Stephen Cartwright | Principal

Stephen has worked at the intersection of law, regulation, public policy, emerging technologies and digital transformation in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region for two decades.

Before founding Distilled Advice, Stephen spent 11 years at Amazon Web Services, where he built and led a Legal team across 16 countries and served on the Asia-Pacific Executive Leadership Team. He partnered closely with sales, marketing, public-sector and functional leadership teams to accelerate go-to-market execution, navigate complex regulatory environments and establish strong customer relationships. He was responsible for many of its largest enterprise deals, major regulatory engagements, and compliance programs, defined its global approach to critical-infrastructure regulation, helped establish its model for engaging public-policy stakeholders, and unlocked new verticals through law and policy reform in multiple jurisdictions.

Known for his customer-first mindset and pragmatic approach to risk, Stephen helps teams move fast and win business without unnecessary friction, invests deeply in people and culture, and builds scalable, durable teams and mechanisms to support sustained growth.

Before AWS, Stephen advised Optus on products, privacy and marketing, and began his career as an intellectual property and commercial litigator at DibbsBarker.

Stephen holds governance and advisory positions, including as a Director of Wildlife Health Australia and an Advisory Board Member for AI and robotics semiconductor company Lexchip. He is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of New South Wales and the High Court of Australia, is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and a Certified AWS Artificial Intelligence Practitioner.

Today, through Distilled Advice, Stephen helps technology and other high-growth companies accelerate revenue, navigate complex regulatory environments, build successful teams, and drive safe and scalable growth across jurisdictions.