Asia-Commonwealth Business Summit

David has over 30 years’ experience in technology businesses in finance, commercialization strategy and management roles. He qualified as an accountant in Australia before moving to London. There he had finance roles and designed and built a consumer finance platform for one of the UK’s largest retail groups. He then spent 5 years working in Thailand, Hong Kong and Korea in the agricultural commodities sector.

 

He was a founder-director in 1998 of a £3.3 million Management Buy-out of the Central Research Laboratories from EMI plc. In 2000, this business, Scipher plc, was floated on the London Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of £330 million.

 

At Scipher, David developed QED Intellectual Property, an IP licensing and management business with offices in the UK, Japan and the USA. QED included the Open Innovation marketplace yet2.com. Clients for QED included most of the Fortune Global 500. He also ran a joint venture R&D business with the Malaysian Government.

 

From 2003, David has been an investor in early-stage technology businesses in the UK and Australia through his company, Oceanic Equity.

 

In December 2014, David was the Brisbane Lord Mayor’s Visiting Entrepreneur; and in 2017, was Chair of indycube.community, the cooperative-owned union of independent workers.

 

He advises the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council on Australian trade, is a mentor to Commonwealth First Export Champions and led the UK’s delegation to Trade 2018, part of the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

 

David is currently Chairman of fintech company Inngot and Non-Executive Director of Rantmedia Games and Prodigi Group.

 

He is a Fellow of the RSA, an early member of the Commonwealth Partnership for Technology Management and regular speaker at technology conferences and judge at pitching contests.