Amanda Gome

Amanda Gome has spent two decades in business journalism is the CEO of SmartCompany and is a professor of business at RMIT University.

She has built a reputation as being Australia's leading source of news and information for entrepreneurs and small to medium enterprises. Her passion for encouraging entrepreneurs led her to founding and editing the Emerging Companies section and the influential Fast 100 and Upstarts lists at BRW magazine.

In 2006, Amanda created SmartCompany.com.au, the website for SMEs and entrepreneurs. At the launch of SmartCompany.com.au, the Federal Minister for Small Business and Tourism Fran Bailey said that this website was long overdue.

"I believe that this will help to improve the business culture in Australia by providing fresh, independent information and advice for business owners by business owners," said the Minister.

Amanda has worked as a business journalist since 1988 at The Herald, Sunday Herald, Herald-Sun and BRW. She appears regularly on radio and television. This is her first start-up business. "For 20 years I have been writing about entrepreneurs and telling them what to do," says Amanda. "I thought it was time I did it myself!"

Bruce Tyrrell

Bruce Tyrrell is the chief executive of one of the largest family-owned wine companies in Australia. He has transformed Tyrrell's Wines a into a major player in the domestic and international wine markets.

Established in 1858 in the Hunter Valley, Tyrrell's wines have won many awards, most recently dominating the 2006 Hunter Valley Wine Show, taking out nine trophies, 15 Gold Medals, seven Silver Medals and eight Bronze.

Bruce was a pioneer in exporting Australian wines to the world. From a frustrating start Bruce's persistence paid off, and Tyrrell's now exports to 30 countries around the world.

Bruce has long taken a leadership role in the Australian wine industry and is involved in a number of industry bodies and research activities.
He has also taken a strong interest in the link between the wine and tourism industries and is currently Chairman of the Australian Wine Tourism Alliance. He has provided financial support to the local Tourist Information Centre and funded an annual scholarship through Tourism Training Australia.

Bruce has also contributed significantly to charities. Personally and through Tyrrell's Wines he supports a variety of causes such as the Starlight Foundation; the Royal Flying Doctor Service; the Victor Chang Heart Research Institute; the Heart Foundation of Australia; the Cancer Council of New South Wales; and the Royal Agricultural Society Easter Show.

Fergus Linehan

Fergus Linehan is the Festival Director and Chief Executive of Sydney Festival. This year was his third year at Sydney Festival and was basically critic proof. In particular Mr. Linehan organized a number of free and low cost events making it easier for all Sydney-siders to join in the celebrations. He obtained record attendance, an operating profit, and injected a young and fresh element into the show.

Fergus was born and grew up in Dublin. His family has extensive links to the Irish arts community, with his father a playwright and his mother a respected actor and comedienne and his brother a journalist.

Franca Arena

 Franca Arena, journalist broadcaster and parliamentarian, was born at Genoa, Italy, in 1937 and migrated to Australia in 1959. After her arrival in Sydney in she was employed as a journalist with the Italian newspaper La Fiamma, and as a broadcaster with various radio stations. She was involved in the founding of Ethnic Radio 2EA Sydney and was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship.

Ms Arena was a founding member and convener of a number of organizations including the Ethnic Communities Council of NSW, the Women's Committee of the Council, and the Migrant Women's Association.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Arena was elected to the Legislative Council of NSW in 1981. She was the first woman from a non-English speaking background to be elected to the NSW Parliament.

Her primary interest where in immigration, multicultural and women's issues, and issues surrounding pedophilia. She has also written an autobiography titled Franca: my story.

Monica Waters

Working in the healthy industry Monica was concerned by the lack of healthy and convenient foods available to parents and she wanted to create an alternative that children would enjoy and parents would be pleased to serve.

She observed that busy parents were very concerned about the convenient snack foods on offer, as they were generally filled with colourings and preservatives or heavy in saturated fats or salt.

Her husband James Meldrum and herself started the company Nourish and the brand Whole Kids with the commitment to provide the highest-quality organic and natural foods to consumers.

After five years of research the products were launched, and the public response to the Whole Kids range, which includes dried fruit, juices, bars and popcorn, has by all accounts been overwhelming.

Sebastian Jacobs

Sebastian is a 25 year old full time fire-fighter based in Sydney. He set up OutingsGuide, a one-stop entertainment and social networking website after noticing that nothing like it existed anywhere on the web.

OutingsGuide looks to provide information about all the events and entertainment options in any area of Australia. From school fetes, to big name concerts, OutingsGuide can provide you with all the options including advanced mapping capabilities and the ability to invite all your friends to the event. It also includes places to stay.

Businesses can list on the website for free or upgrade their profiles for a small amount - perfect for the small business who wants an easily updatable presence on the web, but doesn't want to outlay a heap of cash to develop their own site.

