Six business icons inducted into Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame

The 2026 inductees span creative industries, technology, social enterprise and healthcare, reflecting the breadth and dynamism of Queensland’s business landscape.

This year’s inductees are:

• Bevan Slattery, entrepreneur behind some of Australia’s most successful technology ventures, including the listing of five companies on the ASX.
• Endeavour Foundation, a leading service provider and charity supporting people with intellectual disabilities to live, learn and work.
• Ludo Studio, an internationally acclaimed creative studio based in Brisbane, producing original drama, comedy, animation and digital content.
• Sarina Russo AM, founder of The Sarina Russo Group, one of Australia’s largest education, training and employment providers.
• Stuart Giles and Cathie Reid AM, entrepreneurs who built the Epic Pharmacy and Icon Group, Australia’s largest cancer care provider, and now lead investments through their family office, Arc 31.
• TechnologyOne, Australia’s largest enterprise Software as a Service company, headquartered in Brisbane and delivering solutions across government, education, health and industry.

Established in 2009 by QUT and State Library of Queensland, the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame now honours 111 members whose contributions have helped shape the state’s prosperity and identity.

QUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret Sheil AO said the Hall of Fame highlighted the lasting impact of strong partnerships between universities and cultural institutions.

“These inductees have each played a defining role in Queensland’s growth, contributing ideas, innovation and leadership that reach well beyond their industries,” Professor Sheil said.

“For our students, their stories demonstrate what can be achieved through creativity, determination and collaboration. They also strengthen our connection to industry, with many inductees engaging directly with QUT through teaching, mentoring and partnership.”

State Librarian and CEO Vicki McDonald AM said the Hall of Fame recognised business leadership as a vital part of Queensland’s story.

By honouring these leaders, we are acknowledging how business innovation and enterprise have helped shape Queensland’s identity as much as its economy,” Ms McDonald said.

“Their achievements will become part of State Library’s collection, ensuring future generations can learn from their vision, resilience and contribution to the state.”

The Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame induction dinner was held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Bevan Slattery

Entrepreneur Bevan Slattery is known for his passion and his vision. He has built a career at the forefront of Australia’s digital economy, creating companies that have reshaped how data is exchanged, stored and delivered around the world.

Growing up in Rockhampton, Bevan Slattery describes himself as a student full of energy and ideas, later recognising what would now be understood as ADHD, a trait he says shaped his curiosity and entrepreneurial drive.

“Bevan could do a lot better if he focused more on his work and less on disrupting others – this was a common theme in my report cards. It’s pretty hard to contain that,” he said.

“I think I was always respectful in class, but I was also always full of energy and ideas.”

After an early role in an internet service provider that quickly collapsed, he decided to build something of his own, founding his first venture in the emerging internet industry of the 1990s with school friend, Jason Gomersall.

That decision marked the beginning of his journey as a serial tech entrepreneur. After selling iSeek for $US16M, Mr Slattery embarked on a series of successful ventures that have contributed to the rapid expansion of digital connectivity in Australia and internationally.

In 2002, he co-founded Pipe Networks, an internet exchange designed to allow providers to efficiently share traffic, while later also rolling out fibre infrastructure to support growing broadband demand and Sydney to Guam subsea cable PPC-1.

The company, which was listed on the ASX in 2005 with a market capitalisation of only $12.3m, would go on to play a significant role in connecting data centres and enabling enterprise connectivity, though its growth was tested during the Global Financial Crisis in 2008.

“When the financial crisis hit, a bank called force majeure and pulled financing, and suddenly we had a $100 million gap in our funding arrangements. It was definitely one of the most difficult and challenging periods of my career, on both a personal and professional level” Mr Slattery said.

Despite the setback, he continued to identify and solve industry problems, founding companies including NextDC, Superloop and Subco, each addressing critical gaps in digital infrastructure. One of them – Megaport – became the world’s first fully automated network as a service company and is used by thousands of companies worldwide.

