Speaker Information

Below is information on our Webinar Series speakers. For more information please ensure you visit the speaker's site!

Rob Anderson:

Rob Anderson has been operating internet businesses since 2001 and went into the 'Community Networking' space before Social Networking was a well known term. Having worked for start up businesses in the biotech, food and pharmaceutical industries for 15 years, and then as a Management Consultant and Internet Business Owner, Rob has developed a passion for enabling small business and non-profits to capitalise on emerging technologies and marketing techniques to increase their revenues and cut costs. His main passion is Cagora - a new style Community Network that creates win/win outcomes for people, businesses, charities and community groups. Rob is excited to be one of thousands of Social Entrepreneurs around the world who are developing ways of doing business that are profitable but have a positive social impact at the same time.

Kathie Thomas:

Kathie Thomas is founder of Australia's first VA Network in 1996 and registered her own business 'A Clayton's Secretary' in 1994. Kathie is a Virtual Assistant Coach and Trainer and has trained and mentored many VAs during the life of her business. Kathie is an award-winning author and is many times published in business and women's magazines. Kathie is also a professional speaker and does keynotes, presentations and workshops at conferences, seminars and churches. A two-times 'Australian of the Year' Nominee (2008, 2009), Kathie has become a role model for women who want to work from home and be there for family.

Penny Haynes:

Penny Haynes, Author of 101 Things To Do With Audio and Video (To Promote Your Business) has a lifetime of experience with audio, and 2 years of experience as a television producer, director and editor. Although she specializes in producing affordable audio and video for solopreneurs, her Consulting clients have included Lifetime Television for Women and Standard & Poor's Vista Research. She has offered several podcasts in the past, including: Marketing With Audio And Video, Multimediapreneur, and Brain Storm! Business Podcast. Other accomplishments include: Creator of RSSzine, which takes blog and podcast RSS feeds and immediately turns them into professional PDF ebooks and magazines, and also takes any PDF and turns it into a turning page publication; designer of the world's first simplified multimedia production suite for novices - the Commercial Creation Center; and designer of the world's only Niche Market Podcast Directory software.

Michelle Schoen:

Michelle Schoen is a full-time Multimedia Specialist with over 10 years of experience in designing e-learning, creating video tutorials, coaching on virtual event creation (webinars and teleseminars) and website design. She has two Masters Degrees: one in Instructional Design and one in Project Management. Before becoming a Multimedia Specialist her career included six years as a Website Designer and E-learning Specialist with AT&T and four years as a Project Manager of an Instructional Technology team at IBM. The last two years have been spent coaching and training Virtual Assistants to add these skills to the services they provide their clients. You can find Michelle’s courses at VA classroom, Hotskills VA Training and LearnCamtasia.com Michelle was also just selected as the 2010 Multimedia Expert for the The Alliance of On-Line Entrepreneurs. The Virtual Assistant Demo Girl Website is where she shares videos/demos and ideas with VAs to help them learn about cutting edge video and webinar technologies.

Mike Palmer:

Mike Palmer from the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia has been a business adviser for over 30 years. He has worked in and for many companies and organisations, both on a contract basis and on salary for short periods. Mike has a background in agribusiness and small/medium size business development and now focuses on business and strategic planning; financial management; commercialising of new technologies; preparing submissions for government, banks, equity investors, etc; business growth and sustainability; and internet marketing. Mike recently launched an ebook - Australian Government Grants and Government Funding in response to many requests for advice on where to start; what programs are available; how not to stuff it up; how the whole process works; what risks they might face; etc. Over the last few years he has applied for over $4.5m in Government Grants for clients and community groups with over $3m being approved.

Kylie Short:

Named after her daughter, Tilda Virtual Services became the answer to Kylie Short’s desire to have flexibility in her life as she actively participated in raising and nurturing her family. Her passion to help others is fueled by the immense joy Kylie derives from being her own boss. Tilda Virtual Services partners with small business owners to provide a personalised, cost-effective and reliable range of administrative services to support the needs of you and your business. Providing bookkeeping, administrative support, website design and hosting, Kylie and her team are here to assist you in building your business, freeing up your time and reducing your to-do list.

