About Women's Health Foundry

Sue MacLeman brings more than thirty years at the centre of Australia’s life sciences industry — senior executive roles at Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Mesoblast, inaugural CEO and then Chair of MTPConnect, and multiple ASX, AIM, and NASDAQ board directorships. She currently serves as Chair of Medicines Australia, the peak body for the country’s innovative medicines industry, and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Her appointment as inaugural Chair of the Board grounds Women’s Health Foundry in a leader with deep industry standing and a long record of translating Australian science.

Professor Victoria Cogger is an international research leader in ageing liver biology and targeted drug delivery, with two decades translating Australian university science into clinical and commercial impact. She is the inaugural Executive Director of the Sydney Biomedical Accelerator — the A$780 million partnership between the University of Sydney, Sydney Local Health District, and the NSW Government opening in 2028 — and was most recently Director of the ANZAC Research Institute. A Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney, she co-founded EndoAxiom, whose oral insulin therapy has progressed to Phase 1 clinical trials. Her appointment as Non-Executive Director grounds Women’s Health Foundry in a leader operating at the interface of academia, health systems, and translational science.

Liza Noonan is Chief Executive Officer of Cicada Innovations, Australia’s home for deep tech, bringing more than two decades of experience at the intersection of science, technology, and impact. Her career has been shaped by a commitment to building vibrant, inclusive, and globally connected innovation ecosystems. Before joining Cicada, Liza was Executive Director of Innovation at Investment NSW, where she helped shape programs that strengthen the state’s innovation landscape. She has also held senior roles at CSIRO, including leading the ON Accelerator, and was the founding CEO of Springboard Australia, supporting high-growth, women-led startups. Her appointment as Non-Executive Director brings Women’s Health Foundry a leader with deep capability across deep-tech commercialisation, government innovation policy, and ecosystem building for women-led ventures.

Professor Robyn Norton AO FAHMS is one of the two Founding Directors of The George Institute for Global Health, a medical research organisation established in Sydney in 1999 and now also operating in India and the UK. She is Professor of Public Health at UNSW Sydney and Emeritus Professor of Global Health at Imperial College London. Robyn has a longstanding commitment to improving the health of women and girls — she co-established The George Institute’s Global Women’s Health Program and the Centre for Sex and Gender Equity in Health and Medicine, a partnership with the Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW and Deakin University, and was co-principal investigator on the MESSAGE project, which embedded sex and gender considerations into UK biomedical, health and care research policy. She is a non-executive director of the Black Dog Institute, a member of the Women in MedTech Committee of the MTAA, chairs the Gender Guidelines Development Committee of the National Health and Medical Research Council, chairs the advisory board of the Network of Excellence in Women’s Health at Imperial College London, and sits on the strategic advisory board of the Centre for Global Epilepsy at the University of Oxford. Her appointment as Non-Executive Director brings Women’s Health Foundry one of the most senior global voices in sex- and gender-equitable health research.

Dr Steve Burnell is Managing Director of Tenmile and Chair of its Investment Committee — the Australian health technology venture capital company owned by Tattarang, one of Australia’s largest private companies. His professional experience spans research, philanthropy, strategy consulting, M&A, and operating global businesses in fields as diverse as ecology, digital health, and precision oncology. Prior to Tenmile, Steve managed a global business, led M&A, and established a new informatics and real-world data business for the world’s largest biotech, Roche-Genentech, based in the USA. He remains a senior strategic advisor to Minderoo Foundation, where he has led large initiatives focused on COVID-19, Cancer, and Ocean Genomics. He holds a B.Sc. (Hons.) in Biology and a Ph.D. in Population Biology from the University of Sydney. His appointment as Non-Executive Director brings Women’s Health Foundry deep capability across health-tech venture capital, global biotech operations, M&A, and real-world data — directly relevant to translating Australian women’s health science into investable, patient-impact ventures.