Through these ventures, he has helped rewire Australia for broadband and cloud computing, built the world’s first software defined global interconnection platform that operates over 1,000 data centres in 30 countries around the world, built over 30,000km of subsea cables connecting Australia to countries including Oman, Singapore, Indonesia, USA (Guam), and Papua New Guinea all of which was started from Brisbane, Queensland.

Today, his work continues with large-scale international projects, including the recently announced 12,700km subsea hypercable between Sydney and Los Angeles (APX-East), designed to strengthen connectivity between Australia and the United States and support the growth of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.

“About 98 per cent of all international digital traffic goes through undersea cables, so it is critical infrastructure to the modern economy,” he said.

Beyond business, Mr Slattery is also committed to philanthropy, the environment and education through initiatives such as BioPixel and the BioPixel Oceans Foundation, supporting scientific research and storytelling to better understand the natural world.

Reflecting on his journey, he attributes success not only to vision, but to the people who help bring ideas to life.

“You need a great vision, but you need amazing people to execute that. You can’t do it without them,” he said.

From early ventures in internet services to global digital infrastructure, his career demonstrates the impact of persistence, adaptability and innovation in shaping Australia’s place in the global digital economy.

Endeavour Foundation

Founded in 1951 by families seeking better opportunities for their children, the Endeavour Foundation is now one of Australia’s leading organisations supporting people with intellectual disability to live, learn and work in their communities.

What began as a grassroots movement in Queensland, at a time when many children with intellectual disability were excluded from education, has evolved into a national agency delivering supported employment, independent living and community services across multiple states.

The Endeavour Foundation now supports thousands of people and families, while playing a key role in the development of national disability reforms, including advocacy leading up to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

“The biggest difference we make is in giving people their voice and hearing it, enabling them to shape their own lives,” said Endeavour Foundation Chairperson Elizabeth Jameson.

“Endeavour Foundation has proudly been at the forefront of society’s decades-long shift away from institutional solutions to a real focus on making every individual’s possibility a reality.”

That focus on voice, inclusion and opportunity is reflected in the organisation’s modern approach, helping people with intellectual disability build skills, live independently, form social connections and participate fully in their communities.

For Endeavour client Chloe, that journey has included navigating challenges in the workplace and building confidence through supported employment and learning programs.

“I feel as though I am constantly having to prove myself and through Endeavour Foundation, I feel as though I’m able to do that,” Chloe said.

In recent years, Chloe has also contributed to research exploring how technology can better support people with intellectual disability, working alongside QUT researchers and using a humanoid social robot known as Pepper.

Through this work, she transitioned from research participant to co-researcher, helping shape insights into how assistive technologies can support not just functional needs, but confidence, communication and social connection.

“Robots aren’t just fun, they’re super progressive and can be used so diversely these days,” Chloe said.

“I’ve seen first-hand how Pepper can help my friends come out of their shell and feel more confident to talk to other people or do other activities.”

Pepper, operated through a tablet interface and capable of verbal and physical interaction, has been trialled in Endeavour Foundation learning and lifestyle hubs to support communication and independence.

QUT researchers, including Associate Professor Laurianne Sitbon and Dr Jessica Korte, have worked closely with Chloe while the Endeavour Foundation is the major in-kind funding partner on their new ARC Linkage on Assistive Robotics for Inclusive Employment project.

“The study demonstrated Chloe’s ability and insights into technology design. She had a different way of looking at how an assistive robot can support people socially, not just functionally,” Professor Sitbon said.

Chloe documented her work through first-person accounts and interviews, helping capture the perspectives of others interacting with social robotics, and contributing to new approaches in inclusive technology design.

Her experience reflects a broader shift within both research and disability support towards co-design, ensuring people with lived experience are directly shaping the tools and services intended to support them.

More broadly, Endeavour Foundation continues to focus on creating opportunities for people with intellectual disability to build independence, confidence and meaningful lives.

From its beginnings as a small family-led initiative to a national organisation, Endeavour Foundation’s legacy is built on advocacy, inclusion and the belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to choose their own path.

Ludo Studio

Emmy, BAFTA and AACTA, Logie and Rose d’Or Awards award-winning creative studio Ludo Studio has built a global reputation for original storytelling, creating some of Australia’s most successful and internationally recognised screen content.

