Mr Leigh Jasper is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Firmable, CEO of Saniel Ventures, Chair and Co-Founder of Second Quarter Ventures and a non-executive director of SEEK Ltd, Buildxact and Matrak. He was the co-founder and CEO of Aconex between May 2000 and August 2019. Aconex is the world’s largest provider of online collaboration solutions for the construction and engineering industries.

As Aconex CEO, Mr Jasper led global growth for Aconex, expanding the business into Asia, North America, South America, the Middle East and Europe.

In September 2008, Aconex secured a A$109.5 million funding deal and one of the largest private capital raisings by an Australian technology company. In 2014 the company listed on the ASX. In 2018 Oracle acquired Aconex for $1.6 billion in Australia’s largest technology M&A transaction.

Leigh joined the LaunchVic Board on 1 July 2020.                      

Special Responsibilities             

— Chair of the Board, Member of the Audit, Finance & Risk Sub-Committee and People Sub-Committee

Ms Aneetha de Silva is a senior infrastructure executive with over 25 years’ of experience across the government and private sectors in Australia, South Africa and the Asia Pacific. She has particular expertise as an advisor, developer and manager of large infrastructure assets and services, especially in transport, telecommunications and property. 

Aneetha is currently Managing Director, Government ANZ for Aurecon Group and a member of Aurecon’s global board. She is also President of Roads Australia and sits on the Boards of LaunchVic, the Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation and the North East Link State Tolling Corporation.

An active angel investor, she is passionate about innovation, particularly the potential for new technologies to meet emerging customer needs and transform access to community services. ​​​​​

Special Responsibilities 

— Chair of the Audit, Finance & Risk Sub-Committee, and Member of the Alice Anderson Investment Committee.

Catriona is a customer driven business leader with 25 years’ experience leading businesses and transforming their strategic and operational performance.

As an executive within the Qantas Group, she has led significant strategic, customer and digital improvements across Jetstar and now as Qantas Freight Executive Manager, accountable for the Group’s global air freight business

​Before joining the Qantas Group in 2015, Catriona was a management consultant with The Boston Consulting Group for 13 years, specialising in consumer goods, retail and aviation, and has also been a senior executive with Spotless and Australia Post, where she focused on digital disruption and growth. 

Special Responsibilities​​​​​

—  Chair of the Grants and Funding Sub-Committee

Mr Con Frantzeskos is the founder and Managing Director of PENSO, a visionary digital strategy consultancy. The firm has offices in Australia, South-East Asia, the Middle East, and the USA, working with clients such as Emirates, Commonwealth Bank, Collingwood Football Club, Saudi Tourism Authority, and iag. 

He also serves as Managing Director of AJF, one of Australia’s top advertising agencies, with an aspiration to make it the world’s most sought-after retail and consumer growth partner. 

Mr Frantzeskos sits on the advisory board of the Swinburne University of Technology Innovation Precinct and is the Australian presenting Partner of The Future Laboratory, one of the world’s most renowned futures and foresight consultancies.  

Con holds a Bachelor of Economics from Monash University and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment (Finsia).

Con joined the LaunchVic Board on 11 March 2016.

– Ms Ilona Charles is an experienced executive with an extensive career in human resources, transformation and change across a range of industries. 

Ilona has held executive roles with the CSIRO, Aconex, Telstra, Medibank and NAB and is currently the CEO and co-founder of ShiloPeople (shilo.), providing world-class on-demand HR talent and consulting solutions across Australia.

She also founded pivotnow, providing strategic people advice to Founders, CEO’s and Boards of organisations going through significant transition or scaling up. 

Special Responsibilities

– Chair of the People Sub-Committee​

Ms Teresa Engelhard has a passion for technology and collaboration aligned with moral purpose which has underpinned a career-long focus on innovation and entrepreneurship. She is currently the founder and CEO of edtech startup StickyTek and serves on the board of ASX-listed tech unicorn Wisetech Global. Her former ASX-listed NED roles include Origin Energy and RedBubble where she supported the company’s growth from 25-people through its ASX listing.

Her work at LaunchVic builds on over a decade of service to the Australian public and not-for-profit entities. Currently, she serves on SCATS advisory panel (Government of NSW). She previously was a member of Innovation Australia’s Entrepreneurs’ Programme Committee and was a Director at StartupAUS (now Tech Council of Australia) and Redkite Cancer Charity.

Arriving in Australia in 2006 from Silicon Valley, Teresa joined Jolimont Capital to eventually become a Managing Partner. Her investments there included NextWindow which achieved an AVCAL Chairman’s award for IRR performance and Daintree Networks which achieved Australia’s highest value technology trade sale in 2016. At Daintree Networks, she was the longest-serving director providing hands-on leadership through multiple international venture financings and its trade sale to GE.

Between 1996 and 2006 in California, Ms Engelhard was a venture capitalist at Mohr, Davidow Ventures, VP of Software Solutions at $5 billion US-listed ONI Systems (now Ciena), and held multiple roles at startups backed by top-tier venture syndicates including as CEO leading Timeshift’s exit to J2 Global (US-listed) and as VP Marketing and Business Development at Xponent, acquired by Hoya Corporation (Japan).

Teresa began her career at McKinsey & Company in Los Angeles, has an MBA from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Engineering and Applied Science from Caltech.

Teresa joined the LaunchVic Board on 1 July 2020.

Michelle is Investment Manager for the Alice Anderson Fund