The INSTATE Team                                                                Return to Home

 

Denis Gastin (Managing Director) established INSTATE in 1990 to provide strategic advisory and marketing services for Australian and international firms and institutions. He has extensive experience in international business, urban and regional development, food and agricultural industry analysis and planning and media services.

Prior to founding INSTATE, Denis had been Chief Executive of the Multifunction Polis Joint Secretariat, which conducted the Australia/Japan joint feasibility study for a 'city of the future'. The feasibility study drew on the strengths of two national governments, six Australian state Governments and 160 Australian and Japanese firms. It covered the full range of city development challenges, including urban design, industry planning, social planning and the development of an international market for the services of the city through environmental studies, education and training and tourism.

Denis was Chief Economist for the Department of Trade from 1979 to 1982, Assistant Secretary for North Asia from 1982 until 1984 - during which time he conceived and implemented the Federal Government's China Action Plan and Japan Market Strategy - and was Senior Trade Representative and Minister (Commercial) in the Australian Embassy in Tokyo from 1985 until 1988.

Denis is a well-known commentator in Australian and international media. In the early 1990s he wrote the Back Page commentary column for Business Asia and has been a frequent contributor of commentary columns to The Australian.

Denis also has extensive wine-related interests and is a regular contributor to the major international reference books and encyclopedias on the wine industries of Asia (see www.denisgastin.com.au for details).

Through all of these activities he has built and maintained and extensive public and private sector network globally, but with particular emphasis on the Asia Pacific region and Southern Africa.

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Mark Booth (Director) has held senior executive positions within public and private sector organisations and has extensive experience in business management, corporate restructuring, regional economic planning and development, and facilitating the development of international trade. Through this experience he has gained extensive knowledge of the political processes at local, state and federal levels and has been involved in the implementation of a major organisational change processes.

Mark has undertaken consulting assignments for private and public sector organisations, specialising in local government, regional economic development, business planning, waste management, outsourcing and facilitating the development of international trade.

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Bridget Kearins (Research Manager) has an academic and professional experience background in agribusiness research and analysis and regional economic development.  She has completed a Masters degree specialising in regional planning and in 2004 she received her PhD from Flinders University for her research on export development as a regional economic development strategy. As part of this research, Bridget has undertaken detailed analysis of regional export extension services implemented by INSTATE Pty Ltd in South Australia during the past decade.

Bridget joined INSTATE in early 2003 and has worked on a number of China and other international projects while maintaining an ongoing involvement with several regional food industry development initiatives.  She is currently based in Jakarta, Indonesia. 
 

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Armando Santoscoy (Representative, Tokyo) has been permanently based in Japan since 1996, where he manages INSTATE's in-country client work and also provides input to projects in Australia where there is a Japan or North American perspective.

Armando is an agronomist by training and has worked in primary production, agronomy, technical research, trade development and product marketing.  He has worked with clients from Australia, Europe and the Americas in Japan across a number of sectors but with a particular focus on food and agribusiness and environmental services.

In the food and agribusiness sector, he has represented or assisted clients with market entry and distribution of a wide range of processed food and beverages for retail and food service as well as intermediate products for the food manufacturing sector.

In the environmental sector, he has assisted clients with market entry strategies for products and services including clean power generation, waste recycling, environmentally friendly fuel, and exhaust systems.

Armando holds a Bachelor's Degree in Agricultural Engineering from the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara, Mexico.  In addition to his role at INSTATE, he is currently lecturing two courses in the Department of International Studies at Tokyo Agricultural University, Japan. 

Armando is a native speaker of Spanish and is fluent in Japanese and English.
 

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Luis Andre Granda Bueno (Representative, Sao Paulo) has been in Australia on a post-graduate study program and for business briefings for the last 12 months, before returning to Sao Paulo, Brazil, in January 2005. 

Luis is a lawyer by training and has worked in tax litigation and consulting in Sao Paulo over the last 10 years – for both KPMG (1995-97) and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (1997-2001).  In addition to tax law work, Luis has also participated in a number of consulting projects, tax planning assignments, and Mergers and Acquisitions (Due Diligence) projects. 