Johnny Diesel

Johnny Diesel has recorded nine albums under either this name, his birth name of Mark Lizotte or the epithet Diesel. Two of his albums have been No. 1 Australian hits and he has also played on several albums by his brother-in-law, rock singer Jimmy Barnes.

Best known as a singer and guitarist, Diesel is also competent on bass guitar, drums and percussion and keyboards. In 1986 Johnny Diesel and the Injectors were formed and were taken on tour with jimmy Barnes as the opening act. This was was the beginning of a long working relationship between Diesel and Barnes that continues to the present.

The eponymous album Johnny Diesel and the Injectors was recorded in Memphis, Tennessee and released in 1989.

At the ARIA awards in early following year, Johnny Diesel and the Injectors won awards for Best New Talent and Best Selling Album of the Year (with more than 280,000 copies sold).

Diesel made a comeback to Australian music with the September 1999 release Soul Lost Companion, issued under his birth name Mark Lizotte. It spawned the singles, "Dig" and "Satellite".

To this point in his career, Diesel has sold over 800,000 records in Australia and won nine awards.

Ron Bunker

Ron Bunker became Chairman of Citibank Ltd on January 1, 2002 and has driven significant change across the organisation. These changes have included transforming the traditional bank branches to financial investment centres, the acquisition of Diners Club Australia, and structuring the management of the Bank as five discrete business units.

Focusing on delivering for all Citibank stakeholders in his tenure, employee and customer satisfaction has risen significantly and profits have increased year on year.

Mr Bunker was raised and educated in Canada, and since immigrating to Australia, he has developed a strong commitment to supporting the local community and a keen interest in rugby union.

Ron also spent four years working for the Canadian government in the Department of Defense. As a research scientist in ionispheric physics, he was the joint author of two papers on the effects of solar storms on radio wave communications in the Northern Hemisphere.

In Australia and New Zealand, Citigroup businesses service almost one million consumers and 1,000 corporate customers and revenues of one billion dollar.

Trevor Sinclair

Trevor is Sydney born, raised and bred & has a real passion for Sydney.

He writes and records info pieces about events, and hosts Vega nights from 8pm-11pm, including "10 from Then" at 10pm where he highlights particular eras, artists, albums and world events that we were living with at the time.

Trevor has worked in the Sydney Radio Industry for the past 29 years and adores radio and everything about Sydney.

Lindley Edwards

Lindley Edwards is the Managing Director of Venture Group Pty Ltd. The Group undertakes merger, acquisition, divestments, fund raising, strategic consulting and licensing for its client base of emergent and growth public and private companies.

Previously Lindley was a State Manager with Citibank. Prior to this position she spent nine years with Macquarie Bank and was an Associate Director with the Corporate Banking Division. Lindley has also worked on a secondment basis for Boston Consulting Group and for the Victorian State Government Project.

She is an accountant and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Banking and Finance. Lindley holds two undergraduate degrees, one in Accounting and the other in Banking and Finance and a Graduate Diploma in Governance of ASX Listed Companies. Lindley is a non-executive Director and Advisory Board member of various organisations.

Lindley has been a state finalist in the Telstra Businesswomen's awards for Private Sector less than 100 employees. She was named as one of Australia's top 40 bankers under the age of 40 in 2001 and was admitted to the Australian Businesswomen's Hall of Fame in 2000.

Maureen Frank

Maureen is recognised as one of Australia's top business women. In 2005 she released her first best selling book, You Go Girlfriend, aimed at inspiring women to believe that they can achieve in the business world – even when there are some major obstacles.

She has received public acknowledgement for her business skills in winning a Telstra Business Woman of Year Award in 2004, being named a BRW 'Rising Star' in 2005 and being noted as a finalist in 2005 in the Australian Institute of Management Excellence Awards.

Maureen is a qualified solicitor with a corporate legal background who decided early on in her career that she was not cut out to be a lawyer. She decided that she was going to succeed in business without studying an MBA and set herself a plan and strategy that worked – including heading a company in London at the age of 26.

Maureen is also a woman who has learned to do the juggling act – and sometimes backwards and in high heels! She is a single mother with beautiful twin 7 year old daughters – one with a disability.

Maureen is now an entrepreneur, author, business strategist, professional speaker and facilitator, she sits on a number of Boards and regularly speaks at Australian and International conferences and events.

Suzette Cassey

Suzette Cassey is the General Manager of Dermalogica Australia and has been since the company expanded into the Australian market thirteen years ago.

She transformed a little known brand into a household name by marketing quality professional skincare products to the consumer. Today there are 110 people in the company and the brand appears in almost every fashion magazine and industry publication.  

Prior to working for Dermalogica Ms Cassey spent four years working for Kraft who were the sponsors of the WTA (Women's Tennis Association) in a sports marketing capacity, helping them leverage the sponsorship on the international tennis circuit.

