Ben Fornarino

When Ben was a little boy, he dreamed of being a cowboy when he grew up.

That all changed when, at the age of six, his parents bought him his first computer. From that fateful moment, he was converted to digital.

Subsequently, Ben has spent his career and passion designing and developing online products that empower people to connect with each other around the things that they love. Through that journey he has played the role of entrepreneur, product manager, project manager, consultant, business analyst and coach.

His first foray into product development was in London, where he was on the founding team of an ill-fated social betting service in the days before Web 2.0 was a thing and when MySpace was king. His adventures since then have taken him through Australia’s biggest brands and businesses as well as its startup scene.

As a consultant for ThoughtWorks, he brought the business model canvas and collaborative design to AFL Media for their new digital channel; crunched the technical analysis for MYOB’s online payroll product; and helped develop the portal that connects World Vision’s sponsors with their sponsored children. Some of his other playing fields have included Australia Post, Telstra and NBN Co.

Ben currently works at Melbourne-based Envato which operates some of the world’s most popular creative marketplaces, including Themeforest which is ranked by Alexa as the 100th most trafficked website on the internet. Envato serves a community of over 4 million artists, developers and designers. He is the Product Manager for Envato Studio which connects entrepreneurs with the technical and creative partners they need to bring their ideas and businesses to life. His team applies lean and agile methods to power their product development, operations and technology approaches.

Ben is actively involved in the Melbourne startup and entrepreneurship community and has been a guest speaker for Lean Startup Melbourne and at several in-house training and learning events.