Prophet, a Commercial Mix Modelling (CMM) platform, has appointed Matthew Winter as its new head of engineering.
Winter joined the business from Google Cloud, where he was the principal architect, responsible for driving and delivering data transformation and machine learning operations for Google Cloud’s enterprise customers.
Winter has more than 24 years of analytics, database and cloud experience in sales engineering, solution architecture and consultancy roles. Before Google, he worked with Microsoft as a senior program manager and was a technical specialist for Microsoft’s big data and analytics stack, Azure.
He has also worked with cloud and data consultancy Servian, retailer The Just Group, Medibank Private, Barclays Bank, Vodafone and TNT.
Since its market launch in March, Prophet has scaled rapidly, with organisations in the retail, insurance, automotive, on-demand delivery, wagering, and cyber security industries, attracted to the company’s unique Commercial Mix Modelling and cloning platform.
In its seed funding round, Prophet attracted $5 million investment from an impressive investor roster of industry professionals, entrepreneurs, and elite athletes.
“I’ve worked in Australia’s technology field for more than 15 years, so I’ve had a front-row seat to some of the nation’s most innovative technical solutions, and Prophet’s offering is truly next level,” Winter said.
“Prophet has engineered a unique way to tackle the increasingly complex marketing landscape, using advanced mathematics and predictive intelligence. It’s forward-thinking and highly sophisticated – it’s a fantastic space to work in for someone who thrives on transformative, revolutionary technology.”
In his new role, Winter will be responsible for optimising Prophet’s existing data ingestion product and will enable the Prophet’s customers to provide their organisational DNA for cloning with ease, security and scale.
Want to know more? Read: A Prophet Rises: How An Aussie Start-Up Plans To Shake Up Analytics & Take On MMM Giants
‘Shifting the needle’
Prophet CEO and co-founder Jordan Taylor-Bartels said Winter’s skill set will focus on the critical technology behind Prophet’s Commercial Mix Modelling platform.
“Prophet is a highly sophisticated intelligence system that takes the guesswork out of predicting the ROI on marketing spend. Matt’s expertise in data engineering and solution architecture will enable us to ingest critical organisational DNA, that is their data, into Prophet with world-class speed and precision,” he said.
“Prophet’s cloning technology shifts the needle for CMOs and brands, allowing them to diagnose what is making marketing and the broader organisation tick; and enabling precise predictive intelligence to help forecast with foresight. Prophet brings greater confidence to marketing strategy and matches that to the tactical element of delivering them. We have software that is operational across broad organisational departments and accessible to all hierarchies and skill sets.”
The Melbourne-based business launched in Australia earlier this year, with bold ambitions to solve the $1 trillion pit in marketing and advertising budgets.
Prophet uses complex mathematical models to measure performance and run predictions that inform decision-making at the geographic region, campaign, category and even the SKU or product level.
It can ingest more than 86,000 macro data points – such as exchange rates, weather, age demographics, political events, cash rates, inflation targets, rental vacancy rates, gold price, competitor market share, and others – that contextualises this data to understand how external factors will impact channel investment and campaign decisions.
Taylor-Bartels says Winter’s background in mentoring technology businesses in the start-up phase makes him the perfect fit for Prophet.
“Matt has a unique understanding of what Prophet needs as we continue to rapidly grow. He is well-versed in both the technical side of scale-up culture, but also how to work with customers to drive results. Matt is a firm believer in the power of innovative technology to solve real-world problems and a strong advocate for the Prophet proposition,” he said.
Prophet is the brainchild of former Hyperloop Global Marketing lead Jordan Taylor-Bartels and former Ogilvy and VMLY&R Commerce CEO Sean Taylor. The company’s development team includes talent from organisations including NASA, SpaceX, Linktree, WPP, Dentsu and Deloitte.
Prophet recently appointed Hamish Mogan as its first COO. Mogan joined Prophet from Meta, where he headed marketing science for retail and e-commerce across ANZ.
Winter’s appointment is effective immediately.
