My background

I spent four years as Chief Scientific Officer at Vow, a cultivated meat company that took a research-stage idea to a launched product. Over that period I helped raise more than USD $55M across multiple rounds, built and led a 25-person multidisciplinary science team, and managed direct engagement with FSANZ and international regulators including the Singapore Food Agency.

Before Vow, I spent over two decades in academic and translational research, including a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, two patents, 55 publications, and an H-index of over 40. My research focused on stem cell metabolism, regenerative medicine, and the cellular biology that underpins cultured tissue.

Why this work

Most strategy advisors in this space come from one of two backgrounds: operators without analytical depth, or analysts without operator credibility. The institutions making decisions in non-clinical biomanufacturing need both - they need someone who has actually built and scaled the kind of capability they’re deciding whether to fund, but who can also produce structured, defensible analysis at the standard of a senior policy submission.

Australia and New Zealand are at a strategic inflection point. The National Reconstruction Fund, Future Made in Australia, the Centre of Excellence for Synthetic Biology, and a growing set of state and CRC initiatives are actively allocating capital and shaping policy. Decisions made in the next 24 months will be path-dependent.

I do this work because the institutions making those decisions deserve analysis that doesn’t waste their time.