Pat Stewart

Pat Stewart is Head of Growth at Advanced: the fintech revolutionising innovation finance. Advanced helps founders unlock their R&D refund early, turning government incentives into a growth engine. With a background in alternative capital and a track record of scaling financial services from startup to institutional, Pat leads national growth strategy and partnerships across Australia’s innovation ecosystem. At Advanced, he drives a radical but simple belief: capital should move at founder speed: fast, flexible, and in sync with execution. An MBA-holder and founder himself, Pat knows what it’s like to build with limited capital and limitless ambition. Before joining Advanced, he co-founded an allied health business and held leadership roles at Westpac and Allianz, where he specialised in business banking and alternative finance. Pat now brings that mix of startup grit and big-bank scale to the table, helping founders stay in control and rewrite the rules of how innovation gets funded. He regularly speaks on non-dilutive capital, innovation funding, and the future of founder-aligned finance.