Anne is an Innovation Adviser, Mentor and Coach to government, universities, research organisations, businesses, industry bodies, and not-for-profits bringing more than 30 years' experience across Australia’s innovation, research, commercialisation, investment, communication and policy landscape.

She is also an credentialed ACC Leadership Executive Coach with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and a qualified woman-centred transformational coach.

As one of the early women CEOs, she led the Australian Venture Capital Association (AVCAL), now the Australian Investment Council (AIC), at a time when virtually no funding existed for early-stage companies in Australia, to create the Innovation Investment Fund (IIF) program. The IIF program enabled government to co-invest with private investors to support early-stage, technology-based ventures.

As a Member of the NSW Innovation Council, she advised government on biotechnology, rural and regional innovation, and fostering an innovation culture. And later worked with large superannuation funds, and numerous organisations keen to build Australia’s innovation capacity.

She was Business Manager for a CSIRO spin-out and led the commercialisation of the novel high-fibre barley grain BARLEYmax® into a breakfast cereal available on supermarket shelves, work that earned me the CSIRO Medal for Business Excellence.

For the past 25 years, she has also been a Director of the public policy advisory firm, Howard Partners and contributed to countless government reviews and assignments in innovation over that time.

Today, as a Director of the Acton Institute for Policy Research and Innovation, she combines her passion for innovation alongside her practice as an Innovation Advisor, Mentor and Coach where she works with leaders and executives across the innovation system. Having spent her career deeply embedded in the Australian innovation ecosystem, she understands it from the inside out. This is what led her to train as an Innovation, Leadership, and Transformational Coach.

Anne's coaching provides a safe space where she partners with highly creative, amazing leaders and executives in the innovation and public policy space to explore their goals and potential for what they would like to see in the future, in both their work and life. Together they uncover inner barriers, unlock potential, strengthen resilience, and build the confidence to achieve their biggest aspirations in their leadership and in their impact on Australia’s innovation system.