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Dr Roger Voyle (Managing Director)
For more than fifteen years, Roger has had primary responsibility for managing Southmore’s investments and providing strategic advice to its entrepreneurs, investors and portfolio businesses. In many cases, he has lead efforts to establish overseas business activities for investee companies and attract finance from offshore sources. He also spent six years working with the South Australian Government fostering the development of local technology businesses and attracting investment to them. Prior to this, he was involved with patents, licensing and technology evaluation at the large Swiss biopharmaceutical company Serono SA, supporting major litigation and transactional activities including the eventual sale of the company to Merck KGaA. Roger holds a PhD and BSc (Hons I) in Biochemistry, has completed post-doctoral studies in immunology, and post-graduate studies in intellectual property law.
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Management
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Mr Ahmed Ghaly (Business Services Manager)
Ahmed is responsible for managing and delivering business services at Southmore. He has extensive experience in international business, project management, and stakeholder relationship management across industries including energy and manufacturing. Ahmed has established relationships with key business partners from the Middle East and Asia. He has fifteen years' experience working with SMEs and international companies both in Australia and the Middle East. He also secured seed funding and sales revenue for his own green-tech entrepreneurial venture. Since then, he has secured grants and partnerships for local start-ups and SMEs.
Ahmed holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering and certification as a Project Management Professional (PMP®) and PRINCE2® project manager.
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Dr Solmaz Saboohi (Venture Development Manager)
Solmaz is a technology strategist and business analyst at Southmore. She applies her advanced data analysis and business modelling skills to assist clients in elaborating business concepts and gaining business insights. Her training and experience has focussed on machine learning, data mining and analytics, predictive modelling and project management. She has more than ten years of R&D management and industry experience in these fields in Australia, South East Asia and the Middle East. Solmaz holds a PhD in plasma physics and is a certified PRINCE2® project manager. She has also completed four years of post-doctoral studies in material science at the University of South Australia. As a strong believer in “innovation with application”, Solmaz has been involved in many successful research commercialisation projects and secured funds and collaboration partners for projects, start-ups and established businesses both domestically and internationally.
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Mr Christo Biven (Research Associate)
Christo is a pharmacy graduate with considerable small and family business experience as well as a keen interest in entrepreneurship. He is currently completing a Master of Business Administration and maintains his professional registrations in Pharmacy and Commercial Real Estate.
Christo is currently mainly involved in screening, researching and working up potential investment opportunities and is becoming involved in assisting portfolio companies in establishing their operations.
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Mr Alex Farrugia (Corporate Finance & Governance Associate)
Alex holds postgraduate applied finance and undergraduate commerce and law qualifications. Alex is concurrently employed by a corporate advisory firm and has had significant exposure to fund raising and M&A transactions where his qualifications have been put to good use.
Alex currently has a focus on providing support to companies preparing for fund raisings and setting out their growth strategies. He also provides company secretarial and other legal support to investee companies. His prior exposure to M&A transactions is also proving valuable.
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Ms Cynthia Zhang (Interpreter)
Cynthia is a Mandarin-English interpreter accredited with the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters. She supports the rest of the Southmore team in maintaining regular communication with our clients and partners. She holds a Bachelors qualification in Accounting and a Masters in Applied Finance.
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Ms Nicky Tsokkos (Compliance and Administration Officer)
Nicky is responsible for coordinating compliance and administrative activities within Southmore and in collaboration with external service providers. She has eight years of administration and compliance management experience in the superannuation industry and seven years in the private equity industry. Prior to that she spent sixteen years in administrative roles at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Mutual Community Insurance. She holds multiple certificates and diplomas in accounting, first line management, business practice, and financial services compliance.