Tell us about your business
Invest Victoria forms part of the Victorian State Government of Australia. Invest Victoria is the state’s investment attraction agency that seeks to attract foreign direct investment into Melbourne and wider Victoria. We do this by providing free-of-charge assistance to international businesses to help facilitate their investment projects and/or expansion plans in the state. We work with our public and private sector partners and our global network of 23 trade and investment offices across the world to support investors with the aim of making Victoria a leading destination for business, innovation and talent globally.
What’s your role all about?
As the Senior Investment Director for South East Asia, I work with companies based in Singapore and across the region to facilitate their business projects in Melbourne and wider Victoria. The ways in which I assist these companies is always bespoke and dependant on their specific requirements. This may range, for example, from facilitating introductions to government stakeholders, sector experts or potential clients, to perhaps providing guidance on how to set up a company in Victoria, providing access to government grants and incentives, or assisting with site selection and navigating the approvals process.
What’s the hot topic in your sector right now?
I work across all sectors but our five main priority sectors are: Health, Food and Agriculture, New Energy, Advanced Manufacturing and Technology. We are currently working with a lot of tech companies with focuses on medtech, biotech, green energy AI, VR and fintech that are expanding their businesses into Melbourne. A lot of these companies are looking to carry out their R&D activities here to make the most of Victoria’s thriving innovation ecosystem and the associated grants and incentives that are now available as a result of our recent state budget announcements.
Why are you a member of AustCham in Singapore?
AustCham is a great way to stay connected to the Australian business community here in Singapore and across the region. It is also great to see more and more Singaporean companies that have business interests in Australia or that are looking to expand their activities to Australia join the Chamber. The new AustCham SME & StartUps Group in particular is a great way for younger Australian and Singapore-based companies to come together to share ideas, network and collaborate.
If you could travel anywhere in the world right now where would you go?
Back home to Australia to see friends and family (and the beach) and back to my second home in Paris also to see friends and family (and the bakeries)!
What are you most looking forward to for 2021
I am hoping that 2021 will involve a little less doom, gloom and Zoom in comparison to 2020 as it starts to slowly open back up again and return to some kind of (new) normal.
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