The Panellists

Janine Allis

The Boost Juice founder’s path was anything but direct – her autobiography is even titled The Accidental Entrepreneur. After school, Allis worked as a camp counsellor in the United States and a nanny in France. In the late '90s she noticed the juice fad on a trip to the US and in 2000 began her business from her kitchen; there are now more than 550 Boost Juice stores globally. Allis is the executive director of Retail Zoo, parent company to several more food and beverage brands, and was a judge on Network 10’s Shark Tank.

Steven Worrall

After 22 years at IBM, where he held a variety of senior roles, Steven Worrall joined Microsoft in 2014 as director of its Enterprise and Partner Group, overseeing the technology giant’s customer solutions. He was appointed managing director in December 2016. Worrall has spoken at length about how changing employee culture can transform a business and he is clearly onto something: Microsoft Australia’s net profit more than doubled in the 2018 financial year to $100 million.

Leanne Kemp

Everledger, Leanne Kemp’s innovative blockchain startup, became a global player within three years of its 2015 launch. Today the company is valued at over $50 million and Kemp, who has been a leader in tech for more than 20 years, remains CEO. The serial entrepreneur’s first startup was Absoft Queensland in 1996 and in 2004 she co-founded an early ad tech business, The Great Australian Survey. Kemp, who appeared on the Forbes 2018 World’s Top 50 Women in Tech list, was last year named the third Queensland Chief Entrepreneur.