Former Nationwide AI Centre boss Stela Photo voltaic will exchange Chris Kirk as CEO of startup collaboration hub Stone & Chalk.
Photo voltaic was most just lately a managing director at Accenture. Bef changing into the founding head of NAIC, creating Australia’s first nationwide AI adoption steerage, and several other AI insurance policies, she was a senior exec at Microsoft together with as world director of AI resolution gross sales.
Stone & Chalk chair Richard Kimber mentioned Photo voltaic “brings a uncommon mixture of expertise throughout startups, authorities, companies, and the Australian innovation ecosystem” to the enterprise, which has workplaces in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne.
“She has a strategic perspective, private drive, and crew orientation which can be required for this essential position,” he mentioned.
Photo voltaic mentioned that her early priorities within the new position embody the event of a shared companies mannequin – designed to plug crucial enterprise capabilities similar to hiring, advertising and marketing, insurance coverage and operations into startups – releasing founders to deal with prospects, product, and innovation.
Founder wellbeing a precedence
Initiatives targeted on founder wellbeing and resilience, to allow them to construct stronger, extra sustainable corporations, are additionally on the record. She’s on the Knowledge & AI Advisory Council at Past Blue.
“Our startup founders are constructing Australia’s sovereign tech functionality and I’m excited to steer an organisation that accelerates Australian innovation,” she mentioned.
“AI presents each the best alternative and the most important problem for know-how corporations at present. No single participant can succeed alone; it requires collaboration throughout the whole worth chain: from researchers and universities to authorities and trade. My focus will probably be on constructing the infrastructure, the expertise pipelines, and the assist techniques that assist Australian startups transfer quick sufficient to compete globally.”
The arrival of Photo voltaic alerts the tip of a decade-long journey for Kirk, together with two years as CEO.
“I joined Stone & Chalk in 2015 when it was an thought on a web page. Ten years on, we’ve constructed Australia’s largest and most really helpful startup assist organisation,” he mentioned.
“Stela is broadly recognised as a frontrunner in advancing AI – we labored carefully along with her and her crew on the Nationwide AI Dash and he or she is thought and trusted throughout the startup neighborhood. She deeply understands the challenges going through rising tech companies as a result of she’s labored throughout each dimension of the ecosystem.”
