Michelle is an award-winning health technology entrepreneur with a particular interest in AI, gene therapy, clinical trials and ethics.
With four startups under her belt (two wins and two losses), scar tissue from years of capital raising, pivoting a digital healthtech company during a global pandemic and surviving as one of only a few female tech CEO’s on the ASX, Michelle is a sought-after mentor, advisor, podcaster, author and story-teller.
Michelle’s career spans clinical and executive leadership roles in public and private biopharmaceutical and digital healthtech companies, major national research initiatives, leading a biotech peak-body and serving as a non-executive director and advisor to local and international organisations in the health, medical research and technology sectors.
Michelle moved from the corporate world in 2014 to found her first startup successfully selling that business three years later into a US-based ASX listed technology company, ShareRoot (ASX:SRO).
Michelle went on to lead ShareRoot, pivoting in 2019 into a new company, Opyl Ltd (ASX:OPL) developing and commercialising two new AI-assisted clinical trial efficiency technologies, Opin.ai for global patient recruitment and TrialKey, a protocol optimisation and prediction platform.
Michelle is currently leading a scale up - Cerulea Clinical Trials - that is the largest ophthalmic clinical trials unit int he Southern hemisphere.
The appropriate application of AI in healthcare, and the role of ethics and leadership in technology development is a key issue that Michelle is renowned for as a key opinion leader, speaker and advocate.
Michelle is an experienced non-executive director serving on several commercial and NFP boards, and is co-founder of not-for-profit advocacy organisation, Women in STEMM Australia.
Michelle is a Victorian Honour Roll for Women inductee, Victorian Telstra Businesswoman and Entrepreneur of the Year, and a winner of Westpac’s 200 Businesses of Tomorrow.
Michelle has an undergraduate degree in applied science, postgraduate qualifications in business and product management, a Global Executive MBA, is a graduate of the Institute for Company Directors and a Fellow of the Australian Institute for Management.
Michelle is the mother of two extraordinary humans, is devoted to a beloved labrador retriever and a rescue cat that bites.
