Team

Our Seed Accelerator™ team is dedicated to help you succeed faster & better on the short- & long-term!

 

The Seed Accelerator™ organisation and programs are being managed by a multi-disciplinary team, led by Patrick Driessen, a visionary global business leader and passionate serial entrepreneur. He is being assisted by various recognized experts in technology startups; a well known expert on technology & product development; a highly regarded expert in marketing, sales and international transactions; a well experienced program & events manager; and one of the foremost experts in transformational change and skills based education.

These entrepreneurial leaders will provide day-to-day assistance to the participating entrepreneurs. The leadership team will be assisted by the members of the Board of Advisors, a select group which includes a broad range of business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors and technology experts.

Further assistance will be provided by members of the Seed Accelerator™ Mentoring Pool, which includes many top-entrepreneurs, well-known business leaders, professional coaches, business mentors and a wide range of subject matter experts to support the leadership team and the entrepreneurs on the various programs.

Team Members

  • Patrick Driessen - Founder & Chief Executive Officer

  • TBA - Managing Director

  • Claudio Lasschuijt - Chief Creative Thinker

  • TBA - Chief Technology Officer

  • TBA - Events & Community Manager

  • Angela Heise - Head of Transformational Change

  • Rutger Hesseling - Head of Human Resources (interim)

  • Jacob Watkins - Business Development Manager

  • Vaughan Allan - Chief Engineer & Innovation Solutions Specialist

Advisory Board

  • Daniel Biondi - CTO, Financial Services at HP Enterprise Services

  • Nigel Hennessy - Founder & Managing Director at Cleantech Business Accelerator

  • Menno Veeneklaas - CEO & Partner at Main Street Corporate Advisors

  • Dan Brush - Partner at Herbert Geer Law Firm, Expert Lecturer at University of Technology Sydney & Chairman at Mensheds Australia

  • Martin Duursma - CTO Office Chair at Citrix Systems, Inc. & Vice President of Citrix Labs

  • Bart Jellema - CEO at Tjoos.com, Founder at Startup Australia, Founder at XS2.ME

 

Team Member Biographies

Patrick Driessen - Founder & CEO

LinkedIn

 

Patrick (1972) is a Dutch born fast-paced visionary, passionate, forward-thinking, serial-entrepreneurial and intuitive senior business leader, executive coach, business mentor and agent of change with a proven track record of achievement in a career that spans over 20 years in sales management, deal making, solution development, strategic consulting, operations, finance, innovation, marketing and hands-on leadership positions.
He has extensive experience in building companies, business units and brands. Patrick has started, managed & rapidly developed high-growth companies including technology start-ups and large enterprise corporations. He has extensive experience with new venture finance, development and operations across IT&T, FMCG, new media and financial services.
Patrick is a “rainmaker” with the ability to increase productivity and innovation through the alignment of the available strength, identify and secure profitable new business and build valuable strategic partnerships. He has a reputation for being highly energetic, authentic and optimistic with excellent team building, organisational, time management, leadership, interpersonal, financial, problem solving, communication and relationship building skills.

As of the age of 14 he has started, founded and co-founded 10 companies, ranging from medical services, bio-energy, motorbike imports and luxury goods, to technology services, web services and software applications. He has been instrumental in over 30 start-ups, 4 mergers & acquisitions as well as numerous fund raising activities.

Over the last 15 years, Patrick has held senior leadership positions with responsibility for the USA, Europe, Middle East, and the Asia Pacific region, including P&L responsibility for up to US$350M and 675 people. He has held various senior executive leadership roles within technology market leaders such as Dell, ScanLaser, Cambridge Technology Partners, EDS, Unisys and HP. In his last corporate role, Patrick was the Head of Application & Consulting Services at EDS/HP Enterprise Services. And in the last phase of his corporate career, Patrick generated over US$800 million in new business revenue!

