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welcome

There has never been a better time to use the tools of business to make a difference.   At Impact Academy we believe that when business growth and positive social and environmental outcomes are implicitly linked, we create significant impact for the future.

Our flagship project is the Impact Accelerator - a 20 week program - focused on entrepreneurial learning and enterprise development. This program has been designed and continuously improved over four years to help start-ups, and early stage social enterprises achieve sustainable and scalable impact.

In 2018, we expanded through the introduction of new themes including a Health Accelerator and Eco Accelerator.  Applications are now closed for the IA - 10 programs but we are accepting applications for IA - 11, starting in August 2019.

Dream Bold, Deliver Outcomes, Change Tomorrow

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impact

experience

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Since being established in late 2014, Impact Academy has had the privilege of working with over 80 social enterprises to design, develop, launch, fund and grow their businesses.

best practise program

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We strive to educate and nurture the best social enterprises graduating from the Impact Accelerator.

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We coach enterprises to be locally passionate, globally aware, design-centric, product pragmatic, revenue generating and built for scale.

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Most importantly, we help design and implement clear and tangible outcome models that are integral to the way their business is oriented.

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We have a tonne of fun along the way.

ideal initial investment - time, energy, experience

200 + hours of value

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Accelerator Workshops

Detailed workshops by expert facilitators who are leaders in their field.

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Coaching Support

Weekly direct coaching with the Impact Academy and Greater Outcomes team.

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Intern Support

Our Intern Pitch event connects passionate and committed contributors with genuine skills and expertise to work on your enterprise.

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Community Events

Entrepreneur Dinners with successful guest entrepreneurs, regular pitch events, social events with alumni and group activities focused on health and wellness.

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Mentor Sessions

Knowledge is power and mostly comes from experience. We’ve seen ‘mentoring’ initiatives done lots of ways not so well. We do it a little different, with the aim to gain significant value for both enterprises and mentors.

the program, our process, your outcomes

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apply

Online Application and Pitch Process. 

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successful applicants offered accelerator positions

  • Social Enterprise Accelerator
  • Eco Accelerator
  • Health Accelerator
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impact academy

20 week accelerator program

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showcase and marketplace

Pitch Night

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join the greater outcomes community and leverage alumni benefits

About Greater Outcomes

 

 

Scalable enterprises creating sustainable outcomes.

the enterprises

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trademutt

#ThisIsAConversationStarter. Built tough so you don't have to be.
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wellthy

The mindful wealth movement.
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joining hands

Feel Good, Give Back, Inspire Change. Providing a bridge for vulnerable and homeless youth to access...
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words with heart

 Words with heart is an eco-friendly stationary and printery social enterprise that funds women's and girls' education projects.
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spur projects

This multiple award winning charitable company design their own passion projects and campaigns to change the world.
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promise or pay

Make Good On Your Goals. Promise or Pay helps you stick to your goals by putting your money on the line for charity...
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boomerang bags

Boomerang Bags work to reduce the use of plastic bags by engaging local communities to build bags out of recycled materials...
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virtual songlines

A new technology for ancient cultures...
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upcoming accelerators

health

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health accelerator

Are you an entrepreneur wanting to disrupt the health industry in any of these sectors: e-Health, Medical Technology, Medical Device, Detection/ Prevention Technology, Health System Software, Mental Health, Wellness and Mindfulness Ventures? This program is designed to enable the development of health innovations, deliver world-class medical devices, services, technology and/or platforms to improve people’s lives. 
Dream Bold, Deliver Outcomes and let’s Change Tomorrow.

Details of the application process and eligibility criteria are outlined on the application form.

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eco

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eco accelerator

Are you striving to make changes in Waste Management, Reduce/ Reuse/Recycle Models, Renewable Generation/Storage, Conservation, Farming, Agriculture or Food Production?
We have reached a tipping point of non acceptance around many behaviours that are unsustainable.
Large environmental problems require solutions at scale and we now have collective demand to tackle these issues. This new accelerator program will specialise in building scalable solutions to ensure we can all live in safe, resilient and sustainable communities.

Details of the application process and eligibility criteria are outlined on the application form.

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social enterprise

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social enterprise accelerator

Is your entrepreneurial product designed for Youth, Seniors, Indigenous, Disability, Refugee/Migrants, Digital Fundraising/Philanthropy, or Housing? Then this is the program for you. The Social Enterprise accelerator has been designed to support global change makers that are restless with the status quo and understand the prospect of outcomes achieved through business.

Details of the application process and eligibility criteria are outlined on the application form.

