for 20 years Finkel was CEO of Axon Instruments, a publically-listed American company that made electronic instruments used by pharmaceutical companies in the discovery of new medicines. Between running Axon Instruments and joining Better Place Australia, Finkel established two magazines. The first, COSMOS, is a literary science magazine that is now Australia's #1 science publication and seeks to being the wonder of science to a general audience; and the second, G Magazine , was Australia's first green lifestyle publication and promotes environmental sustainability. Finkel has a passionate interest in education. He established the Australian Course in Advanced Neuroscience to provide advanced training to early career scientists. He also established a secondary school science program named STELR, administered by ATSE, which is currently running in nearly 300 secondary schools around Australia. He currently serves as the Chairman of the Australian Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics, a research consortium that is preparing to analyse the data from the world's largest radio telescope that will be built by the end of this decade.