Speed Mentoring

Connecting with a diverse and experienced group of mentors Get inspired about your career

MEET OUR MENTORS

Dr Lavender Shu - Director & Founder

Lavender is a seasoned cross-cultural marketer and communications professional with almost a decade’s experience within the tourism, aviation and retail industry where she held various positions in the field of digital communications, PR and marketing research; PhD at The University of Queensland which looked at the “Influence of social media on study destination selection: a study of Chinese outbound students”. 

Director & Founder of MediaMo - a bilingual full-service media/marketing agency, with a mission to bridge the communication gap between organisations and the Chinese audiences in Australia as well as in Mainland China. 

Candice Lam – Associate Director

Candice specializes in design and implementation of strategic value streams for business maturity across PMO, automation/digitisation, process improvement and IT/OT/ICT systems. Her passion for innovation, systems thinking, and narrative coaching supports leaders within technology, resources, infrastructure, and energy sectors successfully navigate through complex change.

Her 16 years’ international and APAC experience in executive engagement and stakeholder management powers her collaborative approach in bringing together diverse teams to ensure delivery on target aligned to strategic business priorities and the customer journey.

Irene Liu - Director, True Partner Property

Irene has over 12 years of experience in the Australian property industry, she was in charge of the QLD branch of a national leading property investment company, and now has set up her own business 'True Partner Property’, focusing on providing personalized property investment services, educating and helping investors finding suitable way to do property investment, and offering long-term support to make sure investors achieve their goal easier. She has achieved helping over a thousand of families build property portfolio with her team, she has trained and nurtured many industry top players who are now key persons of the organization or running their own businesses. 

Joanna Chen – Director , Ugrant Migration

Joanna specialises in the Global Talent Program, helping talented engineers, IT professionals, and finance gurus to get Australian permanent visa in 6 months. 

Joanna has lived in Australia and UK for more than 20  years and has a profound understanding of the political, cultural, humanistic, and legal systems and modes of thinking of Western society.  Joanna currently works with the Global Talent Task Force to hunt and attract the best and brightest engineers to come and work in Australia. She is actively looking for people and businesses to help turbocharge our economy and fill critical skills shortages and supply chain gaps.

Kerry Phillips - Governance advisory

Kerry is experienced across all tiers of government, not-for-profit, aviation, property, hospitality and banking industries. She consults in areas of finance, leadership and teaming to local government and health sector. During 2020 she was excited to support members as CPA QLD State President during the COViD 19 pandemic. She also initiated and launched the 1st virtual certificate presentation evening for a division across the CPA network. She now specialises in governance advisory work extensively leading and participating in several Audit and Risk Committees in local government.

Justin Nahimana – CFO of The Coghlan Group

Justin is The Coghlan Group's CFO, and he has extensive experience in strategic thinking and business planning, as well as leadership and innovative process development. He focuses on adding value to the community by providing services in Corporate Governance and Audit, Corporate Finance and Sustainability, Business Resilience Strategies and Enterprise Risk Management, Monitoring and Reporting on Organizational Performance, and Culture Building and Engaging Networks of Partners. For the last decade, he has been providing strategic insights to align the corporate vision and global strategic priorities in multicultural settings within the World Bank. He is also MAICD, MIPA, AFA, EMBA.

Minna Zhu – Partner BDO & Consolid8 Pty Ltd

As a Business Services Partner at BDO in Australia and Partner in Consolid8, Minna lead a team of tax, business services and management accounting specialists who focus on delivering a difference to clients’ businesses, with clients including fast growing SaaS and technology companies, Ecommerce businesses, large franchising groups and leading professional consulting firms. She has over 17 years of experience in public practice in various senior roles. Her previous experience as financial controller of an ASX listed company also gives her the ability to adopt a commercial approach towards problem solving. 

Derek Lam – Risk & Compliance Analyst，Allianz Partners

Derek is an experienced professional in accounting, finance, IT and risk management with over 20 years of experience in energy, banking and insurance, government and Fortune 500 companies, including Allianz Partners, RACQ, Ergon Energy and Brisbane City Council.

Derek is a member of CPA Australia, and holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Master of Financial Management from UQ. He is also a mentor for the UQ Business Economics & Law students.

Vivian Ding – Business development manager , Corpay 

Vivian is a business development manager for the international business payments and foreign exchange (FX) risk management company, Corpay (Corpay’s parent company is Fleetcor Technologies NYSE: FLT, S&P500). Previously, she worked in the freight forwarding industry for over 10 years in both Sydney and Brisbane. From 2016-2020, she worked for the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, which widened her view on the macro economy, global issues, and innovation. She recently joined Queensland Government’s Mentoring for Growth program to add value to more Australian businesses.

