Mr Neil Palmer
CEO

Neil Palmer was appointed CEO of the National Centre of Excellence in Desalination in October 2010. Mr Palmer was General Manager of Technical Services at Osmoflo, the largest Australian owned desalination and water recycling company. Prior to this, Mr Palmer was Chief Engineer for United Utilities Australia for five years where he was responsible for engineering design and process solutions, after eight years as their Water Quality Manager. Mr Palmer is a member of the Institution of Engineers Australia and a Life Member of the Australian Water Association (AWA). He is a Director of the International Desalination Association, past President of the AWA South Australia Branch and was a member of AWA’s national Board for six years.

Prof. David Furukawa
Chief Scientific Officer

David Furukawa has more than 40 years of desalination technology experience in both public and private sectors. He is Chairman of the Research Advisory Board, National Water Research Institute; Vice-moderator of the Research Advisory Council, Middle East Desalination Research Centre; Past-President and Director of the International Desalination Association and American Desalting Association (now AMTA), and life member of AWWA. He has more than 60 publications and is patented in the field. His company, Separation Consultants, Inc., provides technical, management and strategic business consultancy. In September 2011 he was awarded an Honorary Professorship from Murdoch University.

Mr Rhett  Butler
Chair, Research Advisory Committee

Rhett Butler has over 25 years experience in the international water industry and is currently the Business Development Manager for Siemens Water Technologies. He began his career in water with Memtec Limited in 1986 where he occupied various roles, including Regional Manager for NZ, Indochina, Korea, South Africa and Middle East. He spent 8 years with Vivendi Water (now Veolia Water), a world leading water and wastewater service, where he became the General Manager, Sales Marketing and Business Development. Mr Butler is an experienced water engineer well versed in technology and start-up companies water industry strategies and international water policies. He is the Founder and Chairman of the SkyJuice Foundation, a not for profit organisation which manufactures and supplies re-usable potable water treatment units for developing countries, third world water supply, disaster relief and emergency water supply. He is also Chairman and Director of Aquasynergy Solutions Pty Ltd and Managing Director of Ravia Pty Ltd. Mr Butler has degrees from Sydney University, the University of New South Wales and Deakin University.

Mr Larry Lopez
Chair, Commercialisation Advisory Committee

Larry Lopez is Executive Director of RedDog Capital Partners, a technology focused investment bank based in Western Australia. Prior to co-founding RedDog Capital Partners, Mr Lopez spent 18 years at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) Financial Group, a publicly traded US bank (NASDAQ: SIVB) occupying a variety of executive roles including President of the SVB private bank, Managing Director of SVB Securitises and Managing Director of the International Venture Group. During his tenure at SVB the company managed several billion dollars of funds ranging from venture capital and private equity to fund of funds. Mr Lopez served on various management committees of the Bank including the Bank’s Loan Committee, Information Technology Committee, Internet Committee, International Committee, Joint Leadership Committee and Employee Recognition Committee. During Mr Lopez’s tenure at SVB, beginning in 1997, the group made over 300 investments.

Whilst Mr Lopez was the Managing Director of SVB’s International Venture Capital Group (SVB Global Financial Services), he was responsible for working with foreign venture capitalists, investors and businesses to facilitate foreign technology and life science companies interested in expanding to the United States. In this capacity he was also responsible for the Bank’s foreign venture capital activities and investments in Europe, Australia, Israel and New Zealand. Mr Lopez also worked with government agencies in Australia, England, Israel, Sweden and New Zealand to assist investment communities with the development of venture capital policy and investment models to enhance growth in emerging technology and life science sectors.

Mr Lopez has served as non-executive Chairman of Steele Productions in Belmont, California and Atrico in Perth, Australia. He was on the investment committee at the IdeaHub in London and on the Advisory Boards of eChron in Stockholm and Crossbow Ventures in West Palm Beach, Florida. Mr Lopez is currently on the Advisory Boards of Bandwidth Capital, Blumberg Capital and Stone Ridge Ventures. Mr Lopez is non-executive director of NWQ Capital Management.

Mr Lopez earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from Menlo College and is a graduate of Pacific Coast Banking School at the University of Washington. In 1980 Mr Lopez completed a six-month internship at the Council for Inter-American Security in Washington, DC, where he focussed on open market economic policy in developing economies. Mr Lopez is fluent in Spanish and English.

Ms Sharon Humphris
Acting Chief Operating Officer

Ms Humphris has over 13 years experience in the public, private and university sector. Ms Humphris has been seconded to the Centre for the establishment phase from her role at Murdoch University as Manager, Strategic Development, where she was instrumental in developing the successful NCED proposal.

In her previous role with the WA Department of Industry and Resources, Ms Humphris wrote and led the development and implementation of the first Western Australian Biotechnology Industry Development Strategy. This strategy secured initial WA State Government funding of $4.17 million and helped establish the creation of a $72 million Science and Innovation Fund. In this role Ms Humphris was responsible for the management of technical, financial and due diligence assessment processes relating to organisations seeking innovation related support, and the preparation and negotiation of funding agreements, business cases and implementation plans.

Ms Humphris also has extensive experience in the innovation sector, working for the Lions Eye Institute and two spin-off companies in the areas of intellectual property management and clinical and regulatory affairs. Ms Humphris has an honours degree in Science from the University of Western Australia.

Vacant
Commercialisation Manager

Please direct enquiries to Sharon Humphris.

Mr Scott Humphries
Consultant

Scott Humphries has been helping to improve organisations since 1996, for clients including Fortune 100 multinationals in both Australia and the UK. With skills in finance, planning and leading implementation, recent work has included projects in a broad range of domains including evaluation, strategic development and planning, sustainability, business and financial modelling, project and corporate budgeting, project valuation, operational modelling, business planning, marketing planning, and leading successful grant applications and business cases worth over $90 million in the last five years.

Mr Humphries holds a Masters degree in Business Administration from the University of Western Australia with an advanced specialisation in Finance, achieving Duxes in the subjects of Corporate Finance and Venture Capital. Mr Humphries was also awarded the WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry Prize as the top MBA graduate of 2005 in a class of 230. He is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a member of the Institute of Management Consultants, and his recent studies include Leadership and Transformational Change with Harvard Business School.