Introducing the Activator Coach Collective

RMIT Activator is pleased to announce our first ever Coach Collective. Comprising seven remarkable individuals, our Coach Collective will guide and mentor the fifth LaunchHUB cohort starting 22 July.

Coaches will work closely with Founders during the 12-week program, sharing valuable insights based on their expertise in successfully launching business in the market. LaunchHUB teams will receive one-on-one weekly startup coaching to help them achieve goals across customer, product and operational milestones.

Our coaches are all successful founders and business leaders themselves, who love giving back to the entrepreneurial community.

“We're thrilled to bring in such a diversity of experiences with the newly formed Coach Collective and are confident that they will add immense value in setting up our teams for success,” said April Bjork, Community Engagement Coordinator at Activator.

Meet the Activator Coach Collective:

16 July 2019

Jeanette Cheah

Leading our Coach Collective is Jeanette, the co-founder and CEO of The Hacker Exchange, which connects budding entrepreneurs to the startup community across the globe.

Before co-founding The Hacker Exchange, Jeanette’s corporate career involved building digital products, innovation and marketing strategies. This magnetic visionary has been named a Woman of Influence by Smart Company and named a Finalist in the Telstra Business Women's Awards.

Jeanette’s expertise includes pitching, global expansion and go-to-market strategy, value proposition development, go to market strategy, pitching, global expansion, product development, partnerships & corporate engagement, customer insight and community building.

Damian Karaula

Helping entrepreneurs unlock their true potential is Damian’s life calling. He is the founding partner of mentor-hub, the world's first online digital platform enabling entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs to connect with mentors across the marketplace.

Damian harbours a wealth of knowledge on growth and innovation, having worked with Olympic athletes and military generals, facilitated MBA programs and lectured at business schools. He is also the co-founder of the Fearless Conversations podcast.

Damian specialises in go-to-market strategy, product pitch, business models, market research and analytics, capital raising, sales development, pipeline management, entrepreneurial resilience and agility.

Darren Sutton

Darren is the founder of The Common Purpose Collective, an Impact Marketing consultancy that helps marketing teams design and build human-centric partnerships that deliver tangible social impact and financial ROI for brands.

Prior to running his own business, Darren worked with media giants such as Guardian, Fairfax and John Brown to develop their brand and business strategy.

His expertise lies in CX/EX, marketing strategy, behaviour change, commercial strategy and partnership design for growth.

Linda Owerstrom

Linda is a passionate, serial entrepreneur who has successfully founded and grown multiple ventures. They include The LOV Co., Nova Australia and most recently, The New Kind, a membership-based platform that provides unique and curated content, connections and experienced to help millennial changemakers unleash their potential.

Previously, Linda has been our Expert-in-Residence at RMIT LaunchHUB to help Activator Founders succeed.

We are thrilled to have Linda again with her expertise in community engagement, growth hacking, digital marketing and social impact.

Mike Ebinum

Mike is the Director and CTO of Sheda, a design and product development agency that uses design-driven methods, A.I and IoT to deliver innovative solutions to startups and large organisations.

Mike was a lead technologist at Isobar and Deloitte Digital, and he has run several startups. His collective experience gives him a unique perspective to address challenges using deep technology and human-centered design.

He specialises in product strategy, UX, engineering and product development.

Luke McCarthy

Luke is currently the General Manager for Tickbox, a privately owned technology provider to corporates in Australia.

Luke has played a pivotal role in taking 3 cloud computing companies to market over the past 16 years.Luke consults with businesses across various industries to improve their value in the market through technology.

Luke has assisted businesses in education, retail, energy, technology, medical, manufacturing, finance, legal and construction amongst others.

Luke brings his expertise in sales, marketing, strategy, management, operations and technology.

Ben Sandhu

Ben is the co-founder of Ida Sports, makers of the ultimate football boots and apparel for female athletes. Having built his startup at Activator for the past year, he is another familiar face to join our Coach Collective!

Passionate about creating a positive impact through enterprise, Ben also taught students at RMIT on business models that balance social and environmental good with financial sustainability.

He loves giving back to the startup community and will guide our Activator teams with his expertise in strategy, management, lean product development and network building.

Once again, a big welcome to our new coaches!

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Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.

More information

Introducing the Activator Coach Collective