Alumni Magazine Issue 5

Creating game-changing brands of the future and giving back Michelle Bourke BACHELOR OF COMMUNICATIONS/BACHELOR OF MARKETING & PUBLIC RELATIONS CLASS OF 2005 Michelle is the founder and CEO of Foresight Digital, a multimillion-dollar business and “plug and play growth team” for innovative companies that need to scale fast or go global. “Our mission at Foresight is to create game-changing brands of the future. We also give back 5% of all profit growth each year to worthy causes.” Foresight connects data and emotion— something Michelle considers to be a missing link—to deliver sustainable marketing and sales performance for growing brands. Her business works with scale-up companies across Australia and the world who are wanting to invest in their growth. “We also perform marketing due diligence on scale-ups for Venture Capital firms, helping them accurately assess potential investments, forecast growth and pinpoint key opportunities to scale.” Artificial intelligence, decision science and the technology landscape Dr Chris Cook DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ARTS & SCIENCES) CLASS OF 2019 Six years ago Dr Chris Cook founded his own company, nFactorial, which specialises in predictive analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence. But he discovered that managers often didn't knowwhat to do with this information and these quickly evolving areas. With a desire to better understand how and why humans make decisions and how that process could be enhanced, Chris undertook a PhD in decision science with Notre Dame, focusing on business decision making. Chris was fortunate to conduct his research abroad in Berlin for two years at the Max Planck Institute, where academics from across the globe come together to cross-pollinate their ideas and research. From predicting when breaks or a pump from a machine will fail, to forecasting revenues, exchange rates, and preparing financial data, Chris’ PhD enriched his work with nFactorial, enabling him to build artificial intelligence that supports managers in making informed and beneficial decisions. Alumni Magazine – Page 23 E N T R E P R E N E U R S H I P