Women founders of startup businesses in the regions face an additional set of challenges to sustainability and business growth. Our Evolve program for founders in regional, rural and remote areas within NSW provides structure to business development to accelerate growth in a supportive environment. Over the course of the 8 weeks, our founders engage in activities to design strategies and gain skills to meet their business goals.
This cohort is comprised of ten companies offering exciting solutions to the hard problems facing regional communities and beyond. At SBE we're all about building a community that supports women to succeed in their new, innovative ventures, by connecting women with experts and advisors who can assist them in their planning and pursuit for revenue.
Leonor Faria, Founder of Health 42
Leonor Faria is curious, restless and a healthtech aficionado. She is the Founder of Health 42, and has been dedicated to establishing and growing the Company’s solution. Health 42’s purpose is to bridge the gap between pharmaceutical companies and patients by combining the consumerization of healthcare with the power of digital solutions to allow pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers to deliver relevant and personalized healthcare experiences to patients and carers. Transparency, security and giving back to the user and community are the basis of Health 42 business model. Leonor has over 12 years of experience in the Pharmaceutical market, in both Europe and Australia. She is an avid traveler and foodie and it's not unusual to see her knitting in between meetings.
Suzanne Campbell, Founder of Vennu
Suzanne Campbell is passionate about building communities. She is from regional NSW and an entrepreneur. She is the CEO & Founder of Vennu. Vennu® is connecting people and spaces with ease. Vennu applies lessons from the sharing economy, think Airbnb, to give equal access to organisations of all scales and resources and in all locations to hire their venues to customers. Suzanne has held executive leadership roles including Managing Director, MCI Worldcom, General Manager, Unwired, General Manager Professional Services, Telstra and Chief Executive Officer, Australian Information Industry Association, the peak body for those in the digital economy. She was recognised by Crickey amongst “The 11 most influential people in Australia’s tech sector” in 2013. Her undergraduate degree was a Bachelor of Arts, and most recently, she completed a Graduate Diploma in International Business. Suzanne believes that people are good and that technology can be a force for positive change.
Cassandra Cadorin, Founder of CanTicket
Cassandra is the founder of CanTicket, a time and task management tool for small businesses. After years of entrepreneurship in the tourism industry, Cassandra made the unintended transition to SaaS in 21/22 and is not looking back. Mother to Maxwell and a small website agency, she is dedicated and hard-working. Cassandra has also been recognised as a State Finalist for Outstanding Young Entrepreneur (2018) and Excellence in MicroBusiness (2019) by the NSW Business Chamber for her efforts in tourism. She has held a seat on Destination NSW Riverina Board and is an active member of her community and supporter of Soroptimist International. CanTicket will be the way Cassandra inspires women who aspire to start a business of their own, and help small businesses do more online.
Kristy Withers, Founder of Incy Interiors
Kristy Withers is the founder of Incy Interiors, a designer children’s furniture company. In 2011, interiors enthusiast and mum, Kristy Withers founded lncy Interiors, an Australian owned and designed company specialising in designer baby and childrens furniture. lncy Interiors transpired after Kristy's long and exhausting search to find her son Oscar's first 'big boy' bed. Her regular work-related travels to the US and Europe Australia gave her exposure to the myriad of products and styles on offer, something that was simply missing in Australia. Kristy's frustration, coupled with a gentle push from her husband Simon, to "stop talking about it and just do it!" led to the birth of lncy Interiors, and with that, the launch of high quality designer kids' furniture in Australia. Prior to starting her business, Kristy spent five years working as a corporate marketing executive for eBay - researching the market, launching new products and developing strategies. Kristy resides in Orange with her husband Simon and two children Oscar and Polly.
Alicia Manasso, Founder of Hussh
"Hussh is online retailer that offers Australia’s best prices on unique and sought after boutique brands in fashions, lifestyle as well as kids and baby products. Our clients are leading wholesalers and brands looking to clear excess inventory. Previously focusing on promoting and facilitating physical warehouse sales, Hussh is now predominantly an online service which launched in late 2020 in response to the pandemic. Our goal is to transition from an online ‘flash sale’ outlet to a premium ecommerce marketplace available to hundreds of Australian wholesalers and brands with the objective of being Australia and New Zealand’s largest marketplace top discounts on quality fashion, homewares and family finds."
