Annie Parker appointed interim Fishburners chief as Murray Hurps steps down

Muru-D co-founder Annie Parker will take over as interim chief executive of startup community facilitator Fishburners, after Murray Hurps decided to step down from the role.

Hurps first took the reigns as Fishburners’ “interim” boss in 2014. Writing on LinkedIn this week, he said that after three years of developing the Fishburners community in Brisbane, Sydney and Shanghai, his role was “complete” and he was “moving on [to] find [his] next challenge”.

The news comes a week after Fishburners announced it would be an anchor tenant at the new 11- storey, $35 million startup hub in Sydney’s CBD. This is the same hub that led to a decision by Lighthouse, which was co-founded by Parkers, to not proceed with its plans to establish a central startup hub in Barangaroo, because the business case for having two hubs “simply doesn’t stack up”.

Parker has been a key player in the Australian startup space, having launched Telstra-sponsored accelerator muru-D in 2013 before departing late last year to create Lighthouse, which has since pivoted to offer founder education programs and which Parker stepped away from last month. She is also the founder and chair of Code Club Australia.

“Fishburners has nurtured some amazing startups in the last few years and the ongoing interest from new startups in being part of the program it runs speaks to the successes it has created,” Parker said in a statement.

“I look forward to continuing the great work that has already been undertaken and maximising the opportunity provided by the new premises in the Sydney Startup Hub,” she said.

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