Patrick now is the CEO at Seed Accelerator where he and his team help start and rapidly grow a select number of technology organisations across the Asia Pacific region and provide innovation programs to enterprise organisations. He is a partner at 8P Capital – a boutique seed-stage investment firm –, he is the founder of Dutchdown – a successful life branding & events company –, and he holds various positions as director or non-executive director within a select range of fast growing technology ventures.

As inspirational speaker, executive coach and business mentor Patrick helps many organisations and individuals to improve their performance and deepen their learning’s. He's specialised in leadership development, application development, team building, entrepreneurship and innovation management.

He likes to spend his spare time with friends and family, sailing, playing golf, cooking, painting, updating his Helping You Succeed blog, writing new leadership books and using social media platforms to inspire and help other people: e.g. he has over 14.000 direct contacts on LinkedIn, over 10.000 followers on Twitter and he is the moderator of a wide range of online special interest groups. 

Claudio Lasschuijt - Chief Creative Thinker

Claudio is an idea wizard, inventor and technical developer with well developed business skills. He’s a healthy and successful mix of an innovator and entrepreneur. Always full of new ideas and helping others to optimise, improve and execute their ideas. Over the last eight years, Claudio has been instrumental in the launch and rapid growth of various software technology companies in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. He has held various leadership positions, has developed numerous new products and services and now has turned his biggest passion into reality: spending his time and energy on idea leadership! He holds a bachelor degree from the Royal Dutch Army Academy and he holds a master degree in Management Science & Business Administration from the Technical University in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Angela Heise - Chief Education Officer

Angela is an awarded and accredited Transformational Coach, Master Trainer and expert in human behaviour and transformational change. She completed her major in History and Chinese Studies at Hamburg University. She studied at the Beijing University and the University of California at Berkeley, where she completed her Masters in Chinese American History. She is a Practitioner of Ericksonian Hypnosis and accredited in all of Dr Edward de Bono’s thinking tools, Six Thinking Hats, Lateral Thinking and Direct Attention Thinking Tools (DATT). Angela is also a Certified Counsellor, Workplace Trainer and Assessor, Zing Master Trainer and Avatar Master. She is an accredited Human Synergistics and Advanced Cultural Transformation Tools facilitator. Angela is a member of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress and the International Coaching Federation. She is a charter member of the International Positive Psychology Association, where she bands with people dedicated to furthering happiness.

TO BE COMPLETED.

Advisory Board Members

Daniel Biondi – CTO, Financial Services at HP

LinkedIn

Daniel is an IT business leader with over 17 years of experience in the application of advanced information technology solutions delivering high business impact to organizations within the financial services, telecommunications, retail, outsourcing and manufacturing industries. He has done business in more than 15 countries and has served a wide range of customers including McDonalds, Repsol-YPF, Techint, 3COM, Telstra, Singapore Government, Telefonica, Scotiabank, Citibank, Santander Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corporation, Bank of Queensland and many others.  In his current role as CTO in Financial Services for HP Enterprise Services in South Pacific, he is responsible for advising and supporting HP’s financial services clients and expanding business solution offerings to ensure HP can more effectively partner with clients. Since joining the former EDS in 2002, now HP, Daniel has held senior roles in Asia Pacific including Chief Architect, Financial Services, for Asia Pacific and CTO for the Singapore Government account. Previously, Daniel held senior roles in Latin America including CTO for Argentina and Chile and regional CTO for Latin America. Prior to EDS, Daniel spent over eight years with IBM, where he held a number of roles including leading and participating in consulting engagements and projects in Latin America, the United States and Europe. Daniel has a Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems from Universidad del Salvador, Argentina, and a MBA in International Business from L’Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (ENPC), France. Daniel is recognized as a Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia (FINSIA) and as an HP Distinguished Systems Engineer. This designation is given to HP’s top technical talent with a proven track record of creating reusable end-to-end solutions that solve real-world problems.

