Colin McLeod

Colin is a Professor in the Faculty of Business & Economics at the University of Melbourne where he is the Program Director of the Master of Entrepreneurship degree and the Academic Director of the Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship. He was awarded the title of Enterprise Professor in 2016 in recognition of his contribution to industry and academia.

Colin has a long-standing interest in entrepreneurship. He co-founded his first business in 1992, which expanded to a national company with almost 200 employees, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Haas School of Business in 1995/96 during the first 'Internet Boom' (and crash!) and completed a PhD in 1998 that identified some of the key factors that lead to the successful commercialisation of innovation.In 2007, Colin and colleagues at the University of Melbourne were amongst the first researchers in the world to look at co production / co design with customers as a source of innovation and their research which was published in the highly ranked Journal of Retailing has since been cited over 800 times in subsequent research.Colin continues to have an interest in the commercialisation of innovation, as follows:-McLeod, CS, & Bell, SJ (2015), 'Innovative Firms and the Management of Technological Partnerships: Evidence from Australia', Global Perspectives in Marketing for the 21st Century, p. 314., Springer Science & Business MediaMcLeod, Colin S., (2016), “From Innovation to Entrepreneurship,” in Danny Samson and Marianne Gloet, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Oxford University Press Colin is also frequently interviewed for both print and electronic media and he also contributes to public discussions on innovation and entrepreneurship through has writing, as shown below:-https://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/time-for-a-new-generation-of-indian-entrepreneurshttps://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/amazon-s-arrival-can-drive-innovation-and-improvementhttps://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/why-are-australian-start-ups-failing Colin is also active as an entrepreneur. He is a Director/Investor/Co-founder of five early stage companies in retail technology, wireless technology, employee management, aged care and wearable biotechnology. All these companies are less than 5 years old and started in Melbourne but have collectively raised over $US20 million in Venture Capital and have opened offices in Silicon Valley, Berlin, Manchester and London with partner operations in India, Malaysia and Uganda.Colin was also a member of the Executive Committee that raised almost $200 million to construct the Olivia Newton-John Cancer & Wellness Centre at the Austin Hospital and is a member of the AFL Research Board which undertakes research into on field and off field improvements in sport.