Meet the Team
Behind our amazing clients, Mentors and Advisors is a dedicated and passionate team, invested in your success
Our Team Members
Meet the MindPick team. From founders to Mentors, Advisors and Coaches we are all here to help you achieve success.
Paul Bull
Founder & CEO
Having spent 25 years helping companies and individuals succeed in FMCG, Paul has seen first hand how challenging the industry has become. He founded MindPick as a way to utilise communities and technology to have a scalable impact.
Georgina White
Co Founder & COO
George is a huge believer in the power of networks and communities to help people achieve success, having benefitted from these in her own businesses. With a decade of experience in Sales & Account Management in FMCG she knows first hand the challenges FMCG professionals face.
Paul Simkiss
CTO & Platform Lead
Paul brings 25 years of global technology and business development experience to the MindPick leadership team. He has led complex IT transformation programs across EMEA and APAC and held leadership positions at Accenture, Barclays, and First Advantage. Relocating to Sydney, Paul successfully established and scaled Gartner’s executive advisory business before serving as ANZ Country Head at GLG, the world’s largest expert network. MindPick reflects Paul’s passion for empowering businesses and developing individuals through knowledge sharing, peer connections, and industry expertise.
Partners & Advisory Leads
Chris and Kelvin lead the Advisory side of MindPick. Having worked in multiple Markets and Categories and on both retail and manufacturer side they understand where to focus and how to get things done.
Chris Walker, GAICD
Advisory Partner & Growth Pod Mentor
Chris is an experienced commercial leader in Health, Beauty, Food & Entertainment sectors in ANZ & UK, Chris brings extensive customer, category & consumer knowledge from both supplier and retailer perspectives, together with a laser focus on executional excellence. He loves working with individuals and teams to challenge the status quo, solve business challenges and deliver performance objectives that win with customers & consumers. Chris’s experience includes roles with Hasbro, Coty, J&J, Pfizer, Alberto Culver & Boots.
Kelvin Bradnam, GAICD
Advisory Partner & Growth Pod Mentor
Kelvin is an accomplished FMCG commercial leader with a track record of delivering growth across multiple Channels through his total enterprise leadership. With expertise in strategic planning, sales, customer, category, revenue and portfolio management, Kelvin brings a unique blend of creativity, commercial acumen, energy & ambition to every role & assignment he undertakes. He has experience working across large listed & private companies as well as start-ups and scale-ups so can adapt to a variety of business models. Kelvin’s career spans a diverse range of roles, industries and markets, including General Manager Commercial Bega Foods, Managing Director Ocean Spray, General Manager Toys ‘R Us and functional leadership positions at Lion Dairy & Drinks, Cadbury Schweppes and the Co-Op (UK Retailer). Kelvin has been a member of the Grocery Industry Advisory Group, the Australian Institute of Company Directors & is a current member of the international Institute of Advisors.
Advisors, Mentors & Coaches
One of the things that makes MindPick unique is it’s unrivalled network of industry expertise. Growth Pod brings together Mentors from a variety of backgrounds, together with amazing coaches.
Mentors & Advisors: Broad range of leaders across Industry
Stephen Brown
GM, CEO. Grocery & Pharmacy Expertise.
With 20+ years of proven success in the FMCG sector, across Health, Beauty, Food & Beverage, Stephen is a strategic-minded, senior executive with multi-channel, multi-category expertise across ANZ, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East. He excels in cultivating brand growth through commercial excellence with a focus on culture, consumers and customers. Stephen’s experience includes roles with Kimberly-Clark, Cadbury, Asahi and Novartis/GSK.
Louise Merlino
Head of Trade, Independents Channel Expert.
Lousie is a proven Sales and Merchandise leader with over 15 years’ experience in FMCG across a Supplier and Retailer environment. Louise spent the majority of her career at Asahi Beverages servicing the key grocery retailers, as well as leading the category agenda internally and with Retailers. Louise then moved to Metcash to lead the Non-Food Buying team for IGA supermarkets looking after Health & Beauty, Baby, Household, Pet and General Merchandise Categories. Louise is an authentic leader, with a passion for developing people and building strong relationships whilst over delivering commercial outcomes.
Andy Ainley, GIACD
GEO / GM. Manufacturing & PL expertise.