Nigel Hennessy – Founder & Managing Director at Cleantech Business Accelerator

LinkedIn

Nigel is a highly respected CEO and serial entrepreneur in the water and technology space. He runs Cleantech Business Accelerator which provides support to produce Australian world class technology in Clean Technology and sustainability. Previous CEO and Director roles with AquaSpy Group, Golflinx, CCtd, Simoco Pacific (ex Philips Mobile), BAE Systems and GEC Marconi. He has worked in Australia, USA, UK and Asia. Nigel has also been instrumental in 3 start-ups, 6 mergers and acquisitions and 2 IPO’s as well as numerous fund raising activities. He holds a degree in Cybernetics and Mathematics with post graduate in Law, Finance Marketing & Meteorology plus he’s a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Member of the Turnaround Management Association. Recently he was awarded a scholarship for an International Directors Course in Hong Kong. He has worked on several government committees including the Defence Industry Panel, the Commonwealth Government Review of Software Intellectual Property, and was on the Advisory Panel for the Premier of South Australia’s Science Committee for the formation of a Water Technology Institute. Currently he’s a Director of Water Australia. He is a keen international speaker on water and environmental issues, IP, Innovation and Management, Opportunity Management and has written articles on SME Management for the Company Directors Magazine.

Menno Veeneklaas – CEO & Partner at Main Street Corporate Advisors

LinkedIn

Menno has 18 years of diverse business and leadership experience. He has worked in Managing Director and CEO roles with growth-stage healthcare and ecommerce companies, in private equity and corporate development roles with Macquarie Bank and the Virgin Group investment holding company, and in strategy consulting with the Boston Consulting Group. During his career Menno has worked with a number of large, publicly listed companies and many private companies in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, UK, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. He has served as an executive and non executive director on more than 10 private company boards and has co-founded 3 companies. Menno specialises in mergers, acquisitions, divestments, capital raisings and assisting companies with developing and executing growth strategies. He has a BA in economics and politics from the University of York, UK and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management, USA. Menno is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Martin Duursma – CTO Office Chair at Citrix Systems, Inc. & Vice President of Citrix Labs

In his dual capacity role at Citrix, Martin is tasked with day to day running of the CTO Office which is responsible for educating and evangelizing technology directions, trends and standards within Citrix as well as cross group technology governance. In his role as VP Citrix Labs Duursma is chartered with conceiving and producing creative products, components and technologies crucial to the company's success. His global responsibilities include development groups located in Cambridge, UK, Redmond, USA, and Sydney, Australia which pioneer and review new technologies with a two to three-year horizon. Ultimately these technologies become part of the Citrix product portfolio. Additionally Duursma’s group is responsible for stimulating innovation inside Citrix via running an internal ideation process. Previous roles include: Director of Engineering at Datapac Australasia (1988-1997), and Software Engineer at Datamax (1984-1988). He holds a degree in Computer Science and a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Sydney.

Bart Jellema – Founder & CEO at Tjoos, Founder at Startup Australia, Founder at XS2.ME

Bart is a born computer wizard: at age 6 he started with computer programming by modifying Atari games. At the age of 14 he developed and implemented a complete CRM system for a large company, and ever since he's been developing new software applications and websites. Bart was always determined to become an innovative entrepreneur and focused his career as technologist, developer, IT manager and leader to develop essential skills and experience to become a leading entrepreneur. In 2007 Bart founded his first company together with his girlfriend Kim: Tjoos (pronounced ‘choose’). The website Tjoos.com started as price comparison engine, but then specialised in online discount coupons. The site grew by 150 percent year on year to well over 1 million unique visitors in February 2010; offering over 500,000 coupons from more than 180,000 merchants. In March 2010 Tjoos.com was acquired by US based Internet Brands (NASDAQ: INET). Bart is also the founder of Startup Australia, which organises startup boot camps to inspire and support more people to start their own tech venture. Bart was also recently named The Next Web Australia’s Startup Person of the Year. Hi latest startup venture is XS2.ME in which he is developing a new social media application to consolidate and simplyfy the use of a wide range of social media networks.

“My biggest passion in life is making the impossible possible with and for other people. So far that passion has led me to some of the most satisfying and rewarding experiences in my life!” – Patrick Driessen

 

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