Samantha Johnson is the Managing Director of Polestar Australia, charged with overseeing the launch of the brand in Australia and its successful future growth.

Prior to her appointment at Polestar, Samantha was Director – Business Control, Financial Services & Digital Transformation at Volvo Car Australia, and has held numerous positions both in Australia and abroad including almost 10 years as Director – Finance & Retail Operations at Harley Davidson.

Samantha is married with two daughters and is an avid fan of outdoor sports including kiteboarding, snowboarding, and yacht racing.

Originally from London, Jonathan is a creative marketer with a passion for disruptive technology. He spent the early part of his career driving growth for PayPal, followed by six years at Google, where he led key product launches for Google Ads, Google Maps and Android.  

As Head of Marketing for Polestar, Jonathan unites his long-standing passions for sustainability, design and innovative technology. His current focus is growing the brand and developing collaborative partnerships within the sustainability and design communities. In his spare time you’ll find him playing trumpet or teaching kitesurfing along the coast of Australia.

Ashik Ahmed is the Cofounder & Director of tech startup Deputy, a workforce management platform headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Until 2022, he was CEO/CTO and led Deputy to $100M in Annual Recurring Revenue with over 330,000 workplaces in 100+ to manage their workforce! Deputy’s mission is to simplify shift work, whilst working towards a vision of thriving workplaces in every community.

A regular contributor to Forbes magazine, Ashik is also an expert on the subjects of workforce management, HR tech and Product Led Growth.

Coming Soon

Steve Hoy is a global utility industry executive and recognized subject matter expert in smart grid and 24/7 Carbon Free Energy solutions. As a founder and CEO of Enosi he leads a team developing retail energy traceability solutions using the latest metering and scalable cloud technologies for proof of provenance.

He has over 35 years’ experience in engineering, IT and strategy concentrating on the utilities sector, having started his career in the early 1980s as a power engineer with the local distribution utility (now AusGrid). His career has evolved from power engineering through SCADA and control systems, into mainstream retail and billing solutions at Logica, PwC Consulting and later IBM where he led IBM’s global smart grid consulting team for 7 years.

Steve is now CEO of Enosi Australia, which aims to disrupt the power industry through the development of innovative energy traceability, trading and settlement solutions.

Chris has more than 20 years of global growth consulting experience and is the founding partner of the Simon-Kucher Australia operations. He is focusing on tech, consumer/fashion and software and is a regular speaker at international events.

Talk to me about:

• Monetisation strategies for tech firms​
• Private equity / Venture capital ​
• Interest in Fashion / Luxury​
• Time with family & Playing soccer

Jason leads Commercial Transformations in Australia and New Zealand, with consulting experience across a broad range of sectors. Working primarily with clients in Industrials, Software and Consumer Goods.

Talk to me about:

• Topics: Go-To-Market Strategy, Commercial Excellence, Revenue Model Transformation ​
• Industries: Industrials (Construction, Base Materials, Agriculture, Commercial Services), B2B Software, CPG Manufacturers 

​A commercial excellence expert with ~15 years experience developing and executing growth initiatives across a range of industries and businesses. Mitchell uses his previous experience working on the client side to develop implementable and impactful change programs through his projects. Deep experience especially across Consumer and Retail, and Industrials.
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Talk to me about:

• Growth driving levers​
• Using customer data to enable smart and agile decision making​
• Music, cooking, watersports

Michael is a Director based in our Sydney office and is known for leveraging data to better inform business strategy and deliver revenue growth.​ Michael has worked with business-to-consumer companies across a range of geographies, including Australia, Europe, The U.S. and Asia.

Talk to me about:

• How to use your data​
• Reading (Fiction only!)​
• Age of Empires II

Natasha specializes in commercial strategy (pricing, monetization & sales) across the industrials sector, with a particular focus on wholesale. Having lived and worked in various global hubs across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia & NZ she brings a unique perspective and ability to transfer best practice across markets.

Talk to me about:

• Growth strategies 
• Tennis 
• Horse riding​
• Travelling

Shishir is a Senior Manager in Simon-Kucher’s Sydney office. He specialises in supporting our retail sector clients in delivering revenue, footfall, and profit growth by optimising their product portfolio, pricing, promotions, channel strategy, and customer segmentation. He brings diverse experience across telecom engineering, high-performance sport, and strategy consulting.

Talk to me about

• Growth – pricing, promotions, channel strategy, packaging, portfolio optimisation, etc. ​
• Quick service restaurants across different global markets
• Cricket, Tennis – particularly Roger Federer​
• Indian cities and Indian food

Ashik Ahmed is the Cofounder & Director of tech startup Deputy, a workforce management platform headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Until 2022, he was CEO/CTO and led Deputy to $100M in Annual Recurring Revenue with over 330,000 workplaces in 100+ to manage their workforce! Deputy’s mission is to simplify shift work, whilst working towards a vision of thriving workplaces in every community.

A regular contributor to Forbes magazine, Ashik is also an expert on the subjects of workforce management, HR tech and Product Led Growth.

Originally from London, Jonathan is a creative marketer with a passion for disruptive technology. He spent the early part of his career driving growth for PayPal, followed by six years at Google, where he led key product launches for Google Ads, Google Maps and Android.  

As Head of Marketing for Polestar, Jonathan unites his long-standing passions for sustainability, design and innovative technology. His current focus is growing the brand and developing collaborative partnerships within the sustainability and design communities. In his spare time you’ll find him playing trumpet or teaching kitesurfing along the coast of Australia.

Michael is a Director based in our Sydney office and is known for leveraging data to better inform business strategy and deliver revenue growth.​ Michael has worked with business-to-consumer companies across a range of geographies, including Australia, Europe, The U.S. and Asia.

Talk to me about:

• How to use your data​
• Reading (Fiction only!)​
• Age of Empires II