Founded in Brisbane in 2012 by Charlie Aspinwall and Daley Pearson, the independently owned studio has developed from a start-up in a small local industry into a global creative force producing animation, drama, comedy and digital content.

“Brisbane has an underdog spirit where you feel like you can prove yourself by making Queensland stories,” Mr Aspinwall said.

From its earliest days, Ludo focused on developing original ideas with global appeal, quickly gaining recognition through its digital series, including the Emmy Award-winning #7DaysLater and Doodles. This early success earned them Enterprise funding from Screen Australia, providing the foundation to build a sustainable business and studio and invest in the development of a strong slate of original projects. Over the following years, Ludo concentrated on creating new stories, laying the groundwork for the company’s future growth and success.

Their mission written by Mr Aspinwall and Mr Pearson in 2012 was to build “a sustainable creative culture empowering Queensland storytellers to live happy, successful lives creating extraordinary original stories for the world”

“We wanted to do our own thing and make shows that could travel,” Daley Pearson said.

A defining moment came with the development of Bluey, which first aired in 2018. The animated children’s series has become a global cultural phenomenon and one of Australia’s most successful television exports.

“It was about making something genuinely funny for adults and for kids,” Mr Aspinwall said.

The success of Bluey has been driven by Ludo’s distinctive creative approach, with production teams working together in a highly collaborative environment.

An animation pipeline was built from the ground up to produce the series.

“It was made under one roof with one voice,” Mr Pearson said, describing a model that enabled rapid problem-solving and close creative alignment.

That collaborative model has also helped the studio foster emerging talent, including graduates entering the screen industry for the first time.

“They had an office at QUT at Kelvin Grove, and it just felt really natural,” said Ludo Head of Production Sam Moor, who joined the team during the early development of Bluey following an extensive career with the BBC in London.

“The crew that worked on Bluey were astounding. We had people join us straight from university. This was their first job. We trained everybody up,” she said.

Since its founding, Ludo Studio has produced a diverse slate of acclaimed and award-winning content, including The Strange Chores, Content, Robbie Hood, and Thou Shalt Not Steal.

Content earned Ludo its fifth International Emmy Award nomination, while Thou Shalt Not Steal was selected for its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Ludo was also the creative home of the feature film Talk to Me, which was developed and written at the studio before being directed by Australian filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou and Produced by Causeway. Released by A24, the film became the studio’s second highest-grossing feature worldwide.

The studio’s work has expanded into global partnerships and new formats, including live stage productions, digital content and feature films, while continuing to grow its footprint in Brisbane.

Ludo is currently producing their first original feature film Allen for Netflix, which was filmed in Queensland and set in Coolum Beach, alongside the first Bluey feature film for Disney.

Despite its international success, the studio remains focused on telling local stories with global resonance.

“We love making shows for an international market that showcase Brisbane to the world,” Mr Aspinwall said.

Ludo was named one of Time Magazine’s Most Influential Companies of 2024. Its journey reflects the power of creativity, collaboration and a commitment to authentic storytelling.

Sarina Russo AM

Ms Sarina Russo is one of Australia’s most dynamic and influential business leaders in employment, education and training, building a powerful national and international enterprise driven by resilience, vision, ambition and a steadfast belief in opportunity for all.

Born in a small Sicilian village in Italy, Ms Russo migrated to Australia as a five-year-old with her family, arriving with little English and limited resources. That early experience of dislocation and challenge shaped her outlook and determination to succeed.

“I was dreaming about my independence. All I wanted in my life was freedom,” Ms Russo said.

Adjusting to life in Australia was not easy, with English a major barrier.

“Comprehension was really one of the biggest challenges. I failed my grade 10 junior English, and they said that I would never be able to make it to Grade 12,” she said.

Determined to prove otherwise, she completed night classes and passed, a breakthrough that transformed her life and established the resilience, discipline and drive that would define her remarkable career.

