Our Team
Meet the board
Meet the board guiding Innovation Victoria’s work to support innovation, investment and growth across Victoria.
Geoff Tarrant
CHAIR - Geoff has deep experience as a technology entrepreneur and investor, including as co-founder and executive chair of Payapps, a construction tech company acquired by Autodesk in 2024. Prior to Payapps, Geoff held senior local and global roles with Deutsche Bank across corporate finance and capital markets. He is also a founding Partner of Glitch Capital.
Monique Conheady
DEPUTY CHAIR - Monique is an accomplished leader, having worked on long-term investments and regulatory requirements in Clean Economy for decades. She has held leadership positions in orgs such as Melbourne Water and Energy Safe Victoria, and startups like Hysata and JET Charge. Monique was co-founder of pioneering carshare startup Flexicar.
Deirdre Blythe
Deirdre is an experienced Non-Executive Director, Audit and Risk Committee Chair and Exec with over 35 years experience driving performance improvement and effective risk management across government, commercial and not-for-profit sectors. She has held several Board roles including with DJSIR, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and BUPA.
Joshua Funder
Joshua is founder and CEO of Household Capital. He spent over a decade as partner at GBS Ventures, Australia and has served as chairman and director of several US and Australian companies, including Peplin, Spinifex Inc. and Celladon Inc. He is a winner of the AVCAL early-stage investment award and also author of the novel, Watson’s Pier (MUP 2015).
Mark Johnson
Mark is an investor-operator with 25 years building and backing technology companies. Having worked on both sides of the table as an investor at Mobius Venture Capital (SoftBank), startup CEO at SkyPilot, and executive at Apple, he brings a practical understanding of scaling companies with the private capital discipline and judgment that public capital stewardship requires.
Dr Ian Meredith, AM
Ian is a globally recognised interventional cardiologist, professor of medicine, and executive leader. Over 30 years he has merged patient care, clinical research, and life science tech to create transformative healthcare solutions. He guides decisions for the $1bn Boston Scientific internal VC fund and was Exec VP and Global Chief Medical Officer at BSC.
Susan Oliver, AM
Susan is an experienced chair and company director across listed, unlisted and arts organisations, and investor in women led start-ups. Previous NED and Chair roles include Transurban, MBF (now BUPA), Campus Living Villages, Centro and Melbourne Theatre Company. Susan co-founded The Big Issue in Australia and is Chair of the Alice Anderson Fund.
Chaman Sidhu
Chaman is an executive with legal, intellectual property, commercial and governance experience. She brings a passion for dynamic and scale-up environments, most recently serving as Chief Legal Officer and Company Secretary at Xero and prior to that was General Counsel and Company Secretary for Envato and Lonely Planet during periods of significant growth.
Meet our CEO
Rod Bristow
Rod Bristow brings more than 30 years of experience across stockbroking, asset and wealth management, agribusiness and not-for-profits. He has held senior leadership roles in venture capital, investment management, financial services and environmental organisations, including Investible, Clime Investment Management, CommSec and Greening Australia. Rod also co-founded a business in environmental management and carbon offsets.