OIO’s Elisa-Marie Dumas on Helping Founders Make Their Greatest Impact AND Our New Accelerator Cohort
The podcast is back! We’re excited to have Elisa-Marie Dumas, our Head of Global Programs, making her podcast debut in our first episode for 2024!
Elisa-Marie (also known as E-M) chats about her extensive career helping founders through growth & commercialisation programs, and how Ocean Impact Organisation has evolved its programs to help entrepreneurs at the right stage of their journey. Her and host Tim Silverwood also discuss why we’re doubling down on the ocean health ecosystem in the Asia-Pacific region, and why it’s critical to follow the capital to drive impact and financial returns.
See below for show notes, relevant links, plus Elisa-Marie’s advice to emerging and existing ocean entrepreneurs!
Show Notes
Tell our community a little bit about yourself, your career, and what brought you to Ocean Impact Organisation.
Sure, so I am a Silicon Valley transplant, in case you couldn't hear. The thing to know about me, I think, is that across my whole career I have been hardwired for people growth. So for the last 15-plus odd years, I have been designing and delivering entrepreneurial development, commercialisation, and growth programs that span across the US, Australia, and Southeast Asia.
Most recently, so for the past eight years, I had the privilege of working with an organisation called Investible, which is a global early-stage investment firm based out of Australia with a large footprint also in Southeast Asia, delivering similar programs for them across Australia and Southeast Asia. And three years heading out of Investable, we were very fortunate to win a $30 million dollar tender, by the City of Sydney, to launch Australia's very first climate tech hub. Which is now occupying the first three floors of the new Salesforce tower in Circular Quay, and was a project that I helped launch before I left. So there was a real opportunity in the context of that. And in parallel, Investible had launched a climate tech fund. So there was a real opportunity in those later years to support climate tech founders in ongoing growth and commercialisation.
When I saw this opportunity with Ocean Impact Organisation, it was not only an opportunity to continue having impact in this space and doing the work that I love, but more importantly, doing the work that I love in a vertical that is very near and dear to my heart. What I was really excited about with this role, is that I'm incredibly passionate about building things. I had the opportunity to do that with Investible and Greenhouse, and I am thrilled to have stepped in when I did with OIO to help iterate this next stage of growth as we move forward.
Any Advice to emerging entrepreneurs AND established founders?
To all of the startups, entrepreneurs, and wannabe oceanpreneurs listening in, I just want to remind you that building something impactful takes passion, it takes resilience, it takes a clear vision of how you want to change the world.
This space is full of opportunity and innovation. One thing I've been constantly struck by is that we are not lacking innovation in this country. I mean, we should be owning this space! With 12,000 beaches that we’re surrounded by, there's just so much innovation that is crucial in this area that’s available.
It’s not just about building things for business, but building them for the future of our planet.
My words of encouragement would be to just keep pushing forward. This journey is not for the faint of heart.
Stay curious. Don't be afraid to ask for help, because there are plenty of people willing to give it.
And whether you're just starting out with an idea, or looking to scale up: as OIO continue’s to announce the new structures of our programs in the future, keep an eye out, because we’re designing things that will enable you and support you to grow at various stages in that journey.
As far as staying connected to us, I’d recommend making sure that you're following us on social media, sign up for our newsletter, check our website. We're always rolling out new announcements and opportunities for how to remain connected to this amazing community that is OIO.
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