Anna Daniel

I aim to create a future that is open, equitable, sustainable and profitable for aspirants and risk takers.

Anna Daniel

I listen to inventors to understand and then advise, refer, create collaborations, streamline probity and funding to speed up the R&D process to get inventions to market.

Anna Daniel

Having worked within business, funders and research organisations I've successfully helped get inventions to market over many business cycles.

ABOUT ME






Governance and Innovation leadership
- Strategy and business models for innovation and commercialisation
- R&D probity and governance
- Innovation, R&D and Commercialisation Policy
- Research ethics
- Intellectual property management
- Technology, finance, renewable energy and education industries
- Entrepreneurship
- Industry disruption
- Commercial implementation using open/collaborative/ecosystem concepts
- Cultures and travel.

An energetic professional, experienced working in VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) environments for top tier commercial, government and research entities.

A lateral thinker with strong business focus who likes to solve problems, manage risk and optimise opportunities.

BACKGROUND

ROLES
Innovation investment and facilitation. For six years I ran the full funding lifecycle on Australian government innovation programs — sourcing opportunities, assessing proposals, facilitating  agreements (including IP negotiations), managing grants and monitoring delivery. Across Innovation Connections, Australia's Economic Accelerator (as Commercialisation Priority Manager) and the Regional University-Industry Collaboration Program, I've assessed several hundred proposals and stewarded a portfolio worth $12M+ through to completion. I probe, listen, advise, refer, connect businesses to specialised researchers, and fund the collaborations that follow.
‍Content creator, Strategyzer. Identified, researched and created case studies of business mechanics for a book on invincible companies. IMD - revised, updated an edited a new edition of a landmark textbook on e-Strategies for business. JQ: report to advise government on future of work to 2030 in Qld.
Applied Research Startup Unit, RedSpace: Centre for Applied Research and Innovation: TAFE Queensland. Action and Applied Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship projects. Developing educator capability to improve quality of delivery to 130,000 learners statewide. Policy submissions to government inquiries.
Digital startups: Tourback (historic music tour viz & merchandise marketplace), Hawaiki of Oceania (sold vintage clothes from outback Australia to haute couture designers in Paris & NY), Curvy Dames (online business creating made-to-measure clothes).
Information Policy: Griffith University.
Ambassador: Open Knowledge Australia.
Senior Project Analyst: Creative Commons (Silicon Valley USA).
Research Associate: QUT Creative Industries ; Research Fellow: Monash University School of  Journalism and Australian Studies.
Financial Advisory Research Leader: PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Strategy Researcher: Andersen Consulting (now Accenture).
Information Specialist: Commonwealth Funds Management.
Previous engagements in a variety of commercial and public roles, including as a DJ on public radio!

QUALIFICATIONS
Graduate, Company Directors Course (Australian Institute of Company Directors)
PhD Business (RMIT University). Thesis by research on how technology created opportunities in the music sector, including emerging business models and strategies for sustainability. Music chosen as a lead indicator.
Graduate Diploma in Management (University of Central Qld).
Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Science (University of Tasmania) with a dissertation in hypermedia (an obscure concept at the time!).
Bachelor of Arts (University of Queensland) with majors in media, psychology and literature.
Intensive strategy consulting programs and financial analysis (University Chicago USA MBA subject) undertaken at Accenture Chicago USA campus.

PORTFOLIO

Innovation Connections (CSIRO / Australian Industry Group), 2019–23
A portfolio of 150+ funded R&D collaborations between small and medium businesses and public research organisations, worth $12M+.
I managed each project through the full lifecycle: assessment and due diligence, facilitated contract negotiations, grant management, milestone monitoring, risk mitigation and closure. Highest facilitation volume nationally in FY2023.
‍Portfolio outcomes: 41% of projects produced new products or processes · 21% created new intellectual property · 25% increased business competitiveness · 20% created new jobs.
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Australia's Economic Accelerator (CSIRO secondment to Department of Education), 2023–24
A 10-year, $1.6 billion national program commercialising university research with industry. I led assessment and investment recommendations for two national priority areas — Renewable Energy and Low Emissions Technologies, and Transport including Sustainable Aviation Fuels — and delivered five funding rounds at the team's highest assessment volume. I co-designed governance frameworks and evidence standards adopted across the program nationally, and advised eight universities on commercialisation strategy; one secured the most grants in the country.

