Media veteran Clive Dickens has launched The Meliora Firm, a brand new consultancy agency which is able to help enterprise transformations within the TMT sector from bases in Sydney, London and Los Angeles.
Clive Dickens beforehand held senior management roles at Optus, Seven West, Southern Cross Austereo, and Yahoo amongst different distinguished media organisations, having earlier co-founded the Absolute Radio radio station within the UK.
For his newest enterprise, Dickens will accomplice with former Absolute Radio senior colleagues together with Anthony Abbott and Tony Moorey, with an preliminary staff of 9 quickly set to welcome further companions and associates throughout the EMEA, Asia-Pacific and the Americas.
“That is greater than a brand new enterprise; it’s a response to the fatigue I’ve seen from legacy consulting fashions which might be struggling to maintain up with the tempo of technological change,” Dickens said. “The Meliora Firm is a name to construct higher. With technique, creativity, and expertise, anchored by actual world expertise, we’re right here to assist daring leaders navigate what’s subsequent.”
The pursuit of higher
The Meliora Firm, which takes its identify from the Latin for “the pursuit of higher”, will function round three istrategic pillars, an advisory line centered on AI transformation and boutique product growth for firms within the telecom, media, and expertise (TMT) sector, a ventures division investing in early-stage CTO-led startups, and an IP fund supporting rising inventive expertise.
“We’re not simply right here to ‘advise’ within the conventional sense,” Dickens continued. “With technique, creativity, and expertise, we roll up our sleeves and assist our development companions construct the long run, whether or not that’s new AI-powered merchandise, human-centred design, or completely rethinking the shopper expertise from the bottom up.”
Dickens has spent the previous half a decade as vp of tv, content material & product growth at Optus, earlier than which he spent the same time frame as Seven West’s chief digital officer. He has additionally served on the boards of and as an advisor to, amongst others, Airtasker, Freeview, Yahoo Australia, Audioboom, and Shazam.
Talking on his expertise, Dickens stated: “The arrival of LLMs and Gen AI in 2022 marked a seismic shift, arguably essentially the most transformative second for the reason that iPhone and the App retailer. However many companies are nonetheless caught making an attempt to make sense of this future. Meliora was created to satisfy that second with hands-on experience and actionable pondering.”
In response to the agency, The Meliora Firm will deliver collectively a staff of skilled ‘innovators’ throughout the digital audio and video, telecoms, and ecommerce areas, with former Fairfax and NewsCorp digital and video head Ricky Sutton and ex-IAB chief government Vijay Solanki, who’re each entrepreneurs, among the many advisory start-up’s locally-recruited associates so far.
Whereas world in its agenda, Meliora has taken on the “Yolla” – a migratory seabird which main breeds within the Bass Straight – as its founding emblem, which within the phrases of the agency’s advertising spiel displays “Australia’s entrepreneurial DNA” in its daring and purposeful spirit of exploration and worldwide ambition marked by resourcefulness and quiet confidence.
“We determined that we actually wished to go off and form a wider vary of companies throughout a wider set of jurisdictions within the classes the place we’ve got expertise,” Dickens advised on-line trade publication B&T. “It’s an extremely thrilling time to be in expertise, and we see the fusion between human intelligence and AI as one thing that actually drives us.”
