Meet the mentors guiding ‘The Employables’ on their start-up journey

These business coaches nurture and evaluate the candidates’ ideas – and decide who advances to the next stage.

Ben Reid, Creel Price and Shammah Dhall on 'The Employables'. Source: SBS

The Employables mentors represent a wealth of Australian and International experience in entrepreneurial and business development. Thanks to their guidance and expertise, several global businesses are now successfully up and running.

Armed with a social conscious, compassion and a sense of humour, these mentors support and counsel the 12 rookie entrepreneurs every step of the way as they embark on the potentially life changing quest to establish Australia’s hot new startup.

So who are they?

Creel Price - Entrepreneur

Creel Price on 'The Employables'. Source: SBS

Described by Sir Richard Branson as “the living, breathing definition of an entrepreneur”, Creel kicked off his entrepreneurship at age 11 when he launched a strawberry selling business in rural New South Wales that helped finance his family in a time of drought. Before finishing university he had launched another nine ventures and at just 25, he co-founded Blueprint Management Group with only $10,000 in capital. Ten years later it was sold for $109 million.

Money isn’t the only thing that Creel believes business can generate — he is passionate in his belief that ‘for profit’ and ‘for purpose’ can in reality be the same thing.

Committed to using the power business can generate for social good, Creel has worked with social entrepreneurs across the world to address global issues and spur a movement - the “entreprenaissance” - to inspire and encourage more entrepreneurs to develop inspirational ideas to push society towards a reimagined, new economic future.

Creel has also co-founded Investible, a revolutionary early stage investment and entrepreneurial development company that has succeeded in helping bring more than 60 startup ideas to fruition since 2015.

Shammah Dhall - Business Coach

Shammah Dhall on 'The Employables'. Source: SBS

With a Masters in Business Marketing, a Masters in Wellness (Health Sciences) and a Life Coaching accreditation, Shammah brings a unique holistic cross-disciplinary approach to The Employables.

Throughout her 15 years of professional experience, she has not only provided consultancy services as a Global Business Advisor, Personal Excellence and Wellness Coach, Entrepreneur Educator, and Innovation Consultant, but has held executive leadership positions where she has led large scale transformation programs in both the public and private sector.

Working alongside Creel Price, Shammah brought her talents as a specialist coach and entrepreneur business advisor to the Investible team on the Australian First Indigenous Entrepreneur Accelerator Programs.

Ben Reid - Entrepreneur Advisor

Ben Reid on 'The Employables'. Source: SBS

Ben has been running digital businesses and developing, designing and building digital products across the world for 20+ years. An expert in early stage tech start up acceleration, he has worked deep in the trenches with over 60 start ups and across 10 accelerator programs in the past 5 years. 

With his particular passion for developing tech start-ups with social impact, Ben brings to The Employables a strong belief that business can drive and enhance positive social change. He recently took 20 start-ups through the first 3 cohorts of Remarkable, Australia’s first disability-tech accelerator that was developed to provide positive social impact for people with a disability.

Ben also runs the successful innovation consulting company Digital Creators, and more recently has become co-founder of Crave a food tech business focused on visually curating the best foodie places and empowering “food for good”.

Michelle Duval - Entrepreneur Advisor

Michelle Duval of 'The Employables'. Source: SBS

As one of the world’s most sought after professional coaches working with entrepreneurs, thought leaders and CEO’s, Michelle is also a successful public speaker, author and entrepreneur herself.

A trailblazer for state of the art forms of learning, Michelle conducted her own research study into the successes and failures of a wide array of business founders. As a result of the research, Michelle developed the first entrepreneurial tech platform in the world, Fingerprint for Success - a web application and online community that serves the dual purpose of showcasing and developing entrepreneurial talent.

Watch The Employables Wednesdays from 22 August at 8:30pm on SBS. After they air, episodes will be available at SBS On Demand.