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Vale Michael Hirshorn OAM
Vale Dr Michael Hirshorn OAM
Friday 18 November 2011. It is with great regret and sorrow we wish to inform you that, on the morning of Friday 18 November 2011, Mike lost his courageous battle with cancer.
He will be dearly missed by his loving family, colleagues and many friends.
Mike was Director of Four Hats Capital. He enjoyed a 30 year career of founding, building, managing and investing in technology companies. These include Cochlear in which he was a founder and CEO, and Resmed in which he was a founding Director. These two companies have a combined market cap over $4 billion.
In recent years Dr Hirshorn specialized in private equity investment and has been a director of companies including QRX Pharma, LBT Innovations, Biotron, Cathrx, ITL, Dynamic Hearing and TGR BioSciences. Dr Hirshorn was a board or committee member of a large number of organizations including the Garvan Institute Business Development Advisory Board, Yuuwa Capital, Australian Venture Capital (Avcal) Council, ANU Connect Ventures Investment Committee, the ASX- Ausbiotech Biotechnology Reporting Code Committee and the Industrial Research and Development Board.
Mike is an acknowledged leader in the Australian life science industry.
Mike has significant international management expertise in all operational areas from manufacturing to research and development, intellectual property, worldwide marketing and sales, regulatory affairs, government relations, business development and developing strategic alliances with major multinationals.
Mike has over eight years of private equity experience. As a private equity investor, Mike has raised a fund, invested in companies, played a hands on role in their growth and achieved exits and IPOs. Mike has been a director on the board of many companies including six portfolio companies. His current directorships include Dynamic Hearing and TGR BioSciences.
In 1988 he won BRW Businessman of the Year (Technology) for establishing Cochlear in the US Europe and Japan and in 2004 Mike was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for his work in commercialising medical technology.