Andy brings over 30 years+ of FMCG experience across the UK and Australia, with a career spanning roles from sales rep to CEO. Andy is an adept, energetic, and dynamic leader with proven commercial acumen and a deep understanding of consumers and customers. Andy is a builder of teams who have consistently over-delivered stakeholder value across various Blue-Chip entities and diverse categories, encompassing Retail, Food Service, and B2B markets, spanning Public, Private, and Private Equity ownership structures, with turnovers from $50m to $400m.
Functional Experts: Leaders from specialist companies, experts in their field
Brad Cook
John Green
Ex CMO, Innovator, Growth Advisor
John possesses strong leadership and technical skills in Marketing, Innovation, Business Development, and Strategy. He excels at enabling brands and businesses to create meaningful growth through future-focused, agile, pragmatic, and imaginative solutions. With over 25 years of experience, he has worked for companies such a Diageo, Lion, Nestle, Bain, and numerous start-ups in diverse FMCG categories both locally and globally.
Jon Bradshaw
Dean Carroll
CEO, Strategic Business Leader
Dean, as the CEO of Brown Family Wine Group, one of Australia’s foremost and innovative family wine businesses, has passionately steered the company’s strategic direction. During his 8-year tenure, he spearheaded the transformation from a single-brand company to a multi-brand, multi-regional wine company. Prior to this, he led the Sales and Marketing efforts domestically and then globally.
Dean navigated the company through unprecedented external challenges, including the impact of COVID-19, China’s closure to Australian wine, environmental events like a local earthquake, and declining global wine consumption. These experiences rigorously tested and enhanced his leadership skills, enabling him to develop resilient, high-performing teams.
By championing values-based leadership and transparent communication, Dean guided the business to sustained profitable growth while fostering a culture that earned accreditation as a “Great Place to Work” over the last 4 years. With an unwavering focus on differentiation, operational efficiency, and prioritising customer, shopper, and consumer needs, Dean consistently positioned the company as a top-tier supplier in the Advantage Customer survey, and established the Brown Brothers brand as Australia’s most beloved and recognised wine brand.
As an experienced strategic leader, Dean derives fulfillment from propelling high-performing and highly engaged teams towards success, all while ensuring an enjoyable and jovial work environment.
Chris Baddock
CEO. Omni Channel Retail.
Chris is an experienced CEO & Commercial Exec with experience across Retail, Wholesale, Digital and Manufacturing Businesses. Chris was most recently CEO of Australian Liquor Marketers (a division of Metcash Ltd) and has 30 + years experience in FMCG. Chris has worked in both supply and retail, including Lion & Woolworths, including roles as Director of Pinnacle Drinks, GM of Cellarmasters, NED for Gage Roads, Chair of Southtrade International & Managing Director of Fine Wine Partners. Chris is an accredited Human Synergistics Coach and a graduate of the Australian Graduate School of Management.
Keith Shortall
Keith Shortall is a passionate commercial leader with over 20 years’ experience in FMCG across Asia Pacific. Keith thrives in building organizational capability via progressive business models grounded in consumer and customer centricity, underpinned by empowered, talented agile teams.
Keith has spent the last 10 years living in Asia and during this time he has been lucky to have lived in countries such as Fiji, Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore. Experiencing many dynamic markets, functions and most importantly getting to immerse himself and his family in some amazing diverse cultures,
Keith recently relocated back to Australia with his wife and 4 children, prior to this move Keith was an integral member of the APAC J&J leadership team as Head of Customer Experience. Before this role Keith was Managing Director: North Asia and played a significant role in several global and regional strategic initiatives.
Before joining Johnson & Johnson, Keith spent 18 years at Colgate-Palmolive in multiple roles, spanning many markets and across various functions. This experience has meant Keith is known as an experienced commercial leader, with a deep passion for creating developing talent and organizational culture.
Experienced & Passionate Coaches
Murray Wright
Executive Coach & Expert Facilitator
Murray is an accomplished coach who provides specialist coaching tailored to executives and their teams. With a focus on building capability to sustain performance through constant change and deliver the results that matter. Murray uses contemporary coaching approaches to support leaders and leadership teams – both intact and virtual – delivering strategic imperatives with an agile, collaborative approach. He is licensed by Acumen Global Partners to use ‘Leaders as Convener’ materials.
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