Runway is a not for profit that exists to help entrepreneurs transform themselves, and the world – for good.

The Runway Team

Our people are the engine room of our success with broad and deep expertise, and real world experience starting, pivoting, and growing successful businesses all over the world.

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Linda Wong
Managing Director
Nichola Sleight
Head of Delivery
Paul Mitchinson
Head of Sales
Evelyne Nyamwiza
Community Liaison – Ballarat
Victoria Salcombe
Community Liaison – Geelong
David Spear
Runway Associate
Damien O’Malley
Runway Associate
Mark Valena
Runway Associate
Paul Chow
Runway Associate
Roberto Daniele
Runway Associate

Linda Wong

Managing Director

Passion: My three greatest passions have come together in my work and personal life – that is people, horses and learning.

Why you believe in Runway: I believe in the impact that communities can deliver. Whether it is in a physical or virtual space, the coming together of like-minded individuals to support, encourage, share, collaborate and learn from each other delivers great benefits back into an ecosystem. These benefits will increase longer-term sustainability. In summary – I believe in the power connections that communities foster. Runway’s purpose is about connection. Connecting people with people, people with programs and people with places. A complete ecosystem.

Nichola Sleight

Head of Delivery

Passion: I am passionate about helping people achieve their dreams, about making where we live better and about working towards a sustainable future for all of us.

Why you believe in Runway: I believe in Runway because it wears its heart on its sleeve. A not for profit which strives to help regional business communities through support, encouragement and sharing of knowledge. We believe in the power of people connecting with people, the uniqueness of places and the values they hold and of course the value in sharing knowledge and practical skills.

Paul Mitchinson

Head of Sales

Passion: Having spent much of my late teens and 20’s being fortunate enough to travel the world and explore new cultures, I embarked on a career in travel and tourism to share my passion and belief of education through travel. This passion forged a career spanning over a decade which opened up another passion – leadership. I take great pride in harnessing people’s talents, giving them the platform and opportunity to reach their full potential.

Why you believe in Runway: For me, Runway share a similar vision to the travel industry, which is to transform peoples’ worlds through our own. It gives people the chance to succeed and to make effective sustainable change for their own well-being. That is what drew me to be a part of the Runway journey.

Evelyne Nyamwiza

Community Liaison – Ballarat

Passion: I am passionate about helping people around me build a strong foundation to enable them to grow both personally and professionally. As such, I am always challenging myself to learn new skills and grow myself so that I can support others. On a personal side, I am very passionate about my family, the outdoors and taking long walks.

Why you believe in Runway: As far back as I can remember, I have particularly been interested in supporting people. Runway offers that opportunity for me to add value to the lives of people in my community.

Victoria Salcombe

Community Liaison – Geelong

Passion: My passion is to taking pride in the work that I do and supporting people in their path to success.. I want to create a positive workspace where people of all types of backgrounds are whole-heartedly valued. I’m also passionate about video games and Greek mythology, so feel free to listen to how I ramble on about how the four seasons of the year came to be!

Why you believe in Runway: I feel so proud to be given a chance to be part of a co-working space that provides LOTS of learning yet with such an enthusiastic and fun environment. To me, the core of Runway is their WONDERFUL people that encourage me to challenge myself further than I’ve ever done before. Working at Runway everyday is never the same and I’m so proud to be given this opportunity to help others grow with knowledge like the way Runway has helped me.

David Spear

Runway Associate

Passion: I’m passionate about using strategic design, creativity, and innovation to address some of the great challenges and opportunities of our times.

Why you believe in Runway: Working with Runway to help businesses become resilient, adapt, and grow plays an important role enabling us to build communities, an economy, and environment fit for the 21^st Century.

Damien O’Malley

Runway Associate

Passion: I am passionate about people, performance and fun (maybe not always in that order). From a work perspective, teams and organisations that are leaders, that have innovation, that are good places to work and that achieve sustainable outcomes – all have a focus on people, performance and fun. And I think this is mostly relevant in non-work environments as well.

Why you believe in Runway: For me, there are many aspects of what Runway does that I connect with. Probably what resonates most is the focus on building entrepreneurial capability – and this is relevant for those in the Startup world but also for people within existing businesses(small, medium and large).

It is a cliché, but the only constant is change, so the work that Runway does on supporting innovation (especially its focus on regional and rural environments) I think is really important for the future health, vibrancy and sustainability of towns and regions.

Mark Valena

Runway Associate

Passion: I am passionate about people and organisations being able to connect their ideas to action and outcomes and about the importance of good decision making. I am passionate about helping others succeed and in doing so being useful. When not doing that, I am passionate about cycling.

Why you believe in Runway: I believe in the Runway purpose because it focuses first and above all else on supporting regional communities and people through connections, practical support and skills development.

Paul Chow

Runway Associate

Passion: I’m passionate about supporting people to chase their dreams.

Why you believe in Runway: The excitement of being involved with a new business venture as the founders navigate their way to find the path to success, is highly rewarding and fulfilling.

Roberto Daniele

Runway Associate

Passion: I am passionate about the power of social entrepreneurship to activate system change in places and communities… and about long-distance cycle touring as well!

Why you believe in Runway: As the facilitator for the Migrant and Refugees Startup program, I thrive in seeing how newcomers to this country rely on their lived experience to bring to bear start-up businesses that are community oriented and with a strong social impact dimension… this is how all businesses should be!