Our People

Professor Nick Birrell

Nick Birrell is a Professorial Fellow and Director of the Monash Asia Pacific Centre for Science and Wealth Creation.

He has over 20 years' experience in the finance industry, and is a part-time Venture Executive with venture capital company Innovation Capital. Until July 2005 he was Regional Director Asia Pacific of INVESCO, a major global asset management company.

He founded and was Chief Executive of what is now Credit Suisse Asset Management Australia and was the second Chief Executive of County Investment Management, a Melbourne headquartered asset management company. As Chief Executive of County Investment Management, Nick was very active in the promotion of medical research funding and biotechnology commercialisation as an opportunity for Australia and Melbourne in particular.

Earlier in his career he was a consultant and project manager involved in advanced information technology projects. Nick holds a PhD in mathematical physics from London University and is the author of numerous research papers and two books

Professor Michael Vitale

Michael Vitale is a Professor and Director, Commercialisation at the Monash Asia Pacific Centre for Science and Wealth Creation. Michael focuses his teaching, research, and consulting on commercialisation of innovation, particularly in biotechnology. He is the chairman of a public biotechnology firm and a member of the advisory board of a private biotech company.

Previously Michael had a joint professorial appointment at the Melbourne Business School and the Australia New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG). At MBS, he was the director of the innovation research program.

Michael was Dean and Director of the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) in 2001-2002 and was formerly a Professor in the Centre for Management of IT at the Melbourne Business School and the Foundation Professor of Information Systems and Head of the Information Systems Department at the University of Melbourne.

Prior to coming to Australia, he was a Fellow at the Ernst & Young Center for Business Innovation in Boston and an Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. His industry experience includes four years as Vice President of Technology and Corporate Services at the Prudential Insurance Company of America.

Michael holds a PhD (Dartmouth), MBA (Harvard), and BA (Oakland University).

His responsibilities include:

• Supervising commercialisation projects in the Master of Business(Science and Technology) course
• Supervising PhD students, in collaboration with the Faculty of Business and Economics
• Locating, creating, and supervising commercialisation projects for the MBus(Science and Technology) course
• Teaching the unit "Research Commercialisation Planning" (GSB9100) in the Grad Cert(Commercialising Reserach) course
• Managing the Centre's involvement in recruiting students for the MBus(Science and Technology) course
• Organising and managing the weekly seminar series that is part of the MBus(Science and Technology) course

Kristine Brown

Executive Assistant to Nick Birrell

Kristine has experience in a number of different industries including a Co-operative Research Centre, education, crash investigation, wine, forklift and building.

Nicole Gill

Executive Assistant to Nick Birrell, Director (currently away on Maternity Leave - due back 1 July 2010)