Innovation Drive is expanding globally, and so is the team. Meet the people that power the organization.
Henk Werner
creative director - Shenzhen
Henk is the developer of the SportLED football perimeter systems, the Nokia LED Arch, and the Caenator French fries vending machine. He is the founder and CEO of TroubleMaker, Devising and Innovation Drive Shenzhen.
At TroubleMaker, he has received over 16,000 people among which are ambassadors, consuls, and delegations of Fortune 500 companies.
His work has impacted over 2,000 people and he has helped over 500 entrepreneurs improve their product development and manufacturing skills.
YingYing (CyCy) Li
brand & content strategist - Shenzhen
YingYing (CyCy) is a multi-lingual Brand & Content Strategist, a.k.a. Lady Who Techs. She is the founder of Cyme Consulting, with over 12 years of experience in Digital Marketing, International Trade, and Supply Chain Management.
Being a self-taught writer, she believes (self-) education could broaden one’s horizons and change their lives. Her diverse professional experience in various sectors, such as Tooling, Consumer Electronics, Fashion, Lifestyle, STEAM Education, EdTech, and e-commerce, made it possible for her to bring her ideas into articles enthusiastically and help Chinese brands go global and foreign brands enter the Chinese market.
Understanding the importance of gender parity in the STEM workforce, she has devoted herself to creating a better working environment for ladies who want to Tech, encouraging parents to cultivate their kids’ creativity and empathy at an early age, and empowering more female role models of diversity to influence the younger generation.
Emil Jersling
catalist - Shenzhen
UK and Germany educated Swedish entrepreneur with long experience running fast-growing e-commerce and education companies in 3 continents.
Started first business 2002 after receiving his 1st class engineering master’s degree from Imperial College London building an online platform helping amateur photographers to commercialize their images. After finishing his INSEAD MBA in 2009 he launched Groupon in Belgium eventually launching and operating similar companies in 10 different countries.
In China since 2018 using his entrepreneurial experience, combined with engineering background, to find ways to replace batteries in low energy consumption applications with breakthrough insights in vibration energy harvesting.
Sayee Ganjekar
Design engineer - Sydney
20+ years of experience leading teams of 10-40 staff members. Managed 30+ projects ranging from $100K-$1.7M in budget. 200+ hours of presenting and training on a wide variety of subjects including innovation, teamwork and project management.
Specialties: Product Design, Pro-E Wildfire, SolidWorks, AutoCAD, Tooling Design, Tool & Die Making, PLM, DFM, DFA, Machining, CNC, QA, FEA
Omar Najjar
strategist - Sydney
5+ years experience as a Software engineer & Business Analyst.
Worked on Fin-tech projects & e-commerce startups.
Specialties: Ruby on Rails, React
Tony McAuslan
marketing - queensland
Tony is an internationally recognized Digital Content & Communications Specialist with an extensive Marketing career at senior management level, with a variety of Fortune 500 Companies, start-ups and listed company boards both in Australia and the U.K.
He has extensive experience in conceiving, producing and deploying award winning marketing collateral and content across all media platforms. He has been an advisor to some of the world’s largest Venture Capital firms in both the U.S. and Europe as well as being a Founder and CEO of several successful startups of his own. He is a Mentor at the University of Woollongong iAccelerate Program, an Ambassador for the City of Sydney’s Launch Pad Program and has won over 27 International marketing awards as well as having companies he has founded being nominated in Australia’s Top 100 Coolest Companies as well and for a prestigious Impact India Award from the Australia India Business Council.
Troy Collings
governance & strategy - queensland
A former Queensland Government Chief of Staff and senior public servant, Troy’s key areas of expertise developing public/private partnerships, navigating regulatory pathways, approvals and political sensitivities. In the last three years, Troy has successfully secured more than $50 million dollars in grant funding from both the Queensland and Commonwealth governments across Health, Indigenous, Education, and waste resource recovery.
His business interests include waste oil recycling, strategic advisory services, government training and medical technology. Troy is currently Chair of the Queensland Advisory Council and was recently elected as the National Chair of the Cleaner Fuel Alliance.
Sam Holz
head of innovation - queensland
Sam is a highly experienced Industrial Designer who has been involved in a number of start-ups at a range of levels and across a variety of industries. He’s worked as an intern for hardware start-ups, in sales for technology start-ups, and has founded and co-founded his own ventures. Using his first class design knowledge, he is able to help other inventors ideate, prototype and build products using the latest state-of-the-art production techniques and technologies.