2022-Present: BizOps & Special Projects Manager at Lyka

• Why I joined:
  • Develop myself as a leader and grow a team that I love!
  • Impact that spans the whole company, during our period of hypergrowth
  • Amazed at the strategy & sustainability practices - it’s not all just talk

• What I do there: I drive leadership ops, board governance, business ops, IT, sustainability, facilities.
• My favourite thing about Lyka: Getting to see all the puppers in the office 💓
• Favourite memory: Our 2022 EOY party, which was Under the Sea themed at Sydney Aquarium - such a wholesome way to wrap up our year! 🐟

2018-2022: Chief of Staff to the CTO at Baraja

• Why I joined:
  • Cool tech that saves lives
  • Grew so fast in the role - lots of autonomy and trust
  • Awesome leaders that constantly pushed me beyond my comfort zone

• What I did there: Focused on three areas: enabling & supercharging the CTO, scaling & supporting our exec leadership team, and wider business operations.
• My favourite thing about Baraja: the amazingly talented people at Baraja, who were willing to teach me over four years all things photonics, LIDAR, and every other TLA under the sun 🥺 by the end, I was able to confidently talk tech, even though I didn’t come from a conventional engineering or photonics background.
• Favourite memory: Friday drinks in the kitchen, just getting to unwind with everyone and hear what everyone else was working on.

2016-2018: CTO & Founder at V-KAIWA

• Why I joined founded the company:
  • Complete luck! We won a hackathon and had to decide what was next!
  • I wanted to change how we teach languages, and encourage learning how I was taught Japanese - through immersion, fun, and genuine connection
  • I was in uni - I didn’t have anything else planned!

• What I did there: Developed and designed our gamified VR game worlds to actually teach languages in an immersive, fun way
• My favourite thing about V-KAIWA: my first foray into tech and coding - proving to myself I can learn any skill with the right community and effort!
• Favourite memory: Seeing students learn French in our first class at UNSW after pulling an all-nighter to get the tech working.

Other random tid-bits!

• 2017-2019: Sunrise Island Volunteer Coordinator
  • Core memory: Shout out to Joel Connolly - without meeting him at Sunrise, I would have never started at Baraja!
• 2017-2018: Cloud Intern ➡ VR Associate at Macquarie
  • Core memory: Being surprised at how innovative Macquarie was - they allowed me to pitch my own VR Cybersecurity L&D module, and gave me full autonomy over the project, timeline and budget.
• 2017: Community Assistant at TechSydney
  • Core memory: Meeting all these people in the startup ecosystem from all the events we ran!
• 2016-2020: Coaching with various ecosystem groups, such as Generation Entrepreneur, UNSW Founders, and Startmate.
  • Core memory: Reconnecting with a few of these people, years later, in current roles or at ecosystem events!

Other “professional” activities I really enjoy…

• I often do coaching calls with other CoS to share what we do as best practice & brainstorm what to do for our respective businesses & the stage they’re in. I really enjoy these - it can often be an isolating job, so being able to connect and share stories always makes my week!
• While it’s been a few years since I’ve been to one in-person due to the pandemic, I really love hackathons and even getting to run my own was one of my favourite memories at V-KAIWA. I started in tech via a hackathon, and getting to see that moment ‘click’ for other people is truly magical. ✨