Andrew Penn (Andy) is a business and technology leader with extensive experience across telecommunications, financial services, technology, digital infrastructure and physical infrastructure.
He brings public company leadership, board-level governance, cyber security and strategic advisory experience to Sharon AI. His appointment supports Sharon AI’s next stage of growth as an Australian Neocloud focused on AI cloud, GPU/CPU compute infrastructure and high-performance computing.
Andy has held senior executive, board and advisory roles across major public companies and at the national policy level.
His experience includes leading Telstra as Chief Executive Officer, serving as Non Executive Director and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee of the Coles Group, chairing Visit Victoria and as a senior advisor with McKinsey & Company. He also chaired the Expert Advisory Boards for Australia’s 2020 and 2023 National Cyber Security Strategies.
Non Executive Chairman of the Board, Sharon AI
Appointed as Non Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors at Sharon AI. Andy supports the company’s strategic direction as it expands its AI cloud platform, compute infrastructure and high-performance computing operations.
Chairman, Visit Victoria
Chairing Visit Victoria, supporting tourism and major events promotion for Victoria.
Senior Adviser, McKinsey & Company
Serving as Senior Adviser at McKinsey & Company, bringing senior leadership experience across technology, telecommunications, infrastructure and business strategy.
Non Executive Director, Coles Group
Serving as Non Executive Director and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee at Coles Group.
Chief Executive Officer, Telstra
Led Telstra as Chief Executive Officer, overseeing Australia’s largest telecommunications company.
Andy chaired the Expert Advisory Boards for Australia’s 2020 and 2023 National Cyber Security Strategies, adding government-level cyber security advisory experience to his leadership background.
Andy was named an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2023 Australia Day honours for distinguished service to business, charitable organisations, youth and the arts.
As Non Executive Chairman of the Board at Sharon AI, Andy supports the company at board level as it grows its AI cloud and high-performance computing infrastructure.
His role brings senior public company leadership, telecommunications experience, cyber security advisory experience and infrastructure knowledge to Sharon AI as the company expands its platform, partner network and customer base.
James is the CEO of Sharon AI.
His career has spanned over 22 years across technology, finance, property development and funds management.
James has built and monetized over 300MW of energy infrastructure across Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas and Australia.
James has completed a Master of Business (Finance) and a Master’s in Property Development from the University of Technology Sydney, as well as a Bachelor of Accounting from ACU.
He is a Fellow of the Institute of Company Directors (FAICD), and a Fellow of Institute of Public Accountants (IPA).
Andrew began his career with Macquarie Bank (ASX:MQG) in 2007 where he served for 8 years in the Corporate and Asset Finance division.
He then embarked on several entrepreneurial endeavors developing aviation leasing technology whilst serving on the board of ISI Australia, a provider of mainframe and cloud platform solutions.
Andrew co-founded Sharon AI and served as Chief Operating Officer, playing a central role in building the company’s operating capability and advancing its AI Factory deployments. He now leads Strategic Partnerships, providing founder-level sponsorship across Sharon AI’s most important customer, data centre and strategic relationships.
Nick has over 18 years’ experience across financial markets, technology and energy infrastructure.
Starting his career at multi-billion-dollar asset manager Bell Financial Group (ASX:BFG) where he served for 12 years before building and managing 100 modular data centres across 200MW of energy infrastructure in the USA and Australia while working in a senior leadership role at a NASDAQ-listed digital infrastructure company.
David Burns is Chief Operating Officer of Sharon AI, bringing more than 35 years of experience leading and transforming technology, telecommunications and services businesses across Australia, the United States, Europe and Asia. Throughout his career, he has built and scaled businesses, led complex operational transformations and delivered sustained financial and customer outcomes across rapidly evolving technology markets.
As COO, David leads Sharon AI’s operational strategy and execution, drawing on decades of experience across technology services, managed services, infrastructure, customer delivery and large-scale transformation. His combination of commercial discipline, operational leadership and customer focus helps ensure Sharon AI can execute at pace and scale as a global AI infrastructure platform.
Anuj Goel brings more than 20 years of experience across technology investment banking, capital markets and corporate finance. Throughout his career, he has advised companies, founders and investors on growth, capital raisings and strategic transformation, with deep expertise spanning technology, telecommunications, media and digital infrastructure.
Before joining Sharon AI as CFO, Anuj was Head of Technology, APAC at Macquarie Capital, where he advised on many of Australia’s most significant technology and digital infrastructure transactions.
Dan Mons brings over two decades of leadership experience in the technology sector across 10 countries.
He has led the technical design, security planning, and training teams for government, AI/ML, media, HPC, research, finance, and software development in Australia, the US, the UK, Asia, and Europe. Dan is committed to driving effective change while maintaining security objectives and ensuring team members deliver business success and meet customer needs.
Wolf Schubert is the Country Manager – USA of Sharon AI. His career has spanned over 25 years across technology, capital markets and risk management (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch).
Most recently he ran part of the institutional business at BlockFi, a fintech startup. Before that he held senior roles at Vista Equity Partners and Strategic Value Partners, where he was Chief Risk Officer.
Ross has over 25 years of capital markets experience in both the US and Australia, where he was most recently Head of Technology Equity Research at Wilsons Advisory. Prior to his 5 years at Wilsons, he was at Citigroup for 14 years, where he was Head of Small Caps Research.
Ross is best known for his combined knowledge of both financial markets and digital infrastructure, the result of 19 years of equity research and 13 years of continuous coverage of NextDC, one of SharonAI’s key partners.
Kathleen Manning brings more than a decade of management and people-leadership experience across hospitality, health, and professional services. With formal qualifications in Business and Psychology, she blends commercial strength with a deep understanding of human behaviour to create engaged, high-performing teams and sustainable organisational culture.
Kathleen has held senior leadership roles including Director at Defender Asset Management and Head of HR for the Defender Tourism Fund, where she oversaw large, multi-site teams, modernised HR systems, strengthened compliance frameworks, and supported rapid business expansion. She has also completed the AICD Company Secretary Course, enhancing her governance and executive-level capability.
Kathleen now leads the HR function at Sharon AI, bringing her strategic mindset, operational excellence, and people-first approach to support the organisation’s growth and culture as it scales.
Linton is a recognized growth leader in the Australian and APAC tech landscape with over 25 years of leadership at global technology icons including IBM, Microsoft, and Rackspace. Most recently serving as CRO at Vault Cloud, he brings specialized expertise in scaling high-security, critical infrastructure. At Sharon AI, Linton spearheads global commercial operations and revenue strategy, ensuring sovereign AI infrastructure scales to meet the mission-critical needs of enterprise and government partners.
Melissa Anastasiou is Chief Legal Officer of Sharon AI, bringing nearly 30 years of legal and executive leadership experience across telecommunications, technology and digital infrastructure.
Throughout her career, she has experience advising boards and executive teams on corporate governance, complex commercial transactions, regulatory engagement, mergers and acquisitions, privacy, cyber matters and AI governance.
