Jules has a proven track record in advising and governing both major corporates and rapid-growth, early-stage companies. She spent over 25 years working in the pharma-biotech space internationally, initially with corporates such as Eli Lilly (UK) and Genzyme (US). Jules has significant experience in evaluating commercial opportunities and executing corporate transactions.

Her professional passions include helping high-growth technology companies and innovative businesses to thrive on the global stage and investing in the future of a diversified NZ economy through nurturing start-ups and the next generation of world-class entrepreneurs. She is a proponent of calculated strategic risk-taking and tolerance for failure, to drive ambition and support innovation. Jules also holds an MBA from Alliance Manchester Business School (UK), where she was a longstanding mentor on the full-time MBA programme. She is also a mentor on the University of Auckland Business School Women’s Mentoring Programme and a founding member of the Manawatū Momentum Investment Committee; the Momentum Programme comprises a growing number of student-led investment committees focused on start-up ventures, particularly those originating from tertiary student- and staff-owned intellectual property and technologies.

Jules currently holds a number of governance and strategic commercial advisory roles with high growth NZ companies in various sectors:

• Chair of the Board of Directors at Humble Bee Ltd
• Non-executive Director at Kode Biotech Lted
• Advisory Board, Glycosyn.

Jules is established in the NZ early-stage research commercialisation and start-up ecosystem. She is Chair of the Biotech Investment Committee and was Founding Chair of the MedTech Investment committee for the Return on Science programme – pre-seed investment funds that invest in commercialising technology innovations from publicly funded research. She also works with many business incubators and accelerators in an advisory, investment or mentorship capacity.