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advisory board panel

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Andrew MacDonell

Andrew MacDonnell

Associate Director, Advisory
Business Services

Andrew’s position includes leading consulting and advisory engagements with a wide portfolio of clients across a variety of industries. He is passionate about doing meaningful work to evolve the businesses he works with and helping owners understand what they want – then helping them get there. He does this by building relationships with new and existing clients of the firm and gaining a thorough understanding of their businesses and objectives, which allows him to structure a service solution and deliver an approach tailored to a client’s needs.

Andrew has spent over 10 years working in our Wellington office where he largely focused on delivering consulting and advisory work along with cloud accounting transition and enhancements. He led the New Zealand network in this space and was instrumental in developing a strategic partnership with Xero. He was also central to delivering the BDO Drive advisory approach across the New Zealand network and continues to develop this approach internationally. He joined BDO in Brisbane in September 2017.

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Anthony Salerno

Anthony Salerno

CEO
Etech Consulting

Anthony Salerno, CEO of Etech Consulting a provider of technology development, business process improvement, and innovation procurement is a highly motivated person. He has been involved with multiple start-ups and has a wealth of knowledge on paths to success and failure.

Anthony brings 20 years of experience in the field of information technology and has a diverse background in both small and corporate settings, with extensive experience in research, product development, and enterprise software, as well as electronics. At Etech Consulting, he oversees the development as well as sets IT direction and coordinates infrastructure and service delivery. He is responsible for support enterprise software, research & development and internet of things, user support, infrastructure, communications, and information security.

He has worked as a consultant to large and small enterprises such as Accenture, Shell and Telstra and has in-depth knowledge of product development but also skilled at Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) which aids in psychological support of teams.

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Janelle Van De Velde

Janelle Van De Velde

C-Level Executive Leader
EMBA | GAICD | FGIA

A collaborative Executive Leader, I’m committed to leaving businesses in a better place than they were, through bold thinking and rigorous structure. Harnessing 10-years of success at the executive table, I partner with CEOs to strategically guide organisations through periods of rapid business growth, IPO and global expansion. I provide the discipline, governance, tenacity and agility of mind to transform ambitious start-up enterprises into multinational ASX/SGX listed corporations.

I believe that high performance is a result of creating work environments that inspire and motivate stakeholders to deliver results, together. With experience providing leadership to +400 staff across IT, finance, HR, administration, facilities and global operations, I place people first in order to drive results. While my strength lies in the identification of core issues preventing optimal performance, my value centres on an ability to drive collaborative problem solving and collective change delivery.

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Kylie Murphy

Kylie Murphy

CEO
Retail Consultancy

Kylie is a Certified Chair through the Advisory Board Centre and has over 20 years experience in Retail and Wholesale environments. Kylie has a natural ability to provide solutions that challenge the status quo. Kylie engages teams to deliver solid financial and cultural results for an organisation.

Kylie is now the CEO of a Retail Consultancy business that she founded to help Retailers build and implement sustainable strategies. Kylie focuses on optimising profit through ecommerce and distribution channels.

In a General Manager capacity, Kylie has worked in large retail businesses on turn-around, integration, strategy and financial modelling. She has managed large teams to align each function and deliver the brand strategy.

Kylie has worked with a number of key Australian retailers including: Tigerlily, Millers, Rivers, MyHouse, Showpo, Mr Simple, Coles Group, Billabong, Surf Dive N Ski, Fila Sport, Just Jeans and Woolworths.

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Leesa Chesser

Leesa Chesser

Director
Blue Sky Consulting Australia Pty Ltd

Values-driven and results-focussed, Leesa has more than 25 years’ experience working in a range of political environments, generating positive outcomes for individuals, organisations, and the wider community. A specialist in strategic governance, Leesa has played an instrumental role in the delivery of transformation and development projects in South Australia as a State Government Minister and federal politics at a senior level. Today, she works primarily in the private sector, empowering not-for-profit organisations and commercial enterprises by sharing her extensive knowledge of political processes and specialist areas including health, mental health, veterans’ affairs, the defence and space industries, science and technology and disability reform.

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Michael Christensen

Michael Christensen

Managing Director
Truro Partners

Mike Christensen is the Managing Director of Truro Partners, a provider of treasury advisory services, primarily to commercial real estate asset management and funds management businesses. He is also a Senior Consultant with Stellar Business Consultancy, aboutique consulting and advisory company established to assist SME business owners and leaders position their companies for scalable growth.

Mike created Truro Partners and joined Stellar in 2017 after a 25-year finance and treasury career, including 16 years working in the property sector for top 50 ASX listed property trusts such as DEXUS Property Group and Westfield, and working in the UK, USA and Australia.

