Andrew Stead

Through his work with accelerators, incubators, universities, and consultancies, Andrew Stead has helped academics, entrepreneurs, and engineers across the country to turn their bright ideas into commercial products and businesses.

Andrew’s fascination with technology initially took him to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the UK, where he joined the Royal Corps of Signals, the communications division of the British Army. After then working across the telecommunications industry to help organisations leverage technology to solve problems, Andrew undertook an MBA to better understand those problems from a financial, marketing, and operations perspective.

“Before I started working with universities, it was more about applying existing technology to business problems. But these are all completely new things out of the lab, so we have to figure out where they fit in the world, and what problems they solve. That’s the fun thing.”

Andrew has worked with Cicada Innovations, CSIRO’s Data61, and is a co-founder of both Sydney Angels and Ignition Labs. A relative newcomer to the Newcastle tech scene, Andrew is looking forward to leveraging his mentorship experience to get to know his local community.

“Because I’ve helped start businesses and I’ve worked with investors, I can act as a bridge between investment and management, and I really enjoy being able to do that.”