Regional University-Industry Collaboration Program (CSIRO), Q4 2024
I originated this one. I identified a structural gap in Queensland's innovation economy, developed the investment proposition and secured institutional endorsement; CSIRO then pitched successfully to the Queensland Government for three years of funding ($7M) and a new team of 3 FTEs with ca. 1 FTE support. As the first person to use them, I co-designed some of the governance and probity processes, built the regional network, and negotiated the first three funding agreements — reaching a 20-project pipeline within three months.

What the portfolio taught me.
Backing the right idea matters less than knowing when to stop. I've renegotiated scope when circumstances changed, brought parties together to resolve undisclosed delivery problems, and recommended closing projects where the evidence didn't support continuing — then scoped better-founded work from what we'd learned. Sectors spanned agritech and food, biotech and medical science, clean energy and hydrogen, advanced manufacturing, transport and enabling technologies.
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‍Individual project details are commercial-in-confidence. Figures above are aggregate program outcomes.
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STORIES

At PwC and Accenture I delivered hundreds of in-depth commissioned commercial-in-confidence research reports for Financial Advisory, Strategy, Valuations, Economic and Regulatory decisions, Independent Expert Reports, Disputes, M&A, Risk Management, Underperforming Businesses and more. My work supported high-profile entities making difficult decisions and I (and my team) delivered within tight time frames.
Happy clients and repeat business for ten years. Won a rare, valuable award for demonstrating leadership, teamwork and excellence ...
... and I converted the award into a ‘round the world’ holiday to meet face-to-face with colleagues in the network I had developed worldwide.... and because I love travel! I thrived in that 'high pressure' team environment and generated significant revenues.
I also worked in Silicon Valley - doing the infamous 'Caltrain Commute'. 
Loves exploring different cultures
At Griffith University I developed information policies including open access (in both research and teaching), copyright / licensing, Information (& data) underpins innovation. At TAFE Queensland I created a unit focussed on developing entrepreneurship and innovation skills in educators and learners. I successfully advocated for a $50m national fund for Vocational research.
Established reputation for digital & innovation expertise
My Business doctorate explored how technology created opportunities in the music sector (as a lead indicator to other sectors). Included macroeconomic analysis, value chains, Porter’s forces, game theory and risk modelling, creative destruction and creation/testing of a financial model. And I set up an online business to test a theory. At Commonwealth Funds Management I learned about business cycles, investment timing, product management and more. 
A sensible, ethical, experienced approach to  emerging technologies
Walk the talk
I admire
I look forward to:
NBN Supporter
USA STEM
I'm interested in the music sector because it is highly experimental and a lead indicator of digital disruption, or as Prof. Alan Krueger (Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers) said: “The music industry is a microcosm of what is happening in the U.S. economy at large.” Innovation there flows to media and publishing, education, government, retail, finance and other sectors.
I charged every half hour for ten years in consulting, which suggests resilience and performance. In addition to leading a research team I was consistently the highest revenue earning researcher in AsiaPac at both Accenture and PwC. My specialty was TICE – Technology, Info, Comms, and Entertainment – although I worked across all sectors. Because my commercial research reports and outputs were commercial-in-confidence (and companies had paid thousands of dollars for them which needed to be respected) and not published in academic journals, my ten years of delivering research ‘best practice’ globally at the pinnacle of consulting carried NO weight in academia.  I was told by an academic manager that it counts for nothing unless it is published in an academic journal.
Tim O’Reilly (click image to view video)
Jim Griffin (click image to view video)
David Lynch
Maker Movement
Joseph Schumpeter 
3D Printer for materials other than plastic; 
Robust devices: water/sand/salt-proof – surely in Australia that can be done?
Mainstream adoption of renewables and smart grids;
Corporate (& NGO) transparency (beneficial ownership registers, open financials);
Ethical darknets – it’s hard to manage risk when we don't know what we don't know
During the 2008 drought my parents were struggling on their Qld farm – feeding the herd daily at enormous physical and financial cost and my mother fell ill – while I was in Melbourne. Reluctantly I resigned from PwC to head north and help them. I'd just set up an online ‘made-to-measure’ clothing business and hoped to continue it from the farm. Before deciding to move I rang Telstra, gave them the farm address and they assured me that internet access there could be easily installed. So I moved to begin a life of farm hand while writing up my PhD and running the online store. However.... once on the ground I learned that there was NO internet availability (unless I put in a satellite dish) because we were in a black spot ‘on the wrong side of the mountain’. So I shut the business because I could not respond to orders in a reasonable time frame, and once/twice a week I’d make the long trek into the State Library to use their free wifi for my PhD. Going from cable broadband in inner Melbourne to nothing in rural Australia was a shocking experience of online disparity and a great motivator to address it.
The US lost many manufacturing jobs due to inflow of cheaper goods from Asia. So in 2009 the US government allocated US$2bn to a Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) Grant Program. Essentially this funded community colleges to rapidly create new training courses in STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering and Maths) areas so that workers laid off from traditional industries could quickly gain skills in emerging STEM sectors. It included courses in mechatronics, robotics and automation, cyber tech and cyber security, electric vehicles, environmental technology, geospatial tech, app development, extractive tech, green construction, renewables energy, health informatics, surgical tech, biotech, alternative fuels, unmanned aircraft systems and more. The beautiful part of the funding grants was that everything created needed to be openly licensed - CC BY – which means that anyone anywhere can reuse that work. So the Australian education sector can find and reuse those coursewares – not just text but 3D, apps, and other innovative courseware.  My role was to analyse the courses and facilitate sharing of content between colleges who were creating similar topics, and to help with the open licensing. For example I participated in textbook sprints to ensure third party content in the digital textbooks could legally be used and was properly licensed.