Sandy Wu CPA– Managing director of Packpal Packaging 

Sandy is a strong believer in personal development and progress and was able to transform her career as a corporate accountant and analyst to establish her own business in the last three years. She has over 10 years of corporate experience in the Australian Real Estate and Early Learning Sector. She is also a qualified NLP and Hypnosis practitioner.

Vicky Wei CFA – Head of Greater China, QIC

As QIC Head of Greater China, Vicky is responsible for establishing business development/sales strategies and implementing the strategies in Greater China Region; developing, managing and maintaining relationships with key institutional investors in the region. With over 25 years of experience in the investment management industry in Australia and China, she has held a variety of key roles including Floor Trader, Equity Analyst, Sales and Distribution and Business Development.

She is a CFA Chartered Holder, an MBA graduate from University of Melbourne, a member of AICD. She also holds CFA Certificate in ESG Investing.

George Sha – Executive Director, BALANZ 

George has more than 17 years’ experience in banking and finance industry. He co-found Balanz in 2014 which is now one of Australia's leading finance broking firms that delivers customised finance solutions for businesses and their key people. Balanz has placed and managed more than 6 billion debts to date, with 20 team members and 3 offices across Brisbane, Sydney and Townsville. Balanz aims to source most suitable finance solutions for as many Australian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as possible. 

Peter Gallagher – Corporate Advisor

Peter has 40+ years’ work in international finance, corporate advisory and personal development which has taught him that success, comes more readily with clarity of mind, self-knowledge, strength of character, and openness in interactions with others, even those we may not like.  How well we provide value to others depends fundamentally on deep insight into their position and needs.  The answers come much more readily with the right questions. Before starting his own advisory business in 2001, Peter worked in both the private and government sectors including the Australian Taxation Office, KPMG, HongKong Bank Group,  Bankers Trust, and Queensland Treasury Corporation.  

Cissy Ma– Founder & Managing Director of Grow and Sell Your BIz

Cissy is an FCPA and a GAICD, MD of Grow and Sell Your BIz; Founding Activator of Coralus (SheEO) in Australia; Deputy President of CPA Qld, Business Committee member, Global ESG Centre of Excellence; Co-founder of APAC Women’s Mentoring Circle; Finance Chair of The Boardroom; Mentor for CPA, UQ, Mentor Walks, Inspiring Rare Birds, River City Labs, Business in Heels, Qld Government Mentor for Growth, Export Council of Australia.

She is now applying her 22 years of corporate finance experience at Queensland Treasury Corporation, QR, Aurizon and ShineWing to help SMEs raise capital and buy and sell businesses.

Kaily Chua – Director, Rodgers Reidy 

Kaily is a Registered Liquidator, Registered Trustee, CPA, and Director at Rodgers Reidy – an international network specialising in solutions for businesses and individuals facing financial distress. She has extensive experience in managing appointments across a variety  of industries and brings a practical approach to solving complex problems.  She has specialised in insolvency and reconstruction for almost 13 years and has a background in stakeholder management. She is also a supporter of diversity and a co-founder of the APAC Women’s Mentoring Circle.    

Bob Wu– CFO of Energreen Nutrition

Bob has over 16 years of experience in finance, controllership and accounting. Currently he is the CFO of Energreen Nutrition, Prior experience includes 4 years in Queensland Coal Seam Gas project in a variety of senior finance roles to manage joint operations which are valued 27 billion on the Australian East Coast,  and 8 years of auditor experience in E&Y and specilized in capital raising, financial modelling and external auditing. He is also the Queensland Chair of the Association of Chinese Accountants Australia. 

Chloe Xu – Finance Director, Asia Pacific Region,  Valmont

Chloe specializes in understanding the business needs, working alongside different business departments, providing financial information, insights to executive, challenging their thinking and analyzing real time information to support the final decision making and driving business strategy. She has in-depth knowledge of end-to-end Finance functions including AR, AP, procurement, payroll, forecasting, budgeting, Mergers & Acquisitions, and financial reporting. She is a CPA and has extensive finance experience developed in global organisations such as Toyota, KPMG and News Corp. She also has a passion on continuous improvement and commercial negotiation. 

Will Banks – Executive Director, Challenger Capital

Will is a veteran banker and entrepreneur, who has had a successful career in retail, investment banking, and launching fintech firms. He has sat on several boards and has held numerous European and International positions, such as managing HSBC’s £269b Global Markets balance sheet and the divestment of TSB from Lloyds Banking Group.

In 2019, Will was granted permanent residency to Australia, via the “Distinguishing Talent (invitation-only) Visa Program”. Since landing in Australia, in 2021, he has sold a financial services venture, and launched several other businesses.