In 1979, after several unsatisfying experiences as a legal secretary and with savings of just $2,600, Ms Russo founded a small Brisbane-based training business, The Office Business Academy. Operating from a modest rented space furnished by family members, she taught typing, shorthand and bookkeeping to a handful of students, laying the foundation for what would become an extraordinary enterprise.

“In life, you’ve got to keep believing in yourself and that’s what I did. I also worked 17 hours a day in the beginning,” Ms Russo said.

Her entrepreneurial instincts extended well beyond the classroom. Always alert to new opportunities, she developed a distinctive personal brand that captured public attention and helped make her a household name.

“I created a jingle called How to Get That Job, which then became a TV show I hosted for more than 20 years,” Ms Russo said.

The business expanded strongly, before a defining turning point in 1998, when government outsourcing of employment services created new opportunities. Ms Russo seized the moment with vision and confidence, growing the organisation into a major provider of employment and training services.

In 2006 Ms Russo successfully launched the Brisbane Campus of James Cook University, supporting Queensland’s standing as a hub for international education.

For 47 years, the Sarina Russo Group has since helped tens of thousands of people into work and education, including migrants and students from around the world. Its impact has extended internationally, including operations in the United Kingdom delivering welfare-to-work programs in disadvantaged communities, further demonstrating the breadth and strength of Ms Russo’s vision.

Ms Russo attributes that success to a strong focus on relationships and meaningful impact, underpinned by a deep and enduring belief in human potential.

“I believe everyone has a diamond within, and our job is to find that diamond,” she said.

Her contribution has been widely and deservedly recognised. In 2023, she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Commerce by James Cook University in recognition of her outstanding contribution to business and education. In 2024, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to business, community and vocational education and training, followed by recognition as a Queensland Great in 2025.

Today, Ms Russo continues to champion employment and education as powerful pathways to opportunity, independence and transformation.

She has also remained firmly focused on the future, consistently looking ahead to emerging trends, new technologies and changing community needs. This forward-thinking mindset continues to drive the evolution of the Sarina Russo Group and reflects her enduring commitment to building an organisation that will generate lasting opportunity, success and social impact for future generations.

Cathie Reid AM and Stuart Giles

Cathie Reid and Stuart Giles are among Queensland’s most influential healthcare entrepreneurs, building a national pharmacy and cancer care network from a bold idea, deep clinical insight and a willingness to take risks.

Ms Reid’s path into pharmacy began early.

“I got a part-time job in a retail pharmacy when I was 15, and I think my cards were stamped after that,” she said.

A perceptive employer encouraged her potential, helping set her on a pathway to study pharmacy at Monash University, where she first met Mr Giles.

Their personal connection developed when they reconnected by chance in Melbourne. Within months they were engaged, and soon after began building a life – and a business – together.

That business journey began in 1998, when Ms Reid was developing a new model for pharmacy services centred on hospitals and aged care. Mr Giles joined her and the pair moved fast, financing their first acquisition through a second mortgage on Ms Reid’s home and expanding rapidly along the eastern seaboard.

From the outset, they challenged conventional retail pharmacy thinking.

“We were buying the worst pharmacies in Australia. Our business model was all about sending our pharmacists out to the nursing homes and to the hospitals,” Ms Reid said.

With a system focused on service delivery rather than foot traffic, the approach proved effective. Within a year, the business had expanded across multiple states, driven by contracts with aged care facilities and hospitals.

Those early years were defined by intensity and sacrifice. Moving to Brisbane, they built Epic Pharmacy without the benefit of established networks. Running a 24/7 service model, the couple often covered on call shifts themselves to keep costs down while maintaining service quality.

A turning point came in 2007, when Ramsay Health Care brought pharmacy services in-house, removing around 60 per cent of their business overnight which became a catalyst for reinvention.

“It really ended up being quite a blessing. We got the team together and looked at how we could diversify,” Ms Reid said.

The result was a strategic shift into manufacturing and cancer care, including investment in medication dose-packaging and a stronger focus on oncology services.

“We ended up with a sticky note on a board that said Australia needs an Integrated Clinical Oncology Network,” Mr Giles said.

“So that was a lightbulb moment which led us to create Project Icon.”

