A former senior vice president for IBM is growing a company in the Milwaukee area that offers artificial intelligence-based services to companies to help add revenue to their bottom lines.
Oliver Degnan, founder and CEO of MoreTalent Corp., describes his new business as innovation-as-a-service, where companies partner with MoreTalent to produce metric-based innovations that will impact revenue and retain competitiveness for the company.
Degnan created the company while recently earning his executive master’s degree in business administration from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Lubar School of Business. He has partnered with local executive and fellow UW-Milwaukee EMBA grad Mark Cribb on the business venture.
Degnan was the former leader of IBM Phytel, a health care management system that offers automated assessments to providers.
Initially, MoreTalent was created to offer AI-based hiring services, using data to measure a candidate’s fit for a company. In early 2019, however, the company pivoted to focus on building services around specific metrics in areas where companies want to innovate.
MoreTalent “puts its skin in the game,” Degnan said, to develop the solution, which is often discounted at almost 100%, he said. Once it becomes successful, MoreTalent takes a small percentage of the newly achieved revenue for a period of time.
MoreTalent is growing the company with a focus on the health care and legal industries. In the health care field, for example, MoreTalent is working with a provider on tech-based methods of increasing membership for Medicare Advantage Plans, Degnan said.
“We need to have sophisticated technology that can help us respond much, much faster to an ever-changing market and retain competitiveness,” Degnan said.
In addition to the innovation service model, MoreTalent is offering executive leadership courses to help Milwaukee-area executives lead more effectively and prepare their organizations for emerging technologies. MoreTalent still offers a pivoted version of the the hiring platform, Degnan said.
MoreTalent is looking to raise $500,000 to fund the business this year. Degnan expects his company will generate $1 million in revenue in 2019.
Nick Williams
Reporter
Milwaukee Business Journal
