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Program

Program at a Glance

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Confirmed Speakers

The following speakers are confirmed to present at the LESANZ Annual Conference.

Willy Manfroy

Willy Manfroy is Principal of Bornival LLC, a global intellectual assets management consulting firm. Previously, he was Director of Corporate Development at Eastman Chemical Company where he organized the company’s Merger, Acquisition, Divestiture and Licensing activities.

Prior to joining Eastman Chemical, Mr. Manfroy spent 25 years with The Dow Chemical Company in various managerial and development positions, in Europe and in the United States. He was responsible for initiating the company’s licensing activities in the pharmaceutical, diagnostics and consumer product areas. He was also involved in merger, acquisition and divestiture activities.

Mr. Manfroy is President of the Licensing Executives Society International (LESI), Past President of LES (USA & Canada), and founder of their Professional Development Program. He is a frequent speaker on licensing, strategic alliances, intellectual asset management and related topics, in the U.S. and internationally.

Mr. Manfroy graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique of the University of Brussels with a degree in chemical engineering.

Hugh Durrant-Whyte

Hugh Durrant-Whyte received the B.Sc. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of London, U.K., in 1983, and the M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees, both in Systems Engineering, from the University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A., in 1985 and 1986, respectively. From 1987 to 1995, he was a Senior Lecturer in Engineering Science, the University of Oxford, U.K. and a Fellow of Oriel College Oxford. From 1995 to 2002 he was Professor of Mechatronic Engineering at University of Sydney. In 2002 he was awarded an inaugural Australian Research Council (ARC) Federation Fellowship.

Hugh also now leads the ARC of Excellence in Autonomous Systems, University of Sydney. His research work focuses on autonomous vehicle navigation and ecentralized data fusion methods. His work in applications includes automation in cargo handling, surface and underground mining, defence, unmanned flight vehicles and autonomous sub-sea vehicles. He has published over 300 technical papers and has won numerous awards and prizes for his work.

Dr Ian Heath

Dr Ian Heath is the Director General of IP Australia, a position he has held since July 1999. IP Australia is the Commonwealth agency responsible for granting rights in patents, trade marks and designs. As Director General he has led the organisation to develop improved approaches to customer service and to embark on the redevelopment of its IT systems. He has taken a special interest in some key policy areas including the international approaches to the protection of traditional knowledge and the domestic development of approaches to patenting in sensitive areas such as gene technology and business methods.

His academic qualifications are in history, law and education.

Bevan Lisle

Bevan manages Hawker Britton's crisis communications and public affairs campaign practice, combining his previous experience as a practising solicitor and a corporate media strategist.

Since joining Hawker Britton in 2000, Bevan has developed corporate campaigns for infrastructure and biotechnology interests and a new Australian newspaper. He has developed crisis communications plans for
key corporate and public sector clients.

Bevan is an experienced litigator and has worked with corporate law firms in the areas of commercial litigation and advice, tort litigation and public sector law. He has also been engaged to conduct a number of
policy and risk management reviews for the public sector.

Along with his legal experience, Bevan served as chief of staff to both the Attorney General in the Goss Queensland Government and the Deputy Premier in the Beattie Government. While working with Hawker Britton, Bevan worked as speech writer and adviser to Northern Territory Chief Minister, Clare Martin, during her historic 2001 state election campaign.

Anthony Lloyd

Anthony Lloyd is a partner at international law firm Minter Ellison, and Head of the firm's Asian Technology, Communications and Outsourcing practice.
Based in Hong Kong, a significant part of Anthony's practice involves advising on intellectual property issues in Greater China, and across the Asian region. These range from developing intellectual property strategy; advice on the ownership, protection and licensing of intellectual property rights; and software licensing arrangements.
Recent experience in China includes advising Keycorp on the licensing of intellectual property rights, as part of his work with them on their first joint venture in China; BEA Systems and Fiserv on software licensing arrangements; and a leading semiconductor manufacturer on IP issues and strategy in relation to China's proposed WAPI regime.

Matt Lohmeyer

Matt Lohmeyer is a drug development and biotechnology/pharmaceutical licensing professional. At CSIRO, he is coordinating the commercialisation of CSIRO’s gene silencing technologies. In previous roles, he was oncology licensing specialist at London-based CRC Technology Ltd and General Manager – Biotechnology & Medicine at Unisearch Ltd. Dr Lohmeyer is Vice-Chair of the NSW Branch of AusBiotech, a member of the NSW Committee of LESANZ, and a graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD). His research background is in molecular biology, protein engineering and drug development. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Cambridge, UK.

Rob McInnes

Rob McInnes is a Principal of the patent attorney firm Spruson & Ferguson, and its associated law firm Spruson & Ferguson Lawyers.

