Warren Rustand

The common thread that permeates Warren’s Rustand’s experience is one of vision, strategy, and executive leadership, and achievement. He has created, led, and grown many successful private, public, and not for profit entities. He has a passion for family, entrepreneurship, public policy, and community.

Warren is the former CEO of Providence Service Corporation (NASDAQ; PSC) a $2.1 Billion social services and healthcare company. He was previously Managing Director of SC Capital Partners an investment banking group. Warren was Chairman and CEO of Rural Metro Corporation, a $600 million, publicly traded emergency services company. He also served as Chairman and CEO of TLC Vision, the world’s largest Lasik eye surgery company. He has served as Chairman/CEO of 6 other companies.

He has served as a member of the Board of Directors for over 50 public, private, and not-for-profit organizations. The range of these organizations is from multibillion dollar public companies, to midsize, early stage, and startups. As CEO he has helped take three companies public, two of which are among the largest in their industry.

In 1973 Warren was selected as a White House Fellow through a nationally competitive process. He served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Commerce and co-led the first ever Executive Level Trade Mission to the Soviet Union. He joined the staff of Vice President Ford on the day he was sworn-in. In August of 1974 when the Vice President became President, Warren was asked to serve as Appointments Secretary and Cabinet Secretary to the President.

In furthering his interest in community service and public policy, Warren created a seminar in Washington DC., titled “Public Policy and the Private Sector.” For 30 years Warren chaired this event which invited CEOs to meet with the highest level people in government, media, and lobbying. Over 4500 individuals have participated in the Seminar.

Warren has served as the Global Chairman, of the World Presidents Organization, a group of 10,000 CEO’s in 100 countries. He was also co-founder and global Chairman of L3, a worldwide leadership group, which is focused on one’s contribution during the second half of life. Warren is the co-founder and Dean of Faculty at the Entrepreneurs’ Organization’s Leadership Academy in Washington DC. Warren is a frequent speaker on subjects of: leadership, business, families, and personal development.

Warren received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Arizona. He has been the recipient of many honors and awards including: The Visionary Leadership Award, the Distinguished Citizen Award, and the 25 Year Achievement Award, election to the Sports Hall of Fame, the Robshaw Award, named a White House Fellow and Father of the Year in his hometown.

Megan Quinn

For the past 25 years, Megan Quinn has built a career specialising at the luxury end of retailing, advertising, publishing and design for the fashion, jewelry, hotel and airline industries. She has held a variety of leadership and senior executive as well as non-executive board roles, utilising her strong commercial capabilities and deep expertise in brand and service offer development.

Named as one of the top most powerful women in Australian retail in 2013 by Inside Retail, Megan is a truly engaging speaker whose global experience, intelligence, honesty, humility and quick humour serve to consistently inform, entertain and inspire her audiences.

Current work

In conjunction with her Board appointments and involvement in philanthropy, Megan runs Q&CO a boutique consultancy which focuses on how her clients can most effectively engage with their customers and clients through multi-channel and traditional service models. Alongside consulting, she also runs master classes and workshops.

Previous experience

Advertising: Her secondment to London in 1988 with the Mojo advertising agency marked the beginning of 18 years of involvement with prestigious clients and established her brand development and campaign design skills as well as a deep understanding and appreciation of the commercial requirements of her clients.

Executive: While in London, Megan held executive board roles with both Harrods and Net-A-Porter. Today, she is a non-executive director of UNICEF Australia and Specialty Fashion Group, and an Ambassador for Fitted For Work.

Achievements: One of Megan’s notable achievements was her co-founding of the internationally acclaimed Net-A-Porter in 1999. Her role was to direct the brand development of the company which launched in June 2000. In her capacity as Creative Director, she designed the iconic packaging, directed the site design and editorial, and was a member of the buying team. In her role as HR Director, she hired, trained and managed all staff, with a particular emphasis on creating the unique levels of service for which Net-A-Porter is now internationally renowned. As a Board Director, she reported to the fellow directors of the company, and reviewed and discussed the strategic, marketing, operational and financial implications and consequences of the rapidly expanding global business.

Catherine Ball

Dr. Catherine Ball is an author, founder, executive director, and ethics advocate working across global projects where emerging technologies meet humanitarian, education and environmental needs. Catherine also likes to create businesses.

A sought-after voice across the start-up and tech world, Catherine works globally across a wide range of global projects from creating world leading conferences and events, to using drones to kill weeds on rocky cliff faces. Catherine is a proponent of community engagement with technology and likes to demystify emerging tech.

Catherine has been called a social architect and likes to connect people from different backgrounds across common themes. A champion of diversity and inclusion, Catherine believes we need points of difference to truly innovate and curate the changes we want to see in the world.

Catherine continues to support Australia as being the world leader in the non-military application of drone technology, also known as “drones for good”. As such, Catherine has co-created a new, global congress to be held annually in Brisbane starting in August 2017 www.worldofdrones.com.au. The World of Drones Congress runs annually and is the first significant global drone conference to focus on all parts of the drone economy, and the future of the industry.

Catherine has most recently created “World of Drones Education” which is set to be the ‘Netflix’ of STEM resources for teachers, educators, corporates, and parents. It includes lesson plans on demand and a Podcast you can download from the Apple Store.

Catherine holds a BSc Honours (Environmental Protection) and a PhD (Spatial Ecology, Descriptive and Predictive Statistics) from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the United Kingdom.

Some of the awards Catherine has won include:

• 2015 AFR’s BOSS Magazine Young Executives of the Year – Winner
• 2015 Telstra Australian Corporate and Private Award winner
• 2015 Telstra Queensland Business Woman of the Year
• 2015 Telstra Queensland Corporate and Private Award winner
• Innovator of Influence, 2015 at Innovation Week.
• Courier Mail Q Magazine: Queensland 50 Best and Brightest, 2015
• Westpac 100 Women of Influence 2016 (Innovation)
• Top 25 Women in Robotics List- 2016
• 2017 Women in Leadership Awards – Finalist Innovation Category
• 2018 Global Contribution to UAV Industry award from Shenzhen UAV Industry association