Bond University has appointed Daniel Abrahams, a business executive with more than two decades of corporate and entrepreneurial leadership experience, as the foundation Director of its Transformer Program.
The Transformer, which Bond launched in May last year, is an Australian-first co-curricular program aimed at instilling 'big-picture' thinking, creative problem solving and evidence-based decision making in students across all faculties. Since launch, more than 100 students have joined the Program.
Before joining Bond, Mr Abrahams held the roles of CEO and Executive Director at dark fibre infrastructure provider, Superloop Limited, and led the team through its IPO and ASX listing to become an organisation with 300 employees, a share price that has more than doubled and a market capitalisation of over $500 million.
Prior to entering the start-up space, Mr Abrahams had a very distinguished and diverse career in corporate Australia in the automotive, consulting, banking and insurance, energy and rail sectors. Some notable roles include Executive Manager at Suncorp and Group Manager at Energex Limited.
Mr Abrahams was appointed Vice President and Chief Risk Officer of Aurizon Limited in 2012 and was credited with transforming the enterprise risk culture to a performance culture, before joining start-up Superloop in 2015 to become more immersed in innovation and entrepreneurship.
Originally from South Africa, Mr Abrahams completed his tertiary education in Australia and holds a Bachelor of Business (Accounting) from UCQ and is a Fellow with CPA Australia and the Governance Institute of Australia.
Mr Abrahams said his new role as Director of Transformer would enable him to make a real difference to the next generation of leaders to emerge from Bond University.
“I wanted to work at a university where entrepreneurship is a priority at an institutional level – and at Bond, it is part of its DNA” he said.
“Bond is an innovation hub with an exceptional entrepreneurship program. My aim as Director of the Transformer program is to leverage the innovation that resides in every corner of the university - its staff, students, alumni, business and community partners.
“Transformer builds our students capabilities from the ground up, by helping them to develop an analytical mindset and entrepreneurial skillset. It is explicitly cross-disciplinary in intent and brings together young people with different skills to collaborate and be disruptive.
“More importantly, it provides them with an amazing opportunity to execute something they never knew they could.
“My father was an entrepreneur with no education, but he was a firm believer that from education comes opportunity.”
“Education was the catalyst that changed my life, and I’ll never forget that.”
“This role will give me the opportunity to contribute to the next generation of entrepreneurial leadership that in turn, will shape the future of our country.”