Rob has over 15 years’ experience in the management, commercialisation and enforcement of intellectual property rights. He assists clients including multinationals, start-ups, universities and private equity investors, in matters including the negotiation and drafting of licensing and other IP agreements, and the establishment and financing of new technology ventures. In addition to his career in private practice, he has in-house experience as the Manager of IP and Technology Transfer in the James Hardie Group.

Rob is Senior Vice-President of the Licensing Executives Society in Australia, and Chair of the Licensing Executives Society’s International Working Group on public sector technology transfer. He was recently appointed to the Intellectual Property Committee of Australian Institute for Commercialisation.

Sharon L. Oriel

Sharon L. Oriel has recently retired from The Dow Chemical Company and is exploring the world of intangibles without corporate constraints. Sharon joined Dow after receiving undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology. Her career with Dow included experience in Central Research, Plastics Technical Service & Development, Plastics Marketing, and for the last twelve years, Intellectual Capital Management. Her focus was on creating, aligning, and leveraging intangibles for sustainable growth.

Sharon is one of the company co-founders of the Intellectual Capital Managers Gathering. She also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Intellectual Capital. In addition, Sharon served on the R&D task force supporting the Brookings IC project; has been featured in CFO Magazine, Business Finance and is an invited speaker at international IC meetings, government research institutions and universities. Two recent books have chapters authored by Sharon: Measuring Intellectual Capital and Handbook on Knowledge Management. She presently serves on the External Advisory Board for Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Tech Transfer Office.

Ed Pilkington

The marketing director for Diageo Australia since 2002, Ed Pilkington is passionate about consumers and brands. Over the last decade his career has taken him around the world where he has implemented major strategic initiatives for Diageo.

Prior to accepting his current position in Australia, Ed headed up the Malibu®* team as Global Brand Director for Diageo from 1999 to 2002.

Before working on Malibu, one of the world’s most well known brands, Ed was the Marketing Director, Innovation and Strategy – Americas for Diageo. In this role he managed key strategic projects in Brazil, Columbia and Argentina where his fluency in Spanish was a great asset.

Outside of the Diageo Group, Ed has worked for L’Oreal as Senior Brand Manager – Haircare in the UK.

Cassandra Reynolds

Cassandra Reynolds is a PricewaterhouseCoopers partner in the Dispute Analysis and Investigations group, with 15 years experience specialising in forensic accounting. She has worked in multiple territories including a 3-year secondment to New York, and assignments in Europe and Asia. Cassandra holds degrees in law, economics and commerce.

She leads the firm’s Licensing Management Services practice involving assistance with establishing licensing arrangements including nature of reporting, conducting royalty examinations to assess licensees’ compliance with licensing terms and assessment of consequential damages. Her broad range of experience encompasses a number of industries including technology, software, and manufacturing.

Deborah Smithers

Deborah Smithers is a lawyer by background having been a partner in two national law firms prior to joining KPMG in 1999 to establish the governance practice in the Sydney office. She now leads the Board Advisory Services Practice nationally.

The Practice works with board members at both a collective and individual level, providing a range of tailored services including board appraisals, training and advice to a range of organisations – from major listed entities through to government and not-for-profit organisations. The Practice focuses on both the performance and conformance aspects of the governance of those organisations.

Elizabeth Webster

Dr Elizabeth Webster, BEcon, MA (Monash), PhD (Cambridge), is an Associate Director of IPRIA and a industrial and labour economist from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research. She has conducted numerous research projects on the economics of innovation and intellectual property, as well as the implications of the growth of intellectual capital for the labour market. Her current research interests include the growth of intangible capital among firms, the economics of patents and trade marks, special issues associated with SMEs and the contribution of intellectual property toward the appropriation of innovation rents.

Michael Whipps

Michael is the Director of Quality, Improvement and Innovation for Boeing Australia. Michael has responsibility for Quality Management, promoting Innovation, and coordinating business improvement approaches across the organisation.

He is also responsible for the implementation of the following business improvement initiatives, Australian Business Excellence Framework, Process Management, Balanced Score Card and CMMI.

Michael has over 30 years experience in the Aerospace industry and has qualifications in Engineering, Quality, Business Management and Adult education.

Anne Wyatt

Dr Anne Wyatt BCom (Hons) (USQ), PhD (UTS) is a faculty member at the Department of Accounting and Business Information Systems at the University of Melbourne. Anne teaches financial accounting courses in the Masters of International Business, Masters of Accounting, and undergraduate. Anne is committed to a relevant and vibrant education experience for finance and accounting students that is grounded in the literature and practice of the discipline.
She is an Academic Board member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Australia, and has been a long term academic Director of the Department's accounting Masters programs. Current research areas of interest include financial reporting issues in relation to intangible investment, financial analysts, and equity valuation for listed and initial public offering companies.