David Warwick:

David Warwick is the founder of Veridian Media Pty Ltd, a consulting firm specialising in online marketing, social media and web applications. David holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Melbourne Business School and a Bachelor of Arts (English and Sociology) from Monash University. David is also a Director of branding and design agency Smart Works Pty Ltd, and the co-creator and product strategist behind successful Australian web content management system — Komodo CMS. David is Co-Chair of the Content Management Professionals Australia Community and is a regular speaker on web design, search optimization, online strategy, content and messaging.

Sharon Williams:

Sharon Williams is a successful author and coach. She is the President of The 24 Hour Secretary and founder of the Alliance for Virtual Businesses and Online International Virtual Assistants Convention. With 18+ years as an entrepreneur and business owner, she has experienced the ups and downs, good days and bad of entrepreneurship. Ms. Williams has overcome many obstacles solo practictioners face in running a business. While specialising in digital dictation and transcription services, her passion is marketing and event coordination. She is a Master Virtual Assistant and Professional Real Estate Virtual Assistant. She has written three publications, Marketing Your VA Practice, Nuts & Bolts of Branding, and Racism in State Government.

Andrea Cannavina:

Rosie Shilo:

Rosie Shilo has been working in the VA industry since 2004 and specialises in web design and desktop publishing. Rosie has worked with a variety of website software programs including FrontPage, Expression Web, and Joomla, but her favourite by far is Dreamweaver. Rosie delivers high quality, personalised business support and graphic design services that significantly improve clients' credibility, efficiency and business growth. Rosie has also worked with Virtual Assistants, helping them develop their Dreamweaver knowledge and showing them how to use other Adobe programs to really make the most of Dreamweaver software.

David Beard:

David Beard of Coastsure Insurance Agency has been consulting to businesses throughout Australia for more than 30 years providing specialist advice in the areas of Risk Management, Insurance and Business Development. He has served as a director and held senior positions with major financial institutions throughout Australia.

Fran Capo:

Fran Capo is a keynote motivational speaker, spokesperson, actress, voice-over artist, 9-time author and 4-time world record holder, most known as the Guinness Book of World Records fastest talking woman. Her other records include: only author ever to do a book signing on the top of Kilimanjaro; deepest book signing and the first ever memorial prayer service at the wreck site of the Titanic; and Chiromission seeing 21,545 patients in two days. Fran's motivational expertise has appeared on over 350 TV shows and 2500 radio shows. She presently writes a weekly blog called Fran's World and has an internet TV show by the same name. Fran's expertise lies in teaching the secrets of publicity, humour and peak performance skills at world record levels to corporations and individuals worldwide. She entertains, motivates and educations people on how to access their hidden talents and passions and become unstoppable.

Paddy Spruce CSP:

Paddy Spruce is a motivational speaker, corporate trainer and MC. He is a founding member of the National Speakers Association in Australia and has been awarded the highest level of international accreditation granted by this organisation. He has worked nationally and internationally for over 20 years. His area of specialty is 'Influencing Skills' which is about helping people to develop the skills and attitude to get what they want from others whilst building stronger relationships.

Tawnya Sutherland:

Tawnya Sutherland is a long-time active member of the Virtual Assistant community. Sutherland founded VAnetworking.com, the largest online global meeting place for successful and aspiring Virtual Assistants in 2003. Tawnya is also the creator of the internationally acclaimed Virtual Business Startup System—which provides all the information, tools, and resources for a VA to build a viable virtual assistance business in just 30 days. She also runs the Virtual Assistant Shopping Network and hosts the VA Talk Show podcast. A true entrepreneur, Tawnya is a Certified Internet Marketing Business Strategist graduating from the University of British Columbia in 2002 working for her own Internet Marketing company, Mediamage Business Solutions.

