Ken is an executive leader and non-executive director with a passion for building and growing innovative, purposeful enterprises to global success.
Ken’s current roles at the University of Melbourne are Managing Director of Research, Innovation and Commercialisation (RIC) and UM Commercialisation Ltd. He leads a teamof 300 professionals who support the University’s researchers make ground-breaking discoveries and have impact on a global scale.
Ken’s focus areas include sustainable growth in the University’s research enterprise and income, growing national and global industry partnerships, developing the University’s entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem to global benchmarks, helping develop professional and academic capabilities while always driving continuous improvement in the University’s research support services, infrastructure and operations.
He graduated from Cardiff University with a first-class degree in applied chemistry before spending 20 years in global executive leadership roles for BP based in the UK, New York, California and Melbourne. More recently Ken was Managing Director and CEO of the private-equity owned, hrl: technology group, a specialist engineering and testing business operating nationally and across SE Asia, before joining its board of directors as a non-executive director in 2017.
Other Board roles include: Tin Alley Ventures (NED and Investment Committee), UoM Genesis pre-seed fund (NED), BioCurate (NED), Jumar Bioincubator (NED), UoM International Holdings (NED), Carbelec (NED).