The Team of Change Makers

A serial entrepreneur, Bevan Slattery has been successfully building IT and telecommunications businesses in Australia for nearly 20 years. He has experience transforming ideas into ASX-listed innovations, having started and scaled several now-public companies including Pipe Networks (ASX:PWK), NEXTDC (ASX:NXT), Megaport (ASX:MP1) and Superloop (ASX:SLC).

Having grown up on the coast of Queensland, Bevan developed a true passion for the Great Barrier Reef at a young age, which set in motion a philanthropic mission to help conserve and restore critical marine ecosystems. Thus, he ventured beyond telco in 2016 to co-found Biopixel and Biopixel Oceans Foundation, which are proudly part of the Soda Group and work to fulfil the vision of discovering a better future for our reef and marine life.

Now the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Soda, Bevan is driving Australian innovation and prosperity through digital infrastructure, environmental sustainability and business ventures. Companies that Bevan has founded and are currently part of the Soda Group include SUBCO, HyperOne, Biopixel, Biopixel Oceans Foundation, Argo Expeditions and Cloudscene.

As Soda’s Chief of Staff, Belle Lajoie oversees the general operations of the core businesses and functions within the Soda Group. Belle has worked in the telecommunications industry with Soda founder, Bevan Slattery, for over a decade and has deep industry knowledge around delivering large scale sales and operations solutions to a range of peering, data centre, infrastructure and data services organisations.

Over the course of her career, Belle has proven to be an integral member of executive and leadership teams during the growth and commercialisation stages of successful technology startups including NEXTDC (ASX:NXT) as their National Channel Manager, Megaport (ASX:MP1) as their Chief Commercial Officer, Cloudscene as their Chief Executive Officer, and intelliHR as their Non Executive Director.

Celia Pheasant is General Counsel of Soda and company secretary for Megaport (ASX:MP1), with responsibility for the corporate governance of its subsidiaries in 24 countries globally. She is an experienced in-house technology, telecommunications and digital infrastructure lawyer with more than 25 years of legal experience.

A member of Soda’s executive team, Celia has extensive experience assisting early-stage technology and digital infrastructure companies grow from seed investment to IPO and post-IPO. She has advised on a broad range of domestic and international matters, including corporate acquisitions, capital raising activities in private and public markets, product innovation, development and scaling activities for digital platforms, and geographic expansion initiatives for SaaS ecosystems. Celia also has expertise in the construction and operation of international high-capacity fibre optic cable systems.

Evan Kilpatrick is the Chief Investment Officer of Soda where he is responsible for overseeing investment, project development and portfolio management and providing broader oversight on operational functions of the group. Evan brings over 15 years’ experience in investment banking and private equity, having worked across opportunities in Australia, Asia, North America and Europe. He has extensive advisory and principal investment experience, having advised and invested with some of the most prominent corporations and investment firms globally.

Prior to Soda, Evan was an Investment Professional in the Global Private Capital department of QIC, where he was primarily responsible for the firm’s private equity program in APAC and overseeing the firm’s investment strategy across private equity, growth and venture capital. He was also actively involved across the firm’s global private equity portfolio, principally in the United States and Europe.

Reggie Naik brings almost 40 years’ experience in telecommunications to his executive role as Soda’s Chief Operating Officer. In addition to various executive, directorship and management positions he has held at The Malaysian South African Business Council, Pipe Networks, Telkom South Africa and Telstra, Reggie served as the Executive General Manager of Fibre Operations at TPG Corporation where he drove the company’s network access engineering and mobile deployment for over a decade.

Over his career, Reggie was involved in designing the world’s largest loose tube fibre optic cable, delivering fibre to Australia’s first 10 gig smart city project and building fibre to thousands of buildings and mobile towers to support 4G & 5G technologies.

As our Chief Technology Officer, Ryan Crouch is the driving force behind Soda’s technical infrastructure solutions. Prior to joining Soda, Ryan was responsible for the active network, software and technical solutions that made up the Superloop Network in Australia and abroad, and he previously co-founded APEXnetworks, a wholesale network access service aggregator that operates within the Australian telecommunications market.

Equipped with an extensive background in network administration, systems architecture and technical delivery, Ryan brings a wealth of technical skill and expertise to his executive role at Soda.