Operational team profile

Dr Simon Eassom is an experienced leader, business executive, and strategic thinker. He has had a distinguished career as a university professor with a PhD in applied ethics and a background in health and nutrition as Head of a large university School of Physical Education and Sport Science. As a freelance investigative journalist, Simon was a regular media commentator on numerous issues, including the political economy of food and the public presentation of information and advice on diet and health.

Mid-career, Simon moved to the corporate sector and worked in various executive roles for IBM, leading on the use of Big Data, predictive analytics, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence to improve business and performance outcomes. As a recognised subject-matter-expert on artificial intelligence, he has consulted to numerous organisations on the impacts of technology on the futures of work, education, and food. He has been an in-demand public speaker on technology and change and currently serves on the Board of the Australian Council of Professions as its Chief Futurist.

Simon brings his multidisciplinary background and business acumen to Food Frontier with a passion for lifelong learning; a deep interest in driving positive environmental and health outcomes; and an understanding of how researchers, businesses and policymakers can unlock systemic solutions for the betterment of people and the planet. He follows a ‘flexitarian’ lifestyle and lives on a rural property with his wife and a menagerie of horses, cats, free-range chickens, and a Bernese mountain dog.