First woman partner at Main Sequence Ventures

The CSIRO-founded deep tech venture capital fund Main Sequence has appointed its first woman as partner through the promotion of Gabrielle Munzer, whose focus will be on scaling BioTech research.

Ms Munzer joined the fund in 2019 as a senior associate and was an important figure in the creation of plastic recycling company Samsara Eco and animal-free dairy company Eden Brew. In collaboration with the University of New South Wales, she helped create Australia’s first BioTech accelerator SynBio 10x.

Prior to joining Main Sequence, Ms Munzer worked as an banker at Challenger, Morgan Stanley, and ABN AMRO. CSIRO estimates that synthetic biology (SynBio)-enabled solutions could be a $27 billion industry for Australia by 2040.

Australian National University deputy vice-chancellor (academic) Professor Grady Venville has been appointed to the board of ANU Enterprise. The university’s commercial arm provides business development and project management support to researchers and experts, helping them deliver projects for industry and government partners.

Professor Venville has been at the university since April 2018 and was officially made deputy vice-chancellor academic in February 2020. She was previously at the University of Western Australia for more than 11 years of which more than five years was spent as the dean or coursework studies.

Following a three-month sabbatical, former Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) chief strategy and digital investment officer Scott Cass-Dunbar has joined IT consultancy Avanade as executive health and public services group client lead. Mr Cass-Dunbar was also previously senior adviser for data, digital, and transformation to then-Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business Stuart Robert from October 2021 to July 2022.

Before joining the DTA, Mr Cass-Dunbar spent more than 17 years at KPMG. He also had a nine months stint in 2009 as assistant secretary at the then-Department of Finance and Deregulation. Among his responsibilities at the DTA, he oversaw the GovEx program, which sought to improve user experiences on government websites.

The industry and innovation lead at the Australian and Robotics Precinct in Western Australia is Alex Bertram, who will serve on a part-time basis. In August, Mr Bertram also started as a mining industry advisor for startups and scaleups at Edna Ventures. He left mining giant BHP in July 2022 after 14 years, most recently departing his role as co-creator and product manager of Dash Tools, a platform that enables remote machinery data collection.

He also previously spent three years as manager (digital) transformation at South Flank, BHP’s largest open pit iron ore mine. In 2021, Mr Betram was seconded to Microsoft for eight months as an industry advisor.

Last month the Australian Capital Territory government funded Canberra Cyber Hub appointed Karen Shilling to its board and reappointed retired Air-Vice Marshal Neil Hart, who had been serving as an interim director nine months prior. Both directors will serve three-year terms.

Ms Schilling formerly spent more than 18 years at aviation ICT services firm Sigma Bravo before leaving in March 2022. Her latest stint with the firm was as chief operating officer for six and a half years. Between May 2018 and September 2022, she also sat on the ACT Defence Industry Advisory Board and is currently a director of business systems at tech consultancy KBR Inc.

Air Vice-Marshal Hart has also been the chair of the Queensland Space Industry Reference Group since July 2019. During his 35  years with the Royal Australian Airforce, he headed the 2014/15 Force Structure Review and co-authored the 2016 Integrated Investment Program as a part of the 2016 Defence White Paper. Between May 2015 and August 2017 he headed the implementation of the ‘One Defence’ program to improve the use of data analytics by the Australian Defence Force.

Perth-based Lithium Australia has appointed Simon Linge as its new chief executive. This follows the retirement of former managing director Adrian Griffin on May 31. He moves from recycling firm Pact where he was executive general manager: contact manufacturing.

Mr Linge also previously spent almost three years as managing director and chief executive of industrial equipment manufacturer Bradken. Prior to that, Mr Linge spent almost 16 years at steel specialists Bluescope Group, including two and a half years as president ASEAN for the Nippon Steel-Bluescope Steel joint venture.

The Department of Home Affairs has promoted Sandon Morrell to assistant coordinator general while the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has promoted Clare Duffield to assistant secretary.

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