WRITING AND TALKING

Major works 

For more please 
(a) view on a bigger device
(b) see my ORCID

 

Creative Industries / Urban development

    • Gibson, M. Daniel, A. (2009) Boganvillea: Creative Industries in Outer Suburbia. Presentation to ‘Regions, Regionality, Regionalism: Australian Perspectives’ Symposium, Institute for Regional Studies Association UK, Melbourne, December 2009.
    • Daniel, A., Gibson, M. (2010) Creative Industries in Australian Suburbs – Who is Out There? Paper presented at Creative Suburbia Symposium, 29-30 September 2010, Creative Industries Faculty, QUT, Brisbane. Statistical analysis.
    • Daniel, A., Gibson, M. (2009) Space for Creativity: Creative Industries in Outer Suburbia. Presentation to ‘City Growth, Sustainability, Vitality and Vulnerability’, State of Australian Cities Conference, University of Western Australia Perth, November 2009.
    • Felton, E., Gibson, M., Flew, T., Graham, P., Daniel, A. (2010) ‘Resilient Creative Economies? Creative Industries on the Urban Fringe’ Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies v.24 i.4, p.619-630.
    • Daniel, A. (2010) The Blow-ins from the ‘Burbs Online Opinion, 22 February,
    • Felton, E., Daniel, A. (2009) Suburban Resilience. Online Opinion, 22 September,

Entertainment sector

    • Daniel, A., (2010) From the Dirty Trenches our Culture Grows: the Closure of Live Music Venues in Melbourne. Paper presented at International Association for the Study of Popular Music Australia-New Zealand Annual Conference: Instruments of Change. 24-26 November, Monash University, Melbourne.
    • Daniel, A. (2011) Interviewed on ABC Radio (Red Symons and ABC Arts Alive) Feb.
    • RMIT University (2010) Digital provides a future for niche musicians. 22 December
    • Rout, M. (2007) Thesis offers a model for musos. The Australian, 15 August, p.3
    • Daniel, A. (2007) Emerging Business Models: User Generated Content, Presentation as member of expert panel at Budde Communications National USG Roundtable, Sydney, March.  I was quick to spot the business potential in the nascent field of user generated content, which led to this opportunity.
    • PwC Australian Media and Entertainment Outlook report 2006: Music chapter.

