Shirley Gregor AO Distinguished Lecture

Professor Emerita Shirley Gregor AO

Professor Emerita Shirley Gregor AO at ANU. Her research interests include artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction and the philosophy of science and technology.

Professor Gregor spent a number of years in the computing industry before beginning an academic career. Her research has appeared in outlets including MIS Quarterly, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of the Association of Information Systems, Information Systems Research, European Journal of Information Systems and Decision Support Systems. She has led several large applied research projects funded by organizations including the Australian Research Council, the Meat Research Corporation and AusAID.

She was Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of the Association of Information Systems 2010-2013.

Professor Gregor was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2005 for services to education and agribusiness. She is a Fellow of both the Australian Computer Society and the Association for Information Systems. She was awarded a DESRIST Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017 for contributions to design science research in information systems and technology.

She has been named in a Stanford University study as being in the top two per cent of scientists worldwide for her career, and also for 2020 and 2021 in terms of the impact of her research.

Professor Michael Lounsbury

Professor Lounsbury is the Roger S. Smith Professor of Business and Academic Director of the eHUB entrepreneurship centre at the University of Alberta School of Business. He has over 100 publications and has been identified as one of the most highly cited researchers in the field of economics and business, sitting in the top one per cent. In 2020, he received the J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Excellence in Research - the most prestigious University of Alberta research award. He has also received numerous awards for his scholarship.

Before entering academia, Professor Lounsbury worked for many years as a management consultant, and in a Silicon Valley high tech start-up. Over the years, he has taught and mentored many inventors, entrepreneurs and start-ups. At University of Alberta, he was also a Principal Investigator at the National Institute for Nanotechnology where he focused on the commercialisation of nanotechnologies. He completed his PhD at Northwestern University and before coming to the University of Alberta, he was the J. Thomas Clark Professor of Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise at Cornell University.

Fiona Hindmarsh

Fiona is the Chief Executive Officer of Significant Early Capital Ventures, a specialist venture capital fund established as a joint venture between ANU and the Hindmarsh private investment arm. Their mission is to surface, commercialise and invest in building companies founded on deep and applied technologies. This is the family's forth investment fund dedicated to investing in the first stage of commercialisation technologies with many emanating out of ANU and the Canberra research and innovation market, with a number of highly successful exits including Seeing Machines (listed on AIM), Biotron (listed on ASX) Lithicon (global acquisition by FEI) and most recently InstaClustr (global acquisition by NetApp).

Fiona has extensive experience in investment banking, corporate advisory with specialised investment, and succession planning advice to ultra-high net worth private families. She has held senior roles as Chief Operating Officer at ANZ Investment Bank and Director of Global Structured Finance at ANZ Investment Bank leading private debt and equity raisings across industries including mining, utilities, renewables, manufacturing, infrastructure and telecommunications. Fiona's extensive experience in strategic leadership, her commercial acumen and her diverse investment background brings a unique and valuable skillset to the founders, families and corporate boards she works with.

In addition to Hindmarsh, Fiona sits on the boards of the Oceanic Cyber Security Centre, Australian Institute of Art Historians, and Melbourne Grammar School Foundation. Fiona completed her Bachelor of Economics (Honours) at ANU and a Masters of Art History as Sotheby's Institute in London.

Nick Purtell

Nick Purtell is the head of the Commercialisation Division of the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR). This new division brings together DISR's policy and program teams working on commercialisation, entrepreneurship and business research. These include the R&D Tax Incentive, venture capital and early stage finance, challenge-based innovation, and responsibility for the Industry Innovation and Science Australia board.

Nick's previous roles at the Department include Chief of Staff to the Secretary, General Manager in Manufacturing Division, General Manager of Major Projects Branch, Head of the Office of Northern Australia, and Joint Lead of the COVID Response Taskforce. He has worked across a variety of public policy and diplomatic roles over the past 20 years, including Counsellor (Political) at Australia's Embassy to China and Deputy Permanent Representative at Australia's Mission to the UN, Geneva.

Samira Nazar

Samira Nazar is a Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at the ANU Research School of Management. Samira's research interests include marginalised entrepreneurship in adverse and extreme contexts. Currently, her focus areas include women entrepreneurship, fragile contexts, resources, and entrepreneurial ecosystems.