
Dr Roger Voyle
Investment Committee
Born:
New Zealand
Lives:
Adelaide
Dr Roger Voyle is the Managing Director of Southmore, a leading Australian alternative asset management company with a focus on venture capital funds management. With more than 15 years at Southmore Capital, Roger has passionately dedicated himself to early-stage investment management, partnering closely with local and international entrepreneurs to foster and exit an array of technology-centric and knowledge-intensive businesses.
Prior to his venture endeavours, Roger honed his skills in patents, licensing, and technology evaluation at the Swiss biopharmaceutical giant, Serono SA, assisting the Corporate Intellectual Property Counsel with major litigation and transactional activities, including the acquisition of Serono SA by Merck KGaA.
For Eastend, Roger brings not only his venture acumen and extensive board experience but also a scholarly background, with a PhD in biochemistry, post-doctoral studies in immunology, and post-graduate pursuits in intellectual property law, offering a distinctive perspective on potential investment opportunities.
What do you love about where you live?
Adelaide definitely inhabits the Goldilocks Zone for networking: small enough to encourage a very broad and inclusive set of interactions but not big enough to promote cliques or insularity. In fact, you yourself can inhabit your own personal Goldilocks Zone: five minute's walk from the beach, five minute's drive to the airport, and fifteen minute's drive to work.
What are you currently pondering?
Err ... what's the character limit here? I never lose sight of the fact that you can only be an effective source of practical support and counsel where there is respect and rapport. EQ generally trumps IQ in early-stage investing. The best part of doing what we do is that it absolutely forces us to continuously explore new space in self-awareness, technology awareness, and industry awareness, in roughly that order of priority.
What do you look for in a founding team?
Openness. Integrity. Drive. You need all three in every member. Pretty much everything else can be backstopped, outsourced, or acquired.
What does down-time look like?
When work is basically all about cluttering up your head with competing sets of ideas, initiatives, demands, and challenges it becomes really important to de-clutter. Personally, this mostly ends up being about "communing with nature": bushwalking, rock climbing, kayaking, mountain biking, in roughly that order of priority.