From the Great Barrier Reef to governed AI.
Most governance advisors studied the theory. I’ve been the person in the room when things go wrong — and the person who builds the systems so they don’t.
My career started in maritime crisis law in Far North Queensland. I represented shipowners after fuel spills, negotiated letters of undertaking for vessels drifting toward the Great Barrier Reef, managed suspected murder investigations on commercial ships, and trained federal regulators in incident response.
When the stakes are a coral reef, a tanker, or a human life, you learn that governance isn’t a framework — it’s how the system works in practice that determines whether the next crisis is a catastrophe or a controlled event.
That instinct carried through every role since: building legal functions from zero at a fintech startup during international expansion, restructuring group operations as Head of Legal and Company Secretary for an Australian marine services group, and partnering with AI, Innovation, and Technology teams at a global pharma services company listed on NASDAQ.
Along the way I completed a PhD on the ethics of AI-assisted negotiation, earned the IAPP’s AI Governance Professional certification and GIAC’s cybersecurity credential, and started speaking and lecturing internationally on the intersection of AI, law, and ethics.
The pattern across every role: I stepped in when things were unstructured, and left them with systems that ran without me. Now I build the thing I’ve spent 15 years learning how to build: AI workflows for regulated companies where the governance is already inside them.
The free layer is Contract Kitchen.