Founded in 2011, Project Icon brought together pharmacy, chemotherapy, specialist consultation and radiation oncology into a single, integrated model of care. The concept proved highly scalable, expanding across Australia and internationally, and growing into the nation’s largest dedicated cancer care provider.

Despite their commercial success, both emphasise purpose over traditional measures of success.

“External measures of success probably have never been overly important to us. We have been more keenly focussed on the quality of care,” Mr Giles said.

They have since sold their shareholding in the Icon Group and today, through their family office Arc31, continue to invest across varied sectors, applying the same disciplined, values-driven approach.

TechnologyOne

TechnologyOne is one of Australia’s ASX Top 100 companies. Its induction into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame recognises not just commercial success, but a sustained commitment to Australian innovation, digital sovereignty and community impact.

The company was founded by Adrian Di Marco OAM in 1987, whose vision was to create world-class, customisation-free enterprise software which challenged industry norms and set TechnologyOne on its enduring growth trajectory.

“I started TechnologyOne with the belief that Australians could build enterprise software better than anywhere in the world, and that we should be proud to do it from here,” said Adrian Di Marco, Founder and former CEO of TechnologyOne.

“To be recognised by the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame is deeply humbling.”

That founding ambition, to eliminate costly customisation and allow customers to adapt systems without rewriting code, remains central to how TechnologyOne builds software today.

The early years were defined by a strong focus on customers, an approach which has delivered exceptional customer loyalty, with the company maintaining more than 99 per cent retention over decades.

Through the 1990s, a period marked by consolidation and disruption across the global enterprise software market, TechnologyOne emerged as one of a small number of enduring players, growing steadily while remaining committed to its founding values.

Over time, the company continued to evolve, making the transition to an enterprise software provider and later to a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model.

Central to that evolution has been a distinctive operating model known as the “Power of One”, in which the company builds, sells, implements and supports its own software, ensuring full accountability for customer outcomes.

Today, TechnologyOne competes globally alongside some of the world’s largest software companies, while maintaining its headquarters and core innovation capability in Australia.

With offices in six countries, more than 1,300 leading corporations, governments, statutory authorities and education institutions are powered by TechnologyOne software.

“TechnologyOne was built on the belief that Australian technology can compete with anyone in the world,” Chief Executive Officer Ed Chung said.

“Our job now is to take that foundation and build the next generation of AI-powered, sovereign enterprise software that serves global communities for decades to come.”

TechnologyOne is investing aggressively in the next generation of enterprise software. That investment is now directed at the company’s artificial intelligence product suite: Plus, an AI assistant embedded at the platform level enabling organisations to interact with their data conversationally; and Guide, which provides intelligent, in-context support across complex workflows.

The company holds IRAP PROTECTED certification from the Australian Signals Directorate, ISO/IEC 27001 information security certification, and in 2025 became one of the first enterprise software providers globally to achieve ISO/IEC 42001, the international standard for Artificial Intelligence Management Systems.

Beyond commercial success, TechnologyOne has also continued to invest in people and culture, with a strong emphasis on leadership, collaboration and long-term workforce development.

It has also embedded a commitment to social impact through initiatives such as the TechnologyOne Foundation, through which the company donates one per cent of new annual recurring revenue to community-focused charity partners and provides all employees with 2.5 paid volunteer days each year, embedding social purpose into the fabric of how it operates.

• For more details on the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame, visit the website.
• As we celebrate the achievements of Queensland’s pioneers and innovators, QUT continues to connect our community with leaders shaping the future. Looking ahead, the QUT Business Leaders’ Forum will welcome Erica Berchtold, CEO of David Jones on 15 September for a conversation on leadership, transformation and growth in a rapidly evolving retail landscape.

Main image: (l-r) QUT Chancellor Ann Sherry AO, Daley Pearson, Charlie Aspinwall, Chloe, Elizabeth Jameson AM, Andrew Chesterman, Sarina Russo AM, QUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret Sheil AO, Bevan Slattery, Cathie Reid AM, Stuart Giles, Ed Chung. Photo: Joseph Byford.