Dr. Timothy Sharp

Dr. Sharp has three degrees in psychology (including a Ph.D.) and an impressive record as an academic, clinician and coach. He runs one of Sydney’s largest clinical psychology practices, a highly regarded Executive Coaching practice, and is the founder & CHO (Chief Happiness Officer) of The Happiness Institute, Australia’s first organisation devoted solely to enhancing happiness in individuals, families and organisations (http://www.thehappinessinstitute.com).

He’s taught at all the major universities in NSW and is currently a Clinical Lecturer at the University of Sydney (Clinical Psychology Unit) and an Adjunct Professor (in Positive Psychology) within the School of Management, Faculty of Business at UTS.

Dr. Sharp is also a best selling author (of, among other things, “The Happiness Handbook”), a sought after public speaker, and he makes frequent appearances in the local and international media including being read and heard by millions of people every week in a syndicated newspaper column and radio spot (http://www.drhappy.com.au).

André Eikmeier

Former actor André Eikmeier has finally found a way to blend his passion – great wine – with business, launching winecentric social networking site qwoff.com.au last year.

He started off in the raw fragrance business with his father, and got his first big acting break when he starred in a Coke ad with Kylie Minogue. Andre went onto act in a number of TV shows including the beach side drama, Pacific Drive and sang in a cover band The One Hit wonders.

In his mid twenties he started a theatre company with a friend and confesses to losing $80 000 in his first production. They had to start managing corporate events in order to pay people back, and got a job at Cellarmasters selling booze.

Since leaving Cellarmasters Andre has owned his own video production company, has got married and had a child. His love of wine led him to become a bit of a new media consultant for some wineries in the Hunter Valley, and his business organically developed into something of a wine marketing consultancy.

Qwoff was born when Andre’s brother in law came back from a stint overseas and they decided to go into the wine review business together. Today Qwoff has been running for about 18 months, and is a complete wine networking site, described as the ‘Facebook for wine-lovers.’ People can rate and review wine, use online cellar-tracking applications, and network and communicate with people with similar interests.

Monique Harrisberg

Established twenty years ago, the Voice Clinic quickly became an internationally-renowned leader in the communications skills training industry, and today remains a global, multi-million dollar business.

Created by speech and drama teacher Monique Harrisberg, the Voice Clinic trains business people in communication skills, helping clients to develop a rich, resonant voice with correct tone and pace. It is not only business people who are benefiting from the Voice Clinic; anything which requires speech can be improved through voice training, from the art of flirting to giving a wedding speech.

Individual and corporate training is offered to assist clients to improve communication of their ideas with greater confidence.

Graeme Cowan

Graeme's early career was spent in Marketing Management with Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson. He then joined Morgan and Banks and worked in recruitment and outplacement, before finally leading their change management division. In 1998 he joined AT Kearney Executive Search and became the Joint Managing Director.

Between 2000-2005 Graeme went through a severe bout of depression which his psychiatrist described as the worst he had treated. During his worst times Graeme yearned for real life stories of people who had been through what was happening to him and came out the other side.

In June 2007, John Brogden launched his book “BACK FROM THE BRINK: Australians tell their story of overcoming depression” which quickly became a bestseller. He now speaks, writes, and consults on overcoming depression.

Trish Lambi

Trish Lambi has always painted but did not turn professional until 2003 when she participated in the Fourth Edition of the Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte Contemporanea in Florence Italy.

Since then she has exhibited locally, interstate and internationally and interest in her work is growing. Her work is hung in galleries in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Wollongong and in private collections in Australia, Spain, China, Germany, Ireland, Canada, Cyprus and the United States.

Light on form is Trish’s inspiration and she says it fuels all her work.

“I start each piece as an exercise in lighting form, whether that form is the human figure, or the landscape/seascape, and each piece invariably progresses into a spiritual journey where the painting evolves into a vignette of my everyday life – the emotions, the responses to external events and pressures, and the ongoing spiritual reflection: all rarely articulated”, she said.

“Whilst not intentional the women in my paintings feel and face pain and in my landscapes a deep emotion is evoked. This emotion comes as I paint and subconsciously it dictates the creation of each facet of the painting – the palette, the background, the brushstrokes. Each piece takes me on a journey, sometimes unwelcome but always illuminating,” Lambi says.

Gillie and Marc Schattner

'The world depends on contemporary artists to challenge life as we know it.' Gillie Schattner

Gillie, born in London in 1965 and Marc born in Melbourne in 1961 have exhibited their art all over the world. Most of their artwork appears as diptychs. They work collaboratively on the same art piece combining their talent to arrive at a single vision. Every aspect of the art piece has both their minds and hands on it, reflecting their individual passions and influences in life.

Marc Schattner studied Graphic Design at Swinburne, Melbourne. Gillie Schattner is a self-taught artist. They have had solo exhibitions in Sydney, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong & Belgium.

They are international award winning artists and Archibald Prize Finalist and have painted together for the last 15 years. According to Gillie and Marc Schattner, happiness can be found only by accepting what you have in the present.