Helen Marx is a senior business, technology, and ecosystem strategist with over two decades of experience across commercial leadership, digital systems, brand partnerships, and operations. For a significant portion of that career, she worked at the executive level within Australia's music and audio distribution industry — most recently as Chief Commercial Officer at Australis Music Group and CMI Music & Audio, one of the country's most significant distributors of music technology and instruments. In that role, Helen oversaw a portfolio of globally recognised brands including Gibson, ESP Guitars, Orange, Blackstar, Vox, Moog, Native Instruments, Universal Audio, Korg, Adamson, JBL, AKG, and Ibanez — connecting world-class gear and technology with the artists, studios, retailers, and audio integrators who bring it to life. Her work sat at the intersection of product, technology, touring, and live production: collaborating with artist ambassadors, backline hire teams, pro audio integrators, production partners, venue operators, and festival promoters to understand and serve every corner of the ecosystem. What this experience gave Helen was something genuinely rare — a panoramic, behind-the-scenes view of how the Australian music industry truly functions. Not the version that gets written about, but the operational reality: the ingenuity required to keep venues alive, the constant reinvention demanded of festival promoters, the invisible labour behind creative success, and the way innovation, resilience, and collaboration keep the whole system moving even under pressure. She saw all of it, from product development and brand strategy to logistics, education, and community — and she brought a rigorous systems-thinking lens to every part of it. Outside of music, Helen is CEO of a Sleep Diagnostics and Treatment Distribution company — applying the same principles of operational efficiency, culture-led leadership, and systems design to a highly regulated, mission-critical health sector. This dual life, straddling creative and clinical industries simultaneously, has sharpened a perspective on sustainable business building that very few operators can offer. The same disciplines that make a music ecosystem work — trust, partnership, long-term thinking, and clear commercial frameworks — are the ones that make any complex business endure. The founding of Mentor Academy came directly from what Helen witnessed across her decade inside the industry. Again and again, she saw the same gap: talented, driven people with no clear roadmap. Knowledge was siloed. Pathways were opaque. Access to lived experience — the kind that tells you how the pieces actually fit together — was rarely visible, let alone accessible. Together with co-founder Ron Haryanto, Helen built Mentor Academy to close that gap: a platform connecting emerging talent with industry experts who are actively doing the work, through on-demand masterclasses, one-on-one mentoring, networking, and real-world opportunity.