Dr Cliff Seery is leading the establishment of Trellis Data’s Middle East office. Photo: Thorson Photography.
A career on the bleeding edge of AI technology may seem like a leap for an academic who once tracked seaweed photosynthesis — but for Dr Cliff Seery, the move is as natural as sunlight to a kelp forest.
Cliff says his new role with Canberra’s Trellis Data uses the same skills he developed studying the health of marine meadows.
“There’s a throughline between the systems thinking in science and what I do now,” he says. “I bring that same logic to analysing corporate systems — it’s still about tracing causes, interactions, and outcomes across complex environments. Different context, same structural reasoning.”
An early love and curiosity in science led Cliff to his PhD, where he studied how to assess seaweed health under pollution impacts and, ultimately, launched a career in academia that lasted more than a decade.
As a university lecturer and later a senior academic leader, Cliff taught generations of students and helped shape the programs that defined their studies. But after years in higher education, he found himself at a crossroads.
“I’d reached a point where I was very comfortable,” he says. “The problem was, I’d spent so long encouraging students to be lifelong learners — I had to consider whether I was still modelling that myself.”
At the same time, generative AI was emerging – a budding disruptor in the university ecosystem.
“Students from certain computer-savvy departments had already been experimenting with it — but when it hit the broader university world, it made a real impact, followed swiftly by what could fairly be described as sheer panic,” Cliff says.
“I was familiar with machine learning, having explored its applications through my own research and data analysis. So I could see that universities would do their graduates a disservice if they didn’t proactively engage with generative AI.
“It was already clear AI was going to be part of just about every job in five years. We needed to teach the next generation how to use it ethically and thoughtfully — as an aid, not a substitute.”
It was in that mindset that he first encountered Trellis Data and its ethical AI.
“I felt they were making the right kind of products, and had the right approach: generative AI and machine learning not as a replacement for people, but to assist them. AI for good,” Cliff says. “I could see how I might add to that story.”
Dr Cliff Seery (pictured with Trellis Data’s Tim McLaren, left) has developed a nuanced approach to leadership and communication. Photo: Thorson Photography.
Cliff is now leading Trellis Data’s expansion into the Middle East — in particular Saudi Arabia, which he says is uniquely positioned for growth, with the right talent, infrastructure, political will, ambition to become a global AI leader, and the capital to achieve it.
He’s not concerned about the leap into the corporate world. Universities, he says, are heavily regulated, diverse operational environments — hotbeds for transferrable skills suited to business.
“It’s a myth that academics are all researchers or lecturers — in reality, many senior executives or leaders in academia run multi-million dollar operations and manage large, complex teams. Navigating that environment becomes a skillset in itself,” he says.
“At one posting, I had over 100 direct reports. It was a diverse cohort of staff, from green, first-time teachers to eminent professors with decades of experience.”
In many ways, the opportunity with Trellis is a role Cliff has been preparing for for decades.
Having launched a college campus in Melbourne remotely from Adelaide, he has experience starting new operations from the ground up. His background in international higher education, managing a diverse mix of staff and students, has also given him a “certain cultural competency”.
“That’s important when you’re establishing a business on the other side of the world,” he says.
“At Trellis, we often speak about the importance of sovereign AI for Australia — and those same principles hold true in the Middle East. Our role is to support the development of local knowledge and capability, so they can build sovereign AI systems that reflect their own national priorities.”
But it’s his skills in “talent identification” that he believes are most valuable.
“When you’ve helped students grow from unsure first years to confident PhDs, you get good at spotting potential. That helps me build teams, mentor leaders and back the right people — people who can grow the business,” he says.
“AI is the hot growth sector. There’s a mix of deep-tech, experienced companies like Trellis Data, global hyperscalers like Microsoft and Google, and start-ups just a month old — so competition is fierce. In that environment, attracting the right people is critical.
“We sit in a unique position — with deep experience in AI and machine learning that newer entrants haven’t yet developed, but the agility to offer bespoke solutions the global giants often can’t. That combination puts us in a strong position to expand into the Middle East and build the kind of team this region deserves.”