Luis holds a Bachelor Degree in Law (Catholic University) and a Masters of Taxation Law (Mackenzie University).  He has recently completed Graduate Certificates in Tax Treaties, Australian Corporations Law and Management Accounting at the University of Sydney.  He was admitted to the Bar in Brazil in 1998 and is a Member of the Association of Lawyers, Sao Paulo, Brazil. 

Luis is now working on a range of consulting and business development projects seeking to link Australian and Brazilian business and institutional interests – principally in the areas of agribusiness and resource management, as well as regional economic development strategy. 

Luis is a native speaker of Portuguese, is fluent in English and has intermediate level Spanish. 
 

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Frank Vandermeer (Partner) has over 30 years business experience in Australia and Asia.

Frank joined Wormald Australia in the late 1960s and held senior positions with this company in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, the USA and Mexico between 1972 and 1988. Between 1989 and 1993, he managed the international expansion of IEI Australia, establishing sales operations in the UK and USA. 

In 1994, Frank was a founding partner of the Asian operations of the Guardfire Group based in Singapore.  After doubling revenue every 2 years, Guardfire was sold to Williams Holdings PLC in 1999 and Frank remained with the merged group in Singapore until 2001.

Since returning to Australia in 2001, Frank has consulted to Australian and international clients on market entry strategies for a wide range of Asian markets.  Frank has particular experience and expertise in building sales and distribution networks and major project sales.
 

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Terry Goss  (Associate) has had a long and varied career in international trade promotion and facilitation with Austrade and its antecedent organisations. He served as a Senior Trade Commissioner in posts in North America, Africa and Europe and was the Executive Manager of Austrade's ground-breaking Business Club Australia at the time of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Business Club was aimed at leveraging business outcomes for Australia from this major event.

He has subsequently consulted to Austrade and other organisations specialising in projects which involved developing best practice in international trade facilitation, domestically and overseas, and followed up his Sydney Olympics experience by joining a team assisting the Utah State Government to run its business club at the time of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Terry was State Manager for Austrade in Western Australia on two separate occasions in the early 1980's and 1990's, concentrating on identifying and assisting new and existing exporters, including in regional locations. Terry is currently based in Perth.
 

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Nicole Maron (Research Officer) joined INSTATE in 2003 and has worked on a number of projects including INSTATE's 2004 publication Food Exporters' Guide to Indonesia and several other private client studies on regional economic development and value-added opportunities in the food/agribusiness sector.

Nicole trained in Human Geography and Asian studies and has also worked in the South Pacific.  She has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree from the University of Sydney, for which her Honours research focused on migration issues in Pacific Island Nations, particularly in the Kingdom of Tonga. In July 2006, Nicole completed a Masters in International Studies at the University of Sydney.

She speaks business-level Japanese and conversational Mandarin, French and Tongan.

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Andrew Campion (Consultant) is a futures consultant with an interest in new technology and youth markets. He was formerly a Director at Global Business Network Australia where his work involved research, scenario facilitation, developing seminar programs, writing book reviews and he was editor of the Network e-zine PRETEXT. More recently, he has worked with clients on areas such as mobile, broadband and online movements, the future of healthcare and new medicine, and power industry futures, the environment and clean energy. 

Andrew began his professional career as a trade economist. He lived in Japan in the mid-nineties, using this as a base to explore the region and travel the globe. During this time he worked in a hands-on capacity in the trade of apparel and foodstuffs. On his return to Australia, he joined INSTATE to produce several studies that assessed Australia's role in Asia for organisations such as CEDA and DFAT. He has also undertaken market research and developed market entry strategies for Asian markets for a number of private sector clients with a particular focus on the food and agribusiness sectors.

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Stewart Fitzgerald (Financial Analyst) has a background in administration and finance gained through experience with the ANZ group and positions with companies operating in the food & beverage and other primary industries. He has extensive experience in export facilitation and support, to Asian markets in particular.
 

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