Information and innovation Policy

    1. Daniel, A. (2015) The cloud is but one of many copyright concerns. Risk Management Today, vol. 25 no. 1.
    2. Daniel, A. (2014) You Only Live Once. Think Twice. Presentation to internal Risk Management Day. This was filmed and received the highest number of views and positive feedback of all presentations on the day.
    3. Anna contributed (PDF p.9) to a Federal Government project that aimed to develop a strategic framework for research infrastructure .
    4. Daniel, A. (2014) Panel presentation ‘Copyright and libraries: Practical challenges and innovative solutions’ ALIA Conference, Melbourne
    5. Daniel, A. (2014) Open Access 101. National AOASG Webinar Oct 2014 .
    6. Daniel A. (2014) Open Genomic Data, it’s debateable. Blogpost for Open Knowledge Australia, May 21: .
    7. Daniel, A. (2014) Open Data in Queensland. Blogpost for Open Knowledge Australia, March 11: .
    8. Daniel, A. etal. (2013) Open Access site at Griffith University (with support from a team of staff interested in OA)
    9. Daniel, A. (2013) Open Government Data, What can we do in 2014?.  Blogpost for Open Knowledge Australia, Dec 4.
    10. Daniel, A. (2012) Honoring Elinor Ostrom. Blogpost for Creative Commons, June 13.
    11. Daniel, A. (2012) OPEN Kick-off Conference for U.S. Department of Labor Grantees. Blogpost for Creative Commons, May 29.
    12. Daniel, A. (2012) Saylor Foundation expands $20,000 Open Textbook Challenge. Blogpost for Creative Commons, May 10.
    13. Daniel, A. (2012) On the Starting Blocks. Presentation to the OPEN conference, Minneapolis, May.
    14. RedSpace: (2016) ARIES Case Studies. Brisbane, TAFE Queensland.
    15. RedSpace: (2016) Praxis. Brisbane, TAFE Queensland.
    16. TAFE Queensland (2016) Submission to the Commonwealth Senate Inquiry into innovation and creativity: workforce for the new economy. Brisbane, TAFE Queensland. Submission 41 .
    17. TAFE Queensland (2017) Submission to the Commonwealth Innovation and Science Agenda 2030 Strategic Plan. Brisbane, TAFE Queensland. Submission

Digital media

Digital media

THEY SAID WHAT?

Simon Hanson, Innovation programs director, CSIRO

Anna has made a great contribution to CSIRO and countless SMEs, and all Queensland universities and research organisations during her time at CSIRO across all three roles. Anna’s enthusiasm and expertise in helping businesses is legendary – she always goes the extra mile to deliver great results. In addition to her work with businesses and researchers, Anna was the driving force behind creating the opportunity with the Queensland Government for CSIRO to deliver RUIC.

Pete mastos, PwC partner

“Once again your great work has been acknowledged by a Top 20 Institution. Now both” [major telco] and [major bank] “have used the information you pulled together in developing their case study for presentation to the board. Thanks again for your prompt responses - this is a great service.” 

Federal Government review
into Research Infrastructure

Dr Anna Daniel is a researcher who has successfully moved between the public, private and university sectors. Her career pathway is far from conventional.

Andrew Payne, SME Accountancy

I have known Anna for more than 20 years. Anna’s career and business ventures reflect her passion for the democratisation of knowledge, and the transformative power of technologies. I have seen Anna hone and polish her skills in big four consulting firms and academia, and believe she will bring valuable wisdom and insight to any project or collaborator.

Katrina Tull

Partner, Evans & Partners

Creative and strategic thinker with the practicality to implement

PERSONAL

Technologies
Live Entertainment
Time with family and friends
Travel
Vintage era collecting, restoring and road trips
Water sports and bushwalking
Practising sustainability and participating in the circular economy

DROP ME A  LINE

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t: +64 21 330 594
e: annamdaniel at gmail dot com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/Anna-Daniel/
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FINE PRINT

Sources

Cavazos, V. 2013, Anna Daniel [image], Mountain View, U.S.A. CC BY 3.0

[Kombi Van image] [n.d.] Plumeria Swimwear via Pinterest, accessed 1 March 2015

Sandquist, J. 2007 ‘Amazon Fresh Truck?’ [image] Flickr, CC BY 2.0, accessed 1 March 2015

Site created in Webflow based upon a template by Dorian: http://webflow.com/template/54e38196511b642f7996a57b 

Images: the dog is Trevor and the cat is Miss Melody Mae and they consented to be photographed. The blurred pink image I took at the Madonna Inn dining room at Christmas. The Madonna Inn is in San Luis Obispo, CA.



Unless otherwise indicated this work is © Anna Daniel and is licensed CC BY 4.0