The top CFOs in Australian deep tech in 2026 include Joe Bedewi (Morse Micro), Federico Tata Nardini (Fleet Space), Ashley Hasforth (Gilmour Space), Carla Balanco (DroneShield) and Tom Pereira (Advanced Navigation), scored on capital-stack difficulty, scale and track record.
Joe BedewiCFO, Morse Micro
The strongest semiconductor-finance resume ever assembled inside an Australian startup: CFO of ASX-listed Altium, corporate VP and CFO at Lattice Semiconductor, fifteen years at Intel. Bedewi relocated from Austin to Sydney in March 2026 to take the seat at Australia's biggest chip company, the Wi-Fi HaLow maker Morse Micro, a hire Capital Brief read straightforwardly as plotting a path to IPO. When a company hires this seat, it is announcing its intentions.
Federico Tata NardiniGroup CFO, Fleet Space Technologies
Runs one of the most complex finance briefs in the sector: the Adelaide satellite company's stack spans venture rounds, an Australian Space Agency grant and a Defence Space Command contract, and Tata Nardini sits on the boards of Fleet's subsidiaries in Canada, Chile, Luxembourg and the United States. Twenty years of CFO experience across Europe, India, the UAE and Australia, applied to mineral-exploration satellites since January 2022. Deep tech finance at its most international.
Ashley HasforthCFO, Gilmour Space Technologies
The CFO behind the first Australian-built orbital launch attempt. Gilmour's capital stack is the full deep tech spectrum: Blackbird and Main Sequence venture rounds, superannuation funds on the register, a A$52 million federal grant, all funding hardware that either flies or very publicly does not. Financing a rocket program through a failed first launch and into a second attempt is the strongest nerve test on this list.
Carla BalancoCFO and Joint Company Secretary, DroneShield
The listed seat. Balanco joined the counter-drone company as financial controller in 2018 and rose to CFO, and now runs finance for one of the ASX's genuine defence-tech growth stories, including a roughly A$49.6 million European military contract announced in late 2025. Defence revenue is lumpy, sovereign and scrutinised; running it inside continuous disclosure obligations is a specialist craft.
Tom PereiraCFO, Advanced Navigation
Runs finance for Australia's navigation-technology flagship, whose inertial systems ship into land, sea, air and space programs and whose register includes KKR. Pereira's path is unusual for the sector, deputy CFO at Freelancer and CFO of MILKRUN before this seat, which makes him one of the few deep tech CFOs here who learned the trade in high-velocity consumer businesses first. Sometimes the sector filter really is the wrong filter.
Lasantha ThennakoonCFO, Diraq
The exception that proves the sector's rule: while most Australian quantum companies run a Head of Finance, the UNSW spin-out building silicon spin-qubit machines runs a full CFO seat. Thennakoon brings twenty-five years of international finance leadership to a company whose funding mixes venture capital with government quantum programs across five offices, 130-plus staff and one of the field's deepest patent moats.
Virginia MarshallCFO, Samsara Eco
Three and a half years running finance for the enzymatic recycling company partnered with lululemon, after a CFO seat at fintech SocietyOne and a deputy CFO role in Westpac's consumer bank. Climate-materials finance is grant-heavy, partner-heavy and capex-heavy all at once; Marshall's banking-grade background is exactly the profile this sector recruits when it gets serious.
Dan ShakenovskyCFO, Harrison.ai
Finance for AI that reads medical scans, backed by more than US$240 million and strategic investors including Sonic Healthcare. Clinical AI sits at the deep tech and healthcare intersection, where the CFO manages regulatory approval timelines, hospital procurement cycles and strategic investors on one balance sheet.
Dion CohenCFO, Loam Bio
The regional outlier, and deliberately so: Loam runs microbial carbon sequestration from Orange in regional New South Wales, backed by a US$73 million Series B led by climate specialists including Lowercarbon. Cohen's brief joins two of the hardest finance domains, synthetic biology R&D and agricultural economics, in a company whose product is measured in soil carbon.
David NuciforaCFO, Emesent
Runs finance for the CSIRO spin-out whose Hovermap drone-autonomy and lidar systems map mines and infrastructure worldwide. The classic Australian deep tech arc, public research commercialised into a global export business, with a finance function that has to serve mining-industry sales cycles and hardware margins simultaneously.
The offshore seat, and the quiet vacancies
The biggest deep tech CFO seat with Australian roots is not in Australia: PsiQuantum, co-founded by Australians and building its first utility-scale quantum computer in Brisbane with an A$940 million Commonwealth and Queensland investment package, runs finance from Palo Alto under Susan Kim, formerly CFO of PacBio. Meanwhile two well-funded locals currently show no CFO at all: Hysata's leadership page lists none, and SunDrive's co-founder CFO has moved on. In companies burning capital on hardware timelines, those are seats to watch.
The structural finding: deep tech runs on Heads of Finance
Here is the pattern this research surfaced that nobody publishes: a large share of Australian deep tech deliberately does not employ a CFO. Q-CTRL runs finance under Donna Hacker, Head of Finance, in the seat since 2022. Silicon Quantum Computing runs Aaron Behan, Head of Finance. Quantum Brilliance runs Julia Bright, Group Head of Finance. These are well-funded companies, SQC alone raised A$130 million, choosing a flatter finance structure until commercialisation demands the full seat.
I read that as a timing signal, not a gap in talent. It maps exactly to what I see in searches: the first senior finance hire carries the company a long way, and the CFO title arrives when the capital stack, not the org chart, requires it.[1] For founders hiring into this sector, the practical advice is the same advice I give on candidate profile: applying a strict sector filter is a common mistake that causes founders to miss the most suitable candidates, because the best deep tech CFO candidates often come from heavy or food manufacturing, defence or mining rather than from deep tech itself.[2] Look at this list: consumer businesses, banks, Intel, Westpac. The sector hires for capital-intensity skills, wherever they were learned.
For what the first-CFO decision looks like from the inside, read hiring your first CFO.
References
- From my own search work: the first CFO mandate typically opens once a business passes 50 heads and roughly $10 million ARR, with the conversation starting at Series A in anticipation of Series B diligence. Deep tech stretches that timeline because revenue arrives later; the structure above is the sector's rational response.
- A position I published in June 2026 and stand by: for deep tech CFO roles, a strict sector filter is a common mistake, and the most suitable candidates often come from heavy or food manufacturing, defence or mining rather than deep tech itself.