Zac Zavos

Managing Partner

Zac studied Psychology and Sociology and joined IBM Global Services shortly after graduating. While at IBM, he completed a Master of Commerce. After IBM, Zac worked as a technology consultant.

In 2007, Zac and his brother turned a hobby website into a digital media business: Conversant Media. Mike Gregg invested and was a Director of the business. In 2016, Conversant Media was acquired by ASX listed APN News & Media. Following the acquisition, Zac was CEO of the digital division of APN News & Media, now known as HT&E.

Eighteen months after acquisition, Zac left HT&E to form Shearwater Capital with Mike and Charles.

Charles Gibbon

Founding Partner

Charles trained as an econometrician prior to becoming an analyst in London with stockbroker, Kitcat & Aitken. Returning to Australian he managed institutional money with Schroders and Morgan, Grenfell & Co. (Director).

He established his own fund management business, Risk Averse Money Managers (RAMM) and introduced index investing to Australia in the mid-80s. RAMM’s 1986 listed vehicle World SPIFF, a global index fund, was the first such Exchange Traded Index Fund. RAMM was subsequently acquired by Macquarie Bank. Charles then set-up Australia’s first private equity fund-of-funds, which was a foundation investor in the forerunner of Quadrant Private Equity. Charles served on their investment committees of the first three Quadrant funds.

Charles has made a number of private investments in a personal capacity covering software, digital and agriculture. In Health Communications Network (where he met Mike), he was an early investor and helped it list on the ASX. It was subsequently acquired for $111 million by Primary Healthcare (Healius).

In 2005, Charles invested in WiseTech and was Chairman from 2006 through to 2018. Wisetech listed in 2015. Charles remains a director and a substantial shareholder in the $10b+ listed company.

Mike Gregg

Founding Partner

Mike started his career in retail, managing Nock & Kirby stores before completing his MBA. He was the GM of the paging business, Link Telecommunications (back when pagers were cool!), before leading a management buy-out of Health Communication Network (HCN) from the government in 1995. As MD, he saw it grow from no staff to an ASX listing during the dotcom days.

HCN acquired eight companies in twelve months of being public and was eventually itself acquired by Primary Healthcare for $111 million. On Mike’s last day at HCN, he and Charles met Richard White, the founder of WiseTech. Mike & Charles invested in 2005. With Charles, he has helped guide WiseTech’s global expansion from the Board and remains a substantial shareholder.

Mike is an active investor and is passionate about seeing great founders grow with their businesses.

Matthew Parbhu

Principal

Originally from New Zealand, Matthew graduated from the University of Auckland with a BCom/LLB(Hons) with a focus in accounting and finance.

Matthew then spent six years working in corporate law across Australia and New Zealand, most recently at Ashurst, specialising in mergers and acquisitions for corporates, private equity funds and start-ups.

Matthew joined the investment team at Shearwater Capital in 2022, and has full involvement over each phase of the investment process and beyond.

Greg Stevens

Financial Controller

Greg started out as a Chartered Accountant in the taxation divisions of Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse, before becoming International Taxation Manager at Telstra. The following fifteen years were spent at home bringing up his two boys.

In 2015 Greg commenced as the financial accountant at Conversant Media and continued in this role after the acquisition by APN News & Media until January 2019. Greg is now the financial controller at Shearwater Capital and assists a number of other fast growing technology companies.