We’re a close-knit, collaborative group who have helped build and advise hundreds of companies at the seed stage here and around the world. But we’re humans first and hard-working startup land people second.
Skalata is a community helping one another succeed. This includes our team, board, portfolio founders, advisors, investors, and broader network. When you work with Skalata, you work with all of us.
Rohan Workman has been an integral part of the Australian startup ecosystem for nearly a decade as a company founder, director and advisor. Previously, he was the Director of the Melbourne Accelerator Program (MAP) at the University of Melbourne which, under his leadership, was ranked the 8th best program of its kind globally.
In 2008 Rohan co-founded RosterCloud which provides HR management software to events companies. He was a Director of RosterCloud until it was acquired in 2016.
Rohan started his career at a boutique corporate advisory firm where he gained experience across a number of industries including telecommunications, agriculture, retail and property. Rohan is a member of the Old Melburnians Council and the Impact Investment Ready Growth Grant panel. He is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and the Australian American Young Leadership Dialogue.
Maxine Lee is a leading authority in designing programs which help companies from inception to growth and their first round of funding. In 2020, Maxine was named in Forbes 30 under 30 in Finance and VC in recognition of her work in Australia’s startup community.
She is responsible for operations, diligence on potential opportunities and supporting founders through business challenges. Maxine previously spent five years as Accelerator Manager for the Melbourne Accelerator Program (MAP) at the University of Melbourne as one of its first employees.
During her time at MAP, Maxine had significant exposure and involvement in building a world class accelerator and managed a portfolio of over 54 companies. Prior to this, Maxine worked in brand consulting with clients in IT, supply chain and logistics across Australia.
Anthony Glenning is a seasoned Investment Professional and Non-Executive Director with a career spanning 25 years in the software development industry, 14 of those in Silicon Valley.
In 1999, he founded Tonic Systems, a web application development company that was acquired by Google in 2007 as part of the Google doc suite of products. From 2010 to 2018, Tony was the Investment Director for Starfish Ventures, a venture capital firm that specialises in Australian high growth technology businesses.
During that time Anthony held directorships at Aktana, Atmail, DesignCrowd, MetaCDN and Nitro Software. Anthony is also a Non-Executive Director of ASX listed Pro Medicus (ASX:PME) and Azure Healthcare (ASX:AZV). He holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) and a Bachelor of Computer Science from The University of Melbourne, and a Master of Science (MSEE) from Stanford University in California.
Mei brings more than 15 years of corporate accounting and finance experience to Skalata Ventures. Originally working as a Chartered Accountant at KPMG, she has subsequently worked across a diverse range of industries including hospitality, logistics and FMCG.
Mei has a keen interest in finance partnering and has a strong commercial acumen which is reflected in the success in her previous roles as Commercial Manager and Finance Partner at Toll Holdings and GlaxoSmithKline respectively. Mei is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Curtin University.
Sarah has extensive startup and technology sector experience, having previously worked in San Francisco at Australian-founded PDF software company Nitro.
Originally from California, Sarah began her career in San Francisco’s booming technology industry. She has seven years’ experience in program administration, project management, and operations and relocated to Melbourne in 2018. Sarah worked at Nitro for just over five years and saw the company grow from 60 to 200 people.
Sarah oversees company program administration, culture, office and is the Executive Assistant to the CEO.
Eve brings over 20 years of financial management experience in both industry and venture capital, notably as CFO at Starfish Ventures.
Eve has an exceptional track record in operational financial management and control, leading organisational change, managing key stakeholder relationships and strategic financial planning. Specialist areas include financial services license compliance, governance and company secretarial, business and operational process improvements.
Tom is an enthusiastic, but relative newcomer to the Australian startup ecosystem, having started his career in the corporate world. Prior to joining Skalata, Tom spent over five years working for leading Australian corporate law firm King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) in the Corporate M&A team, advising clients in the financial services, technology and telecommunications sectors on a wide array of commercial transactions.
He holds a Bachelor of Laws with First Class Honours and a Bachelor of Arts from Monash University. He is also completing a Graduate Certificate in Finance from Macquarie University.
