Karen Platt knows how to fight fires – both literally and figuratively.

As the Macquarie University Incubator’s new Expert-in-Residence, Karen brings a valuable wealth of expertise from her experience as a successful fashion entrepreneur (as well as all the grit of a former Rural Fire Service volunteer).

What is the role of the Expert-in-Residence?
My core responsibilities include developing and delivering core education programs, mentoring, and building Incubator and startup networks.

What drew you to this role?
I love combining my many years of experience and lessons learnt across my corporate and startup careers to ensure that any solution is clear on the customer problem to be solved.

Founding a startup can be a lonely and challenging pursuit. I get a great kick out of offering support or insight and seeing how a founder accelerates their journey.

How are our Incubator startups coping with COVID?
I am really proud of how all the startups have responded to the challenges of COVID-19. Isolation and limitations have really challenged everyone to think differently and plan new ways of solving customer problems in a time that is so uncertain. The startup community in the Incubator have shown great optimism and willingness to support each other.

What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done?
Fighting bushfires with the Rural Fire Service.

What were you like as a child?
I was an outdoor kid exploring the bush with my neighbourhood friends and only returning home when the streetlights came on.

What’s your guilty pleasure?
Dark chocolate and a glass of pinot noir.

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned in the past five years?
Persistence pays – this is after 19 rounds of IVF finally resulting in my 3-year-old daughter Ella.

Anything exciting on your horizon?
I am excited about the program we are designing for Macquarie’s researchers. This bespoke and targeted program will be open to all researchers and HDR students at Macquarie. It aims to help researchers assess the opportunity their research has to deliver real word impact via the commercialisation pathway. The program will take researchers on a customer discovery and value proposition journey with a blended learning experience over multiple guided and one-on-one sessions.

Any misconceptions about the Incubator?
A common misconception is that the Incubator is only available to Macquarie students and staff. In fact, the Incubator is open to everyone regardless of their relationship with the University. In saying that though, about 70% of our startup founders are alumni.

Another misconception is that the Incubator is only for highly technically focused businesses. Whilst we do have some deep tech startups, most are leveraging existing technology to scale their business idea, not inventing new ones.

Entrepreneurs and innovators are predominately separate groups of people. We define innovators as the inventors of new technology; so, they are more likely to be researchers. Whereas entrepreneurs are highly skilled at leveraging that innovation for business purposes or for disrupting other industries with novel use of new inventions.

How can we find out more about what you’re doing?
Register for the Incubator’s newsletter to stay up-to-date with upcoming opportunities and events. We’ve also opened applications for a mid-year intake for our resident member program.