TSUFIT:

Featured in the Toronto Star, TSUFIT of Follow That Dream!^TM is a coach who specialises in coaching entrepreneurs to promote and publicise their dream business. TSUFIT also coaches business owners to write and perform dazzling infomercials for networking functions and to add sparkle to their longer presentations. A singer, television actress and comedienne and the subject of over 100 feature articles and many television and radio interviews, she has appeared doing stand up comedy on 'She's So Funny' and appeared on TV and film commercials. TSUFIT is author of 'Step into the Spotlight - A Guide to Getting Noticed', and is in demand as a speaker, workshop facilitator, TV show guest and mum (although she is not currently taking on any new clients in the last category!).

Cheryl Callighan:

Cheryl Callighan is a Master Virtual Assistant, founder and director of the University of Virtual Assistants and owner of eOffice-Virtual Assistants LLC. Cheryl has 18 years experience as an entrepreneur and successful business owner, 10 of those years as a Virtual Assistant, after spending 30+ years in corporate business as an executive level administrator and manager. Cheryl gladly shares her knowledge throughout the Virtual Assistant industry.

Jacque Richards:

Ignition Business Services is about providing assistance and information to people new to business, as well as existing businesses. We understand what it takes to start a business and be a small business owner. You need information fast, in “plain English” and at an affordable cost. This where we can help. The owner of Ignition Business Services is Jacqueline Richards. She is mentor for the Queensland Government's Mentoring for Growth Program, has formal qualifications in small business management and coaching along with having strategic alliances with state and federal governments.

Kay Lam-Beattie:

Kay Lam-Beattie, the principal of IDEALAW, graduated from QUT in 1992 with a Bachelor of Business (Accountancy) and an honours degree in Law. Kay also completed a Masters in Law concentrating on the areas of intellectual property (IP) and IT-related legal issues, as well as a Graduate Certificate in IT. She has practical hands-on experience in helping clients to negotiate commercially realistic agreements, as well as the expertise to provide legal advice on general commercial issues such as business structuring, risk minimisation and contracts. Kay's broadly-based academic qualifications and experience places her in an ideal position not only to understand the intricacies of her specialist areas of IT and IP related law, but also technical IT and business issues. Kay also speaks conversational Japanese, having lived and worked in Japan for a number of years.

Robert Carius:

Robert Carius is a Chartered Accountant with Carthills and has over 20 years experience. Having been with Carthills since graduating from University, Robert specalises in all areas of taxation including Fringe Benefits Tax, Capital Gains Tax and Superannuation, as well as other business services including Business Structuring, Business Growth Planning, and Succession Planning. Robert is the firm's GST advisor having completed Post Graduate studies at the University of NSW. With the financial year end fast approaching Robert will outline tax effective year end strategies and answer questions on taxation matters affecting small business owners.

Bev Ryan:

Bev Ryan is the award-winning founding publisher and editor of Honestly Woman magazine, the quarterly Australian magazine for enterprising women. The magazine is for women going about their business with heart and a social and environmental awareness, and covers urban, regional and rural endeavours, with a touch of international thrown in. In 2007 Bev won her local Quest "Reader's Choice Business Achiever's Award", a Qld State Government "Industry Development Award", and the "Women in Business Award" from the Melbourne branch of Marketing Communications Executives International.

Bev's background as a teacher and trainer, and business owner, gives her a solid skill set and good overview of industries to enable her to assist you with preparing a press release to help you promote your business.

Janice Byer:

Janice Byer, the owner of Docu-Type Administrative & Web Design Services since 1998, is a Certified Master Virtual Assistant (MVA), Certified Canadian Virtual Assistant (CCVA) and the recipient of several awards that prove her dedication to being a business that others can count on. She is also a co-founder and Executive Director of the Canadian Virtual Assistant Connection, co-author of "How to Build a Successful Virtual Assistant Business", author of several small business ebooks, and contributor to numerous online and print publications and VA organisations.