Sam has over 10 years of international marketing experience, and has helped accelerate growth in both early-stage and ASX-listed financial and technology companies.
Originally from New Zealand, Sam crossed the ditch in 2018 and immediately immersed himself within Melbourne’s thriving startup scene. Specialising in the areas of content strategy, marketing automation and investor relations, Sam is also well-versed in all forms of early-stage funding (seed, CSF, revenue-based, debt).
He is passionate about ensuring Australia’s leading growth companies are afforded the marketing support they need to prosper.
Vanessa Hutchinson started her career as a commercial lawyer before transitioning to role in finance at Goldman Sachs. From there Vanessa moved into a role in Venture Capital at one of Australia's prominent firms, Rampersand.
Most recently Vanessa spent nearly three years running operations at global tech startup, Myagi, where she oversaw hiring, finance, capital raising and investor relations. In 2019 Vanessa launched her own company, Fodbods, which makes healthy FODMAP friendly snacks.
Guy is a strategic technology leader who co-founded Australia's longest running real time video streaming company (mView).
He then applied his start-up mindset to the corporate world joining Telstra, working to define and build their software developer program, API strategy, global software growth strategy and innovation & incubation methodology framework.
He led software and design specialists building next generation growth businesses at Telstra Labs and mentor startups in Telstra’s global Accelerator muru-D.
Peter Laurie is the founder of Junta, a consulting firm which provides advice to the innovation ecosystem on how to innovate, implement, and deliver to both consumers and businesses.
Peter has coached and advised 800+ startups and new ventures. His deep technical knowledge and expertise provides the basis for his particular focus on supporting the development of high performing teams, the execution of complex tasks and innovation strategy.
Peter has been the Mentor in Residence at River City Labs for over seven years. An Entrepreneur in Residence on six different programs over the last two years (Collider, UQ iLab, RCLAccelerator) and also mentor on 15+ startup programs nationally (including muru-d, Techstars Adelaide, unearthed).
He has led large scale software development projects for the last 25 years for both Enterprise and New Ventures including Oracle, Telstra, Sensis, NAB, Suncorp, Energex. Peter has an MBA from QUT specialising in strategy, entrepreneurship, and microeconomics.
Peter is a sessional lecturer in innovation, entrepreneurship, and business strategy at both QUT and UQ and won the Queensland Pearcey Entrepreneur Award for 2018.
Mark is a strategic advisor, board member and executive coach for a number of tech companies in Australia and the US.
For the last two decades, he has worked within the venture capital community in Silicon Valley, as well as companies ranging from early-stage startups to the Fortune 500.
In addition to holding roles as CEO of SkyPilotNetworks, Associate Partner at Mobius Venture Capital (SoftBank) and directing product strategy at Preview Systems, Mark spent 10 years at Apple where he worked in technical, marketing and international management roles, building platform ecosystems.
Justine brings experience in both investment banking and law, having worked at top financial institutions in Sydney. She worked at Morgan Stanley for four years in the global capital markets team raising debt and equity funding for ASX-listed companies and government entities across multiple products and jurisdictions.
Prior to this, Justine began her career as a lawyer working for Macquarie Bank within Group Treasury for three years and was responsible for debt financing arrangements and hybrid public offerings. Earlier in her legal career, she worked at Ashurst in the litigation and corporate team.
Justine has a track record of building and maintaining trusted client relationships as well as originating and executing deals. She holds a Bachelor of Law (Honours) and Bachelor of Commerce with a major in Finance from Monash University.
Wahid joins Skalata from one of the fastest growing scale-ups in the UK, Paddle, and has spent the last four years helping them scale from under 30 employees to 200, while also raising over $90m USD.
In that time, he’s worked intimately with hundreds of global SaaS companies developing their GTM to grow ARR from $0 - $10m+. He’s especially driven by helping companies find the intersection of product and GTM to achieve true scale.
We don't aspire to be thought leaders. We've built Skalata from the ground-up to offer hands-on, day-to-day support to those pursuing the next big thing.
