Simon is the founder of Climate 200, the community crowdfunding initiative with 11,200 donors from all 151 electorates across Australia. At the 2022 Federal election, Climate 200’s donors levelled the playing field for climate, integrity and gender equity ambitious community independents, helping to elect seven new independents to the Australian Parliament. Simon began his career as a software engineer in Silicon Valley during the first dotcom wave, then spent more than a decade in precision farm water management.

Simon was a driving force behind the country’s first community-owned wind farm, Hepburn Wind, near Daylesford in Central Victoria. He is an energy analyst, clean tech investor, climate philanthropist, director of the Smart Energy Council and the Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network, senior advisor to the Climate and Energy College at Melbourne University and writes regularly about the transformation of Australia’s energy sector.