Abie Greengarten

Abie is a career accountant, trusted business advisor and recently retired equity director of William Buck a highly regarded mid-tier accounting and advisory firm in Sydney, Australia; previously responsible for the tax, accounting and personal interests of small to medium business operators (SME) as well as worked collaboratively with all service lines within William Buck and with highly credentialed legal firms and funders. Industry experience includes, manufacturing, property (including building and construction), retail and wholesale, medical, healthcare/aged care and professional services, agriculture, franchising and licensing, finance and equity capital and a wide array of high net worth individuals and small businesses across a wide spectrum of different business activities both in Australia and in Asia; a certified chair(man) for business advisory boards and a registered tax agent.

Abie’s passion lies with assisting SMEs and their operators grow and reach their potential. Although a “numbers person”, has come to recognise and respect that it is a combination of qualitative factors as well as quantitative outcomes that are responsible for achieving success.

Reporting on the past whilst important is a traditional role of accountants. However, imagining and writing the future and creating and capturing value for clients is where his true passion lies and where his energies are best utilised.

Dr Ron Weinberger

Ron is a highly experienced medical device executive having worked in the field for over 20 years in ASX listed and unlisted companies. Ron’s present executive role is CEO of start-up EMvision (ASX:EMV) which is developing a unique low cost, portable brain scanner with IP acquired from the University of Queensland. In his most recent past executive experience Ron worked in Nanosonics (NAN:ASX) having led the teams from the earliest stage R&D, IP development, strategic product development, global regulatory submissions including CE, US FDA, Japanese PMDA and Australian TGA. He developed the global manufacturing for NAN as COO after which he was appointed CEO where he was a signatory on the master distribution agreement with GE Healthcare in the USA and established the NAN sales and business development team there. Ron also developed the distribution strategy for Europe where agreements were signed with Toshiba Medical Systems (now Canon Medical) in the UK, Miele Professional in Germany and GE in France. He was Executive Director on the Board for 8 years. Today NAN has a market capitalisation of $1.7B having been a tiny operation when he started. Ron is also Non-Executive Chairman of Israeli early stage company Heramed listed on the ASX (ASX:HMD) and holds Non-Executive Director roles in unlisted companies Cleanspace Ltd, 3DMorphic Pty Ltd and in the past, Vectus Biosystems, a biopharma company which is now a listed entity (ASX:VBS). Ron is passionate about and really enjoys the early stage technology space where his expertise is best suited. He has always been very focussed on value generation and strategy development and implementation.

Michael Potas

Michael, by training an electronics engineer, is the founder of Boost Design, a product development consultancy that specialises in the turn-key development of new technology products for start-ups and established businesses.

He has previously worked for or founded more than ten start-up companies relating to medical devices, sports, audio, entertainment, and software.

He is the author and/or inventor on more than ten patent applications, lectures in IP and commercialisation strategy, and has worked across a broad range of roles that encompass research, engineering, marketing, sales, business development, customer support, service, quality, manufacturing and regulatory functions. 

As an early employee and Head of Research, Design and Development at the medical device start-up Nanosonics Limited (ASX:NAN), he witnessed its valuation on the Australian Stock Exchange exceed A$1 billion in 2016 based on the sales of the product that his R&D team developed.

Michael’s broad experience allows him to take a cross-disciplinary approach to research, development, and product commercialisation, where he is always focused on the alignment of product development activities to the achievement of business outcomes. 

Michael’s talents and experience adds a complementary, pragmatic and broader dimension to Gesher Venture skill-set that permits us to bridge the gap between innovation and commercialisation.

Eldar Abras

Eldar is a practising lawyer registered in Israel specialising in Corporation, Commercial and Business law in the public listed company market. He gained his Batchelor of Law (LLB) with Merit from Tel Aviv University and was admitted to the Israeli Bar in 2001. He subsequently qualified for admission to practice law in the State of New York, US in 2005.

Eldar is a senior partner at Tshuva & Co., a boutique legal firm specialising in providing legal services to public listed companies on the Tel Aviv Israel Stock Exchange. He is commercial, pragmatic and empathic. Eldar works closely with Israeli publicly listed companies, including the inhouse legal teams and board of directors. He has acted as lead partner on numerous deals including capital raisings for the public and private sectors, complex merger and acquisition (M&A) dealings, company takeovers and reverse acquisitions. He has considerable experience in insolvency matters, working through creditor arrangements and related matters being the subject of court judgments

He also has a deep understanding and considerable experience of Intellectual Property (IP) which he gained during his time as an associate attorney at Dr. Shlomo Cohen and Co. one of Israel’s leading IP law firms.

Examples of specific experience include:

• Lead partner on Electreon Wireless Ltd. merger with a publicly listed Israel company. Electreon Wireless is developing an Electric Road System aimed to support countries and cities in their transition to all-electric transportation.
• Merger of Apollo Power Ltd., a start-up developer of flexible solar panels.
• Mergers of privately owned companies in the medicinal cannabis and related products sector.

Eldar has extensive experience and understanding of the technology companies looking to raise funds privately and publicly within and outside Israel.

He is familiar with the larger transactions involving mature innovative technology companies but is equally keen to work with start-ups and mid-tier businesses seeking to attract capital and grow their businesses internationally.

Eldar will be working with Gesher Ventures to introduce opportunities for Israeli start-ups and mature companies looking to export their IP and business model to Australia en-route to expansion into Asia. At the same time, he will attend to all associated Israeli in-bound legal work.

Raj Logaraj

Raj’s career spans Law and Investment Banking. He currently serves as a Director of and Adviser to companies, some publicly listed, involved with Technology, Data Connectivity, Telemedicine, Agribusiness and Healthcare. In addition, he acts from time to time as a Project Adviser to international Investment Banks. He has previously been a Director of listed public companies (ASX, SGX and Bursa Malaysia), covering Agribusiness, Conservation, FMCG, Uranium Mining, Medical Devices and Financial Services and has served on University Committees and Government Councils in Australia and overseas.

He was a Partner of Shook Lin & Bok, a major law firm in Singapore following graduation with a LLB (Hons) degree from the National University of Singapore where he taught Commercial Law part-time, followed by a LLM degree from Sydney University majoring in International Tax and Public Company Finance. He was a Guest Lecturer at Sydney University on International Business Transactions for the Master of Laws Course. He became a Senior Associate at Allens, where he helped establish the firm's Singapore Office before being elected an International Partner of Baker & McKenzie, Australia responsible for the development of its business in the Asean region, as Head of the Corporate & Commercial Group of the Australian offices and Chair of its Business Development Committee. He subsequently joined Turnbull & Partners (now Goldman Sachs Australia) as Executive Director. He then worked for Temasek Holdings in Singapore as a Board Director and President of the Financial Solutions Group of its Stockbroking unit and Chair of the Risk Management Committee. Raj is Principal of Raffles Partners