Athrotaxis Strategy
Helping creative businesses and industry organisations navigate government, funding and strategy.
Practical advice for screen, games, arts and other creative industries.
The landscape for video game developers; film, TV and online producers; and arts organisations and creatives in complex in Australia. Navigating Government agencies, their requirements and understanding their terminology, motoivations and mindset is central to success, but is all too often misunderstood.
Athrotaxis Strategy is Alex Sangston. Alex works with creative businesses, industry organisations and public agencies solve the problems that arise when creative ambition meets government, financing, policy and process.
Alex has spent 25 years working in Australian Federal and State Government to drive the success of Australian creative industries. He is uniquely positioned to help your business understand and navigate what Government and its agencies are telling you.
Get in touch and see how Alex and Athrotaxis Strategy can help you realise your creative project.
About Athrotaxis Strategy
What Athrotaxis does
Athrotaxis helps creative businesses and industry organisations understand and work effectively with government.
We provide practical strategic advice across:
government funding, incentives and applications
government engagement and stakeholder strategy
industry policy and advocacy
funding and application review
navigating public-sector processes and decision-making
About Alex
Alex Sangston has spent more than 25 years working across government, screen, games and the arts, including senior roles in Australian state and federal government and as Head of Screen Tasmania.
He has worked with creative businesses, industry organisations and government agencies on funding, strategy, policy, incentives and industry development.
Athrotaxis brings that experience to organisations trying to understand how government thinks, how decisions are made, and how to position themselves more effectively.
What is Athrotaxis?
Athrotaxis is a genus of ancient conifers found only in Tasmania. Its two species, the pencil pine and King Billy pine, can live for over a millennium.
They have stood here in the clear air of the Tasmanian wilderness through thesweep of human history: through the long presence of the palawa people, through colonisation, changing industries and technologies, and generations of Tasmanian stories.
They endure while the world around them changes.
Athrotaxis Strategy takes its name from them: Tasmanian, deeply rooted, enduring, and taking the long view. This is about enabling the connections between people, institutions, technology, creativity and place.
The name Athrotaxis comes from the ancient Greek for a crowded arrangement, referring to the configuration of the trees’ leaves.
You can’t tell good stories if you can’t breathe. Athrotaxis Strategy is comfortable in crowded spaces and helps you find clear air.
GCAP 2026
Same Game, Different Mechanics: Positioning Your Studio for Government Support
Alex will be speaking at GCAP 2026 about how government funding agencies think, why strong applications fail, and how studios can give decision-makers more reasons to say yes and fewer reasons to say no.