About Us

The Office of the Queensland Chief Entrepreneur is an Advance Queensland initiative funded by the Queensland Government and driven by the state’s entrepreneurial community.

Our mission

Our goal is to cement Queensland’s reputation as Australia’s #startupstate with the talent, community, outcomes and deal flow to prove it. Our office is the first of its kind in Australia, and is led by Chief Entrepreneur, Leanne Kemp.

We aim to:

  • support the development of Queensland’s startup ecosystem by working with incubators, accelerators and coworking spaces
  • connect with regional and remote Queensland to encourage and foster state-wide entrepreneurship
  • showcase Queensland startup and entrepreneurial talent to local, national and international audiences
  • stimulate and attract local, national and international investment and venture capital to Queensland
  • support local entrepreneurs, startups, and small businesses across the state by connecting them with the right opportunities, people, places and spaces to help them grow, scale and create jobs.

Our logo

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Creative Townsville-born entrepreneur Scott Rogers won the state-wide competition to create the logo for the Office. 

A mentor to entrepreneurs and an investor in Australian and US tech startups, Scott is a regular at Queensland startup community events such as Innovation NQ.

“I’m closely involved with Queensland’s startup ecosystem. When I saw the competition I thought of it as a bit of an artistic challenge and decided to give it a go.

"I designed a bold, simple logo and kept the letter ‘e’ clearly visible in the centre of the design because I personally think entrepreneurial activity should be at the centre of the Queensland economy.” - Scott Rogers 
Leanne Kemp
Queensland Chief Entrepreneur

Leanne Kemp

Leanne Kemp is Queensland's third Chief Entrepreneur, following on from Steve Baxter and inaugural Chief, Mark Sowerby.

Leanne is the Founder & CEO of Everledger, a leading emerging technology enterprise that tracks the provenance of high-value assets on a global digital ledger in an authenticated immutable manner.

Using her extensive background in emerging technology, business, jewellery and insurance, Leanne is pushing boundaries with Everledger in building a global verification system that asserts transparency along the entire supply chain process.

This enables the tracking and protection of high-value assets, mitigating risk and fraud in global marketplaces.

Her leadership role in technology has been recognised, winning awards including the 2018 Advance Australia Award, Innovator of the Year 2018 at the Women in IT Awards (London) as well as being named in UK Business Insider’s 26 Coolest Women in UK Tech 2016. Leanne was named Brummell Magazine’s Top 30 Female Innovators 2016 and is also an IBM Champion for 2018.

Leanne is an appointed member of the World Economic Forum’s Blockchain Council and a Co-Chair for the World Trade Board's Sustainable Trade Action Group and is on the IBM Blockchain Platform Board of Advisors.

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