Georgia Wenborn, Founder of JUST Medics
JUST Medics is a patient-centred digital platform designed to deliver sustainable world leading health care in custodial settings. The objective is to return healthier patients to their communities by improving access to specialist care through personalised, proactive, safe and preventive Remote Patient Management. Using artificial intelligence and advanced health information reporting, JUST Medics streamlines patient management by empowering clinicians and specialists to collaborate and deliver research-based consultations remotely through our intuitive software and data driven devices. JUST Medics virtually enabled model of care offers greater efficiencies for the system by ensuring continuity of care with effective patient client records and reporting. The reduced wait times for patients improves their overall physical and mental health and saves costs by reducing the high resource requirements of patient transportation, whilst addressing difficulties for specialised care in rural and remote locations for the custodial network.
Danielle Morton, Founder of Zondii
Zondii is a global technology company providing realtime smartphone authentication solutions for food and fibre. Using your ‘selfie camera’, the technology picks up unique biochemical markers across multiple verticals, from verifying organic status, confirming authenticity to identifying regional fingerprints for provenance and traceability. Our patented technology delivers the world's first realtime smartphone authentication tool with no extra hardware required, designed to integrate into any smartphone. Our customers call Zondii the holy grail for smartphone food & fibre fraud protection. Zondii CEO & Founder Danielle Morton has over 20 years experience in program delivery in the corporate finance technology industry. Danielle is an entrepreneur with two previous startups in app development and the food supply chain industry. Danielle has the unique knowledge to deliver patented technology into the hands of consumers, producers and supply chains alike.
Deborah Martin, Founder of Observa Care
Deborah is a co-founder of the health tech startup Observa Care Pty Ltd. Established in late 2021, Observa Care aims to harness the insights available from wearable technologies to provide clinicians with high quality point-in-time patient vital sign data that enables them to make informed diagnoses and triage decisions, and to support this decision-making with ongoing patient monitoring. The Observa Care service model supports doctors and nurses to make better and earlier treatment decisions, improving patient response times and reducing unnecessary hospitalisations. Having lived and worked in regional Australia for over 15 years Deborah knows first-hand the challenges and health inequities that rural people face. Remote patient monitoring technologies, coupled with innovative care models, can support the healthcare needs of people living in isolated and under-served regions. In 2022 Observa Care is embarking on its first round of MVP testing for the aged care community in Armidale, NSW.
Kathy Hubble, Founder of Amelio Health
Kathy has been a registered nurse for over 30 years and for the past 20 years in pain management. Kathy has a masters degree in pain medicine and has lectured all over Australia in the management of pain in acute and chronic settings. She is completing her Bachelor of Behavioural Science, Psychology. From 2017- 2019 she worked as a senior case manager and return to work technical specialist for 2 major life insurers. After years of seeing the suffering and frustration of people on workers compensation trying to access evidence based pain management, she decided to develop an online self-management program that integrated the learning of the claimant with the learning of the rehabilitation consultant. Kathy has extensive experience in helping people conquer chronic pain. She also has extensive experience in insurance, claims management, education of health professionals and business management. Amelio Health Empowers people with knowledge to Engage them in their own health, and Connect with a team to help them recover.
Alison Heagney, Founder of Evergrow Productions
Born and raised in New England NSW on a merino sheep property. Alison is a classic journey "careerist' building her knowledge and connections over 30 years. She has worked in eco-tourism, marine conservation, horticulture, business consulting, training and employment consulting, a Woolworths supplier with her food product "Magic Meatballs", has a Masters in Complex Project Management. Her day job is as Executive Officer of a large training NGO. Her family has established Evergrow Productions demonstration farm at Little Plain near Inverell to showcase their inventions of VertiPots, Everbuild growhouse systems, and the Componics system of farming and a value add Farm Hub for training and good food. She is passionate about engaging with people, connecting farming knowledge and techniques that are affordable, realistic, and productive.