What do AirBnB, Slack, Uber, Whatsapp and Square all have in common?

Is it that they are all global businesses that absolutely dominate their space? Well yes. But it's also incredible to think that they were all founded during the period we call Global Financial Crisis.

Food for thought - and cause for founder optimism - as the world flirts with another global recession.

There’s never been a better time to build, but the best startups will zero in what really matters as they prove what’s possible in this challenging market environment. Join AWS startups to discuss what those foundations are, explore your own challenges and more.

Learn from an experienced panel of founders, investors and industry experts as they share insights on how to manage runway, technology and processes to keep your people incentivised and motivated.

You'll be hearing from and connecting with:

Simon Farrell, CTO of Plutora

Simon is a passionate technologist and business leader with over 20 years experience working around the world with small, medium and large organisations. Simon is currently the CTO at Plutora, a global SAAS platform, where he has spent the last 3 years helping to modernise and optimist product engineering.

Simon was previously the CTO at SocietyOne, RedBalloon, PINCHme (New York) and Octopus (Dubai). Prior to this Simon spent 10 years working as a software engineer in companies such as Ninemsn, BBC and several government roles (AFP, AusAid, DFAT). He has also launched and sold his own startups including DoggyBag, an online Dog Food Delivery service and is currently running SuperPath a modern learning platform for SMEs.

Stephanie Cawthorne, People Development Consultant at The Lab17

Steph is a self-professed people development and scale-up nerd. A storyteller and creative at heart, Steph has plenty of tales to tell from her experience building employee experiences at the likes of companies such as SafetyCulture, Hireup, InDebted and Immutable. She is passionate about creating meaningful work environments through fostering high performance, driving role clarity among the chaos, curating meaningful virtual and in-person experiences, growing new-starters and developing leaders.

Brendan Hill, Angel Investor and Syndicate Lead

Brendan is an entrepreneur, angel investor and solo capitalist who loves all things startup, tech and Golden Retrievers

He started angel investing after his ecommerce startup was acquired in 2016 and has since partnered with wildly ambitious founders who are solving big problems in Fintech, Renewable Energy, Computer Vision and Space (the final frontier) across Australia, New Zealand, North America, Africa and LATAM. After running Australia's largest AngelList syndicate for 3 years, Brendan recently joined TEN13 as a 'Maverick' to syndicate his best deals through the platform.

as well as our host Lauren Capelin, formerly of Reinventure and Startmate, now Startup Ecosystem Manager with AWS.

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