Start-up hub Fishburners appoints Bilyana Smith to board
Australian charity and startup hub Fishburners has appointed Bilyana Smith to its board.
Smith said: ““I am a firm believer in the power of creativity and innovation to drive economic and social growth, and am thrilled to join the Fishburners board at the time when the entrepreneurship in Australia is gathering pace.”
The announcement:
Fishburners appoints Bilyana Smith to their board
Fishburners is Australia’s largest startup community, and the largest Australian charity dedicated to supporting startups.
With a purpose of creating the maximum number of highly-scalable Australian tech startups, its five year history has seen the birth of over 800 startups in its Sydney, Brisbane and Shanghai spaces.
Bilyana Smith is an experienced CEO and strategic advisor with over 20 years’ experience in executive and non-executive roles in creative industries, media, marketing and communications. She has worked in Australia, Europe and Asia with private sector, governments and not-for-profit organisations. Previously CEO of Emerystudio, Executive Director with Clemenger Group Limited, Director of Marketing and Communications at Barangaroo. She is an angel investor with Scale Investors.
Her strong background and connections in the creative industries, marketing, media and communications will be invaluable in serving Fishburners’ goal of inspiring new Australian startup founders.
“New startup founders are a challenging audience to reach. While our new Brisbane space is at 40% capacity after four months, we know there are many more aspiring founders that would benefit from our communities but are not yet aware of them” – Murray Hurps, CEO of Fishburners.
“I am a firm believer in the power of creativity and innovation to drive economic and social growth, and am thrilled to join the Fishburners board at the time when the entrepreneurship in Australia is gathering pace.” – Bilyana Smith
“The board consists of two halves, bringing together experienced and relatively inexperienced directors in order to generate a diaspora of Fishburners members with their first board experience. I’m immensely pleased to see Bilyana join our board, and not just
help oversee and drive the progress of Fishburners, but also serve as an example for incoming board members to aspire to.” – Murray Hurps, CEO of Fishburners
“Bilyana brings a great depth and breadth of experience to the Fishburners board at a time
when we are expanding our operations in Sydney and into Brisbane. Her skills and expertise will round out and complement those of the current directors and I am looking forward to her contribution” – Katherine Woodthorpe
Fishburners is proudly supported by Google, News Corp, Optus, Flight Centre, NAB, Dropbox, Amazon and BigAir, and is open to enquiries from organisations wishing to support the next generation of scalable Australian tech startups.
Source: Fishburners media release