Mike’s last executive role was General Manager, Group Treasury for DEXUS. His other roles at DEXUS included Head of Finance Transformation and Head of Strategic Planning.

Mike’s a qualified and experienced company director and board advisor. He’s Chair of the Finance and Treasury Association (FTA), and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD). He’s also a member of the Loreto Kirribilli Finance and Risk Committee and a non-executive director of ALE Finance Pty Ltd. Mike is an advisory board member of RILOW group of companies.

Mike holds a Masters in Applied Finance from Macquarie University and a Bachelor of Economics from QUT.

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Mike Avey

Mike Avey

Managing Director
Pachira Capital Pty Ltd

Mike is Managing Director of Pachira Capital Pty Ltd, a corporate advisory firm. Best described as a "deep generalist", Mike’s domains of expertise encompass: Commercialisation of innovations; Management and Governance; and Investment banking. Mike completed the UWA Advanced Management Programme and has an AdvDipMgmt and GradCertBA.

He is an investor in, and Advisory Board member of, Padmore City, a learning platform; Advisory Board Chair of Watch Smoke Alarms, an advanced fire-safety system; and Advisory Board member of Real Serious Games a virtual reality systems developer.

Mike is a long-time mentor to businesses, volunteering to the Qld Government's Mentoring for Growth, Investment and Export programmes and to accelerators such as QUT’s Bluebox;Unearthed; and UQ’s iLab. Mike took an Australian 3-D digitising innovation global, disrupting the aerial-surveying industry and setting up 25 distributors in 20 countries to deliver a CAGR of well over 75% per year for five years.

Over the last 40 years, he has founded and co-founded innovative ventures and provided advice to innovators, taking them from ideation to commercial reality. Not all were successful! However, the lessons of failure are very valuable too.

Mike’s governance experience includes having been Chair of three public-unlisted companies, and Director of several private companies. Mike was CEO of Brisbane Angels Group and maintains strong links to the Queensland Angel Investment community.

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Nader Seifen

Nader Seifen

Principal
Spindletop Strategists Advisors and Mentors

Spindletop is a metaphor that I have chosen to describe what we do. The original Spindletop was an Oilwell in Beaumont, Texas. In 1893, a man had the intuition that there was crude oil at that spot. In 8 years, several impatient investors lost faith and abandoned the project. The final result, in 1901, Spindletop became the biggest oil well in the world (back then).

The inspiration here is that over 95% of businesses have deep potential and hidden potential. These are two different things:

  • Many businesses know their deep potential and strive for it with varying degrees of success.
  • Most businesses do not know their “hidden” potential and never realise it. In the case of Spindletop, the hidden potential was billions of dollars.

I am a Chartered Manager, passionate about the deep and hidden potential in every business. I am helped in this quest with my academic studies as MBA, majoring in business strategy, from the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship.

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Peter Lord

Peter Lord

Business Development Manager
CANSTAR

Pete’s a serial entrepreneur, determined to make a difference to women’s financial lives.
His 20-year finance career guided his decisions to start, grow and eventually sell the successful, budgeting App, MoneyBrilliant to AMP.

He passionate about helping others and recently launched Best Financial Friend (BFF). A world first Digital Money Coaching service which was created to help get women out of credit card debt and build better relationships with money. His goal is to help 10,000 women get bad debt free by 2020.

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Sandra Poon

Sandra Poon

Strategy Advisor, Certified Advisory Board Chair
GAICD

Sandra is a strategy advisor and a chair on several advisory boards, with over 22 years in management and consulting. She specialises in working with the businesses in articulating a clear and executable strategic direction. She brings her experience from working with large corporations in strategy design, implementation and operations right through to start-ups and early stage businesses.

Sandra also has a background in program, portfolio management and business process optimisation across a broad range of industries.

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the latest

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Beyond CSR: Five interesting social enterprise startups joining Impact Academy’s 10th accelerator cohort.

https://www.smartcompany.com.au/startupsmart/news/beyond-csr-social-enterprise-startups-impact-academy-accelerator/ STEPHANIE PALMER-DERRIEN / Monday, February 18, 2019 Brisbane’s Impact Academy accelerator has welcomed its tenth ever cohort, as it surpasses the milestone of 100 social...
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Media Release| Feb 2019| Brisbane’s Impact Academy attracting further international talent to its social enterprise accelerator program.

  MEDIA RELEASE 15 February 2019 Brisbane based Impact Academy has been supporting social enterprises in Asia-Pacific since 2014 and this month marks the...
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Impact Academy is now an Approved Hubspot for Startups Partner!

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