Directors
Alan Cullen
Alan Cullen is one of Australia’s most experienced corporate finance and governance advisers, with a career spanning more than five decades across banking, financial regulation, investment markets, corporate advisory and emerging technology.
His senior leadership experience includes Chief Executive of the Australian Bankers’ Association during a defining period of deregulation and financial-sector reform, Executive Director of Midland International Australia, and earlier leadership of the Australian Finance Conference.
Today, Alan is the founder and Chairman of Channel Finance and Cullen Capital, where he advises private companies, entrepreneurs and family offices on financing, capital strategy, mergers and acquisitions, governance and complex commercial matters.
Experience through market cycles
Alan’s value to clients comes not simply from the length of his career, but from having experienced — and in many cases helped shape — major changes in Australia’s financial system.
As Chief Executive of the Australian Bankers’ Association from 1985 to 1995, he led the industry through banking deregulation, the entry of foreign banks and major reforms to payments, consumer credit, privacy, money laundering and taxation. He worked directly with governments, regulators, banks and other stakeholders on changes that reshaped the Australian financial system.
That experience provides a perspective that is difficult to replicate. Alan understands how banks and financial institutions think, how regulation changes the availability and price of capital, and how risks can build across credit and market cycles.
For clients, that perspective is particularly valuable when a financing or investment decision cannot be considered in isolation from the broader business, regulatory or economic environment.
Corporate finance with an owner’s perspective
Alan has spent much of his later career advising growth businesses and private companies on capital raising, debt, acquisitions, restructuring and strategy. Through Channel Finance, this includes structured debt solutions across working capital, growth and acquisition finance, asset-backed lending, supply-chain finance and debt restructuring.
He has also founded and operated businesses himself across corporate advisory, technology and renewable energy. That gives him an owner’s perspective on capital: financing is not simply a transaction; it needs to work for the business, preserve flexibility and support the longer-term objectives of its owners.
For entrepreneurs and business-owning families, Alan understands that personal wealth, operating businesses, financing relationships and family objectives are often closely connected. His approach is to understand that whole picture before recommending a course of action.
International and family office experience
Alan has advised listed and private companies, governments and their agencies, industry bodies and ultra-high-net-worth family offices. His international experience includes clients and counterparties across Asia, China, Europe and the United States.
He has advised overseas businesses and families on establishing and expanding in Australia, commercial and investment strategy, financing and acquisitions, and has worked across sectors including agriculture, healthcare, education, energy, manufacturing and emerging technology.
His long-standing relationships across the Australian banking and financial system are an important part of that work. Just as importantly, Alan understands how to engage with institutions at senior levels while remaining firmly focused on the client’s commercial interests.
Innovation with commercial discipline
Alan’s experience is grounded in traditional finance, but his career has also been marked by a willingness to engage early with new technologies and business models.
He founded an early commercial natural-language and artificial-intelligence venture in 1998, has developed renewable-energy infrastructure solutions, and today works with blockchain, tokenisation and digital governance initiatives in regulated financial markets.
For Alan, innovation is valuable when it solves a real commercial problem. New technology must ultimately improve information, reduce risk, create efficiency or open opportunities that were previously unavailable.
Education and professional standing
Alan holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a Post-Graduate Diploma of Law from the University of Sydney and was admitted to the Bar in New South Wales. He is also a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
His board experience spans listed companies, private businesses, education, foundations and technology ventures, combining commercial judgement with a deep understanding of governance and fiduciary responsibility.
For clients, Alan brings something increasingly rare: the perspective to understand what has changed, the experience to recognise what has not, and the judgement to identify where the real risk — and opportunity — sits.
Stephane Cooper
Stephane Cooper has more than two decades of experience across private wealth, investment markets and financial services, including senior roles with Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs JBWere and Citi.Today, he brings that institutional experience to Channel Finance, the business he owns and operates alongside fellow Director Alan Cullen.
As a Director of Channel Finance and Responsible Manager of its Australian Financial Services Licence, Stephane carries direct responsibility for the standards of the business, its regulatory obligations and the way its clients are looked after.
For families entrusting significant wealth to an adviser, he believes that level of ownership and accountability matters. The reputation of the business is his reputation. Its clients are his clients.
Strategy before tactics
Stephane’s experience extends well beyond traditional wealth management.His career has crossed private wealth, investments, corporate finance, lending, investment platforms, technology, governance, compliance and family office strategy. He has built businesses from inception, operated as a Chief Operating Officer, managed regulated financial services businesses and advised ultra-high-net-worth and billionaire families on complex financial matters.
His approach is guided by a simple principle: Strategy before tactics.Before discussing products, transactions or individual investments, the priority is to understand the family’s broader objectives, structures, risks, liquidity requirements and long-term priorities.Significant wealth rarely fits neatly into one category. Investments interact with businesses, property, debt, legal and tax structures, governance and the movement of capital between countries.
Stephane’s role is to understand that whole picture, identify where risks and opportunities exist, and ensure the right specialists are around the table before implementation begins.
Deep experience with Chinese and Asian families
A significant part of Stephane’s career has been dedicated to working with Chinese and other Asian families investing in Australia.
As an Executive Director at Morgan Stanley, he established and led the firm’s Significant Investor Visa business. Under his leadership, Morgan Stanley became one of the leading Australian wealth managers in the market.
His work regularly took him to China and Hong Kong, working with private clients, professional advisers, senior executives and government representatives.
Since leaving Morgan Stanley, Stephane has continued to advise Chinese family offices, entrepreneurs and private investors on their Australian affairs, including investment structures, financing, platform and custody arrangements, consolidated reporting and access to Australian and international investment opportunities.
That experience has reinforced another important principle: Moving capital is only the beginning. Protecting it, structuring it properly and having trusted people representing the family’s interests is the more important task.
Institutional capability. Personal accountability.
Stephane believes substantial families should be able to access the capabilities and opportunities of major financial institutions without becoming simply another account within one.
His approach is deliberately personal.
When considering an investment or financial decision, he applies the same question he would ask if it were his own family’s capital: “If this were my family’s money, would I be comfortable with this decision?”That may mean finding a better opportunity, negotiating harder with a lender or institution, questioning unnecessary complexity, or recommending that an existing adviser remain in place because they are already doing an excellent job.
The objective is not to replace relationships unnecessarily. It is to ensure the family has the right people around the table and that someone is consistently looking at decisions from the family’s perspective.
As an owner, Director and Responsible Manager, difficult issues cannot simply be passed to another department. Stephane has responsibility for resolving them.That experience shapes the way he approaches clients: with ownership, judgement and accountability rather than simply advice.
Education and professional standing
Stephane holds an Executive MBA from Melbourne Business School at the University of Melbourne and received a Commendation Award for Outstanding Academic Performance during the program.
He also holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Monash University, together with postgraduate management and Australian securities qualifications.
Combined with more than twenty years of institutional, entrepreneurial and family office experience, this gives Stephane an unusually broad perspective across both the investment and commercial dimensions of substantial family wealth.