Board of Directors

He is qualified in law and accountancy, and was admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 1974, and as a CPA in 1980. He has a BA (majoring in French language) and an LLB from University of Sydney, a Master of Commerce from UNSW (majoring in accounting and financial management) and a Doctor of Business Administration from Charles Sturt University with a thesis on the subject of venture capital and angel investment in small technology-based companies. He practiced as a solicitor in the law firm DibbsBarker of which he was a partner between 1978 and 2008, apart from two years living and working in Tokyo with the law firm Anderson Mori. In 1986 Rob was appointed by the Federal Minister for Industry Technology and Commerce as the first Chairman of the R&D Tax Concession Committee to administer the 150% R&D tax concession scheme, and a member of the federal Industry Research and Development Board. In 1989, Rob was one of the founding shareholders and directors of ResMed, now listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the ASX. Rob was a member of the joint ASX and AusBiotech Committee which drafted the first Compliance Code for Listed Life Science companies. Rob was involved in the establishment of marine farming of salmon in Tasmania as the first chairman of Tassal Limited (1984-1990), and a director of Salmon Enterprises of Tasmania (1984-1988). He is Chairman of Echoview Holdings Pty Ltd which provides the world’s premier software for hydro-acoustic data processing used in fisheries research. Since 1995 he has also been a director of the Biopharm Australia Pty Ltd and Sylvan Pharmaceuticals Pty Ltd group involved in the development and sale of sulphated polysaccharides in veterinary and human-use pharmaceuticals for the treatment of musculoskeletal and other diseases and disorders. Rob’s passions include a lifetime of attempting to master the game of golf, travel, food and wine. He has two children and three grandchildren, and lives about three months a year in Paris and the remainder at home in Sydney.

After leaving KPMG in 2000, he has undertaken roles as a non executive director of listed and unlisted companies. Most recently, Mr Harkness was Chairman of Reliance Rail, a Director of Goodman Group and Sinclair Knight Merz, Chairman and a Director of Charter Hall Retail Management Limited, as well as a member of the Territorial Headquarters and Sydney Advisory Board of the Salvation Army. Mr Harkness joined the Board of Directors of the National Foundation for Medical Research and Innovation in 1984 and was appointed Chairman of the Foundation between 2000-2018. Mr Harkness is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand and was a Fellow the Australian Institute of Company Directors until 2019.

Kevin Hellestrand has been in private practice as a Cardiologist and Cardiac Electrophysiologist for 35 years. He has been a co-author of more than 50 journal articles, reviews and book chapters. Kevin is a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, American College of Cardiology, Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, Heart Rhythm Society, European Society of Cardiology. He is also a member of the North Shore Heart Research Foundation.

In 2004, Tony was a Founding Partner of McGrathNicol. Prior to this, Tony was the head of the Sydney Corporate Recovery division of KPMG. He has over 30 years of restructuring and insolvency experience. Tony has acted as a Liquidator of the HIH Insurance Group, which has been one of the largest failures in Australian corporate history. Other key engagements have included acting as Liquidator of the Pan Pharmaceuticals Group and the Voluntary Administration of the Henry Walker Eltin Group, All, Acting Trustee of Trio and Receiver of Banksia. Tony is a Non-Executive Director of  Servcorp Ltd., is a Commissioner of the Australian Rugby League and is also a Director of a number of other not-for-profit organisations.

Alison has over 25 years of corporate, commercial and regulatory experience and co-leads the Hall & Wilcox Health & Care team (including life sciences). Alison has been nominated by her peers as one of Australia’s best lawyers in the areas of health, aged care and biotechnology and has been recognised for this in Best Lawyers International and the Australian Financial Review. She was previously General Counsel of Ramsay Health Care Limited and has acted for a number of research related matters for public hospitals and eminent health and medical research institutes.

Ian completed his first degree in Newcastle upon Tyne England and moved to Australia in 1984 to complete his PhD at Prince Henry’s Institute Melbourne and Monash University. In 1991 Ian moved to the Baker Heart Research Institute and was Associate Director until his move to Monash University in 2004. Up until the end of 2020, Ian was Vice-Provost (Research & Research Infrastructure) at Monash University, where he played a university-wide leadership role, with responsibility for research strategy, infrastructure and alliances. A major focus was building linkages to industry and encouraging large companies and SMEs to use the university’s globally-recognised research capabilities and tools to innovate, capture new opportunities and solve problems. Ian has a background in both industry and research. He is a leader in his field of medical research, which has resulted in over 260 publications and many patents. Ian receives regular invitations to speak at international meetings and his research has had a direct impact on human health and led to changes in clinical practice. Ian also co-founded a proteomics-based, publicly listed, biotechnology company, which he helped build to IPO and trade sale and he continues to collaborate and consult widely with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Ian is now Professor Emeritus at Monash and as well as consulting for Monash and other organisations, Ian is a board director and chair of a number of national and international senior government and non-government advisory boards as well as serving on a number of national and international committees, many with a strong industry focus. Ian’s unique background in business and research drives his passion to get entrepreneurs and industry collaborating and using university research capabilities to innovate. He believes that Australia lags behind many countries in utilising this enormous asset and is passionate about finding ways to make the collaborative process as efficient and effective as possible for industry, sharing outcomes and success stories to build awareness.

He is presently Professor Emeritus in Hematology at the University of Sydney and Consultant Hematologist at RPAH.He is the past Chair of the National ARCBS Ethics committee.  Prof. Joshua received his BSc, MB BS, and his D Phil degrees from University of Sydney and University of Oxford. He is a fellow of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia. Prof. Joshua was ascientific advisor and member of the International Myeloma Foundation,past Councillor on the International Myeloma Society and he serves on the editorial board of numerous journals. Prof. Joshua has a long standing interest in both basic and clinical research in Myeloma and has been supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council, Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, International Myeloma Foundation, NSW State Cancer Council, Cancer institute of NSW , the University of Sydney Cancer Research Fund and the Sydney Foundation for Medical research. He has held sabbatical appointments as a visiting scholar at the University of Birmingham and the Dana Farber Cancer Centre at Harvard. Professor Joshua’s main research interest has been in the concept of host tumour control in myeloma and has published extensively on this topic. His group was the first to describe the presence of clonal T cells in myeloma and demonstrated their beneficial effect on prognosis.

She has over 20 years experience as a biotech analyst and life science investor across ASX listed and private companies through her investment management roles at Asia Union Investments and life science fund BioScience Managers. She is experienced in the establishment of VC and life science funds, and the portfolio management of assets from private start-ups through to FDA approvals, including involvement in private and public ASX capital raisings.  Currently, Alison is a co-founder of Sydney based AI company Evidentli, that automates the analysis of ‘real world data’. She is also a Project Manager for ASX listed company RadiopharmTheranostics (ASX:RAD), and sits on the Research Advisory Committee and Board of the National Foundation of Medical Research and Innovation (NFMRI).