Nick is Deputy Leader of the Wealth from Waste Research Cluster, a $9m three-year research collaboration that aims to identify pathways for creating wealth from waste that contains metals, including e-waste. This Cluster is a partnership with The University of Queensland, Monash, Swinburne and Yale. Nick co-authored the Action Agenda launched at the first World Resources Forum Asia Pacific, held earlier this year, to highlight the importance of resource productivity and innovation as themes of national significance. He is also an Honorary Lecturer at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London, a Visiting Fellow at the School of Chemical Engineering University of NSW, and a part-time Research and Design Engineer with an Australian minerals processing technology developer.

Nick will be speaking as part of the 'Closing the Loop' breakfast event. This event is separately ticketed so make sure to book your tickets at trybooking.com/JDWT

Candice is a woman of many talents. She’s founded her first start-up, managed the future of innovation for global enterprises and is now taking center stage connecting industries and regenerative design with her organisation, Circular Economy Australia. Circular Economy Australia seeks to push the nation into innovation superdrive and kick-start traditional businesses into Silicon Valley thinking. By moving away from the current take-make-throwaway model towards one of redesign-reuse-regenerate, Circular Economy Australia are single-handedly pioneering how innovation can aid this transition. Earlier this year Candice launched Deviate2Innovate, a platform that connects people, projects and possibilities in the Australian innovation landscape. Her goal is to set an international benchmark for collaborative knowledge sharing, driving job creation and investment.

Candice will be speaking as part of the 'Closing the Loop' breakfast event. This event is separately ticketed so make sure to book your tickets at trybooking.com/JDWT

Erin is the founder and managing director of Bright Sparks - www.brightsparksaustralia.com - a new social enterprise in Melbourne that reuses, repairs and recycles small electrical appliances to keep them out of landfill. Previously, she worked in the journalism industry for nearly 20 years as an editor, writer and photographer. She is an experienced clothes mender and upcycler.

Erin will be speaking as part of the 'Closing the Loop' breakfast event. This event is separately ticketed so make sure to book your tickets at trybooking.com/JDWT

John Weate is founder of the multi-award winning social enterprise Resource Recovery, and a consultant for Resource Recovery Australia, social enterprise consultants for the waste industry.  As CEO of Great Lakes Community Resources, a not for profit community development association specialising in social enterprise for 24 years, and a local Councillor for over 21 years, John is a Board member of WasteAid, addressing our global responsibilities in the waste industry. John holds a Bachelor of Science and an MBA.

Dorte is the CRN New Zealand equivalent of Matt Allen, and is responsible for managing CRN NZ’s various projects and events. She has a comprehensive understanding of resource recovery initiatives, having worked in a number of roles at the resource recovery centre in her hometown of Waiheke Island, and as a waste educator. With a recent surge in interest in community recycling in New Zealand, CRN NZ’s focus is currently on capability building and market development

Dick joined Social Enterprise Finance Australia (SEFA) in November 2014 and believes that it is important to combine both financial returns and social outcomes. Values that he embraces include entrepreneurship, responsibility, creativity and optimism. After finishing his studies in Management, Economics and Law Dick commenced his career at Rabobank in The Netherlands, working with small and medium sized enterprises. He then moved to Triodos Bank, a European based bank, considered to be a world leader in banking on values. Triodos is one of SEFA’s founding partners and Dick took the opportunity to work on secondment to SEFA for six months in 2012. Dick returned to Australia in 2014 to continue working with the SEFA lending team.

Alex Brown is a a former financial analyst in the property and mining/energy sectors with the unfortunate record of two redundancies before 30 . The latest motivated him to take control of his own destiny and forced his hand in starting 2ndLease. You could say this is his 2ndLease on life. 2ndlease provides the marketplace in which people and businesses can rent surplus appliances to each other, acting as an intermediary and facilitating the agreement and taking a small percentage of each rental payment as a management fee.

Mark plays a key role in social procurement by introducing new markets to the benefits of social enterprise. He also works with social enterprises to build capacity in winning contracts and finding customers. Mark has led milestone projects including the Social Enterprise FINDER and his involvement in creating new regional Australian social enterprises specifically designed to increase employment for marginalized groups.

Mark has wide ranging experience in social enterprise across program, advocacy, policy and project development. Prior to joining Social Traders in 2008, he was Social Enterprise Manager for the Brotherhood of St Laurence, managing a number of social enterprises aimed at assisting people into mainstream employment as well as providing expertise to other agencies looking to establish social enterprises. Mark has also developed policy and community development activities for public housing estates in inner city Melbourne.

Mark is a Director on the Board of Yarra Community Housing. He has Bachelor of Arts from Monash University, a Graduate Diploma in Education and a Graduate Diploma in Urban Policy and Planning from RMIT.