Innovation Bay’s podcast, Open the Pod Bay Doors, delves into the stories, challenges, and successes of founders and investors from around the startup ecosystem in Australia and New Zealand. At the end of each episode, guests are invited to share their favourite books with podcast listeners.

Stuart Snyder, was a co-founder, director, and CFO of YourAmigo Ltd which was the SA exporter of the year in 2008. YourAmigo was a technology leader in the search marketing space with installations on websites in over 30 different countries including many of the world’s top 100 eCommerce companies.

Jaime Bott is a talent partner at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, where she has been for 10 years. An industry veteran and consummate talent professional, Jaime runs the talent function at Sequoia Capital. Jaime has worked with hundreds of founders over the years, seeing several companies through from infancy to global status and cultivating a deep understanding of how to build and grow entrepreneurial teams.

Adam Milgrom is a partner at Giant Leap Fund, Australia’s first venture capital fund that is 100% dedicated to investing in impact startups. Alongside his role at the Giant Leap Fund, Adam is also an angel investor, advisor and director for a number of Australian and international startups.

Founders have to dig deeper beyond a candidate’s hard skills and previous work experience in job interviews to determine whether someone is suited to thrive in the unique, rapidly shifting environment of a fast-growing startup.

Nicky Carp is an accomplished, passionate business leader with 20 years’ experience as Co-founder and Executive Director of Unified Healthcare Group (UHG), a health tech company that was acquired in 2019. With over 200 staff, UHG transacted over 150,000 cases per year and had over 50,000 healthcare providers on its platform.

Dr. Elise Bialylew is a coach, meditation teacher, and social entrepreneur who trained as a doctor and psychiatrist. She is the founder of the world’s largest online mindfulness campaign Mindful in May, and author of #1 best-selling book The Happiness Plan, a one-month guidebook to mindfulness.

Amanda has 20 years of experience managing businesses in Financial Markets and Private Banking. She has held senior roles at Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, and ANZ. Now, Amanda leverages her extensive experience as Executive Director to One Alpha Technologies, Advisor to the CEO of Patterson Cheney Group, and Chair of two Not For Profit boards.

Angelique Mentis, founder of thatsmyspot.com.au and angel investor, shares how she transitioned from a career in corporate finance law to startups, her passion for smart cities and advice for prospective angel investors.

Andrew Sypkes, one of Australia’s most active family office technology investors, discusses why and how he started angel investing, the key determinants of startup success and his take on secondaries in the Australian VC ecosystem.

By far the best part of running our podcast Open the Pod Bay Doors is learning more about the journeys and mindsets of our ecosystem’s most talented founders and investors. Another perk? An endless supply of recommendations of what to read and listen to from the quickfire rounds! At the end of each episode, our hosts Ian and Phaedon ask our guests to share their favourite book, podcast, productivity tool and more.

Amanda has 20 years of experience managing businesses in Financial Markets and Private Banking. She has held senior roles at Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, and ANZ. Now, Amanda leverages her extensive experience as Executive Director to One Alpha Technologies, Advisor to the CEO of Patterson Cheney Group, and Chair of two Not For Profit boards.