.

I have worked on a huge number of strategic analysis projects - Netflix, Telstra, Qantas, Tesla, BHP, ANZ, Citigroup, Volkswagen, NSW Government, to name just a few. I’m fairly agnostic when it comes to industries (remember, it is all the same).

I am often asked how do you 'make strategy’? The answer is usually right in front of you - information. You have to research and analysis. I often see bits of information - facts, data, that sort of thing - and I ALWAYS ask one simple question - So what?

Answering the so what question is fundamental to strategic management. I always start with the financials and build from there. The more information I collect, the more obvious the best strategic path becomes.

I have extensive understanding and experience with:

• Strategic analysis

• Market intelligence

• Market and firm research

• Global strategy

• Strategy critique (dialectics and devil’s advocacy)

• Blue ocean

• Competitive advantage

• Data evaluation and interpretation

• Turnaround strategy

Entrepreneurship is a hot topic - there are well over 40,000 books dedicated to it on Amazon alone, and more than half of the universities in Australia have an entire degree devoted to it. Understanding the entrepreneurial landscape can be hugely challenging, but at its core, entrepreneurship is about pursuing opportunities without regard to your current resources - the are of turning an idea into a business.

We normally think of entrepreneurs as people who run their own businesses. But this is far from the truth. There are loads working in small and large businesses - I call these people ‘intrapreneurs’. These people think and act like entrepreneurs to generate more revenue.

Many big businesses even run their own corporate Venture Capital funds. This can be hugely beneficial in securing access to resources or new technologies, as well as building competitive advantage.

As well as a PhD in Entrepreneurial Finance, I have extensive experience and understanding with:

• Creativity and innovation

• Lateral thinking and creative processes

• Rational & non-rational approaches to creativity

• Design thinking & ideation

• Value innovation and proposition

• Managing growth

• Feasibility analysis

• Financial viability and modelling

• Building entrepreneurial capability

• Problem solving

Fear of public speaking is quite common - in fact, there is even a term for it - glossophobia. Even though I still get nervous when I’m about to speak in public, it is something I enjoy and I have thousands of hours of experience speaking to diverse audiences.

I am comfortable on stage, with large audiences, or small. I have been described as engaging, honest, charismatic, and funny. I don’t just talk to audiences though. I talk with them and present my ideas in compelling formats.

I have a wealth of experience in facilitating high level discussions, have presented conference papers to leading experts, and defended project proposals.

Additionally, I have extensive experience and understanding with:

• Sophisticated presentation development

• Facilitation & engagement

• Lecturing (undergrads to post-grad executive MBAs)

• Organising & communicating complex ideas

As part of my PhD I produced original research that added to societies existing knowledge. During this process I used a phenomenological approach to complete my thesis. I am particular adept at mixed and qualitative methodologies, and have published my research in leading, peer-reviewed journals.

My experience with the research process has trained me to solve highly complex problems and to analyse and interpret large datasets. I am comfortable with quantitative analysis (indeed, I have taught quantitative methods to executive MBAs), and am particularly ‘at home’ with the ambiguities of qualitative research.

I am firmly a behaviouralist, and my experience research and studying the behaviour of others (for example, how investors make decisions) has enabled me to unpack extremely complicated phenomenon and apply deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning.

A key research strength is my interview technique. I am able to quickly develop a rapport with interviewees. This allows me to find those ‘pieces of gold’ that researchers look for.

Perhaps, most importantly, I am able to synthesise research and communicate it in an easy to understand, yet thoughtful manner.

Additionally, I have extensive experience and understanding with:

• Qualitative & Quantitative research methods

• Qualitative research software (NVivo etc)

• Information analysis

• Survey and data collection design

• Phenomenological research

• Social experiment design, planning, testing, and implementation

• Data and result model development