Sam Bourton

Sam Bourton was co-founder and CTO of QuantumBlack, a data science consultancy in 2009, and now the AI practice of McKinsey & Company following their acquisition in 2016, with 1,500 people and 20 offices worldwide. Before QuantumBlack, he was a software engineer and architect for 15 years, and worked in Formula 1 racing designing and building race strategy and simulation software, where the co-founders of QuantumBlack all met.

As a Tech Fellow Partner in McKinsey, Sam founded McKinsey and QuantumBlack's AI innovation lab, QB Labs, and built a team of 200 data engineers, scientists, designers, engineers, and product managers designing and building ML/AI products across many industries and functions, including open source projects that have been adopted by the industry.

Now, after leaving McKinsey and QuantumBlack, helps AI Founders, Investors, and Leaders:

  • Assists AI Founders in connecting with the right investors, partners, and founding talent, while curating a collaborative environment through incubators, co-labs, and building AI communities. He supports a growing portfolio of AI-based startups from a small investment position.

  • Provides AI Investors with the strategic insights and tools needed to identify the most promising AI ventures, guiding them through selection, due diligence, and post-investment support.

  • Partners with AI Leaders to design and build innovation labs that transform strategy, people, processes, products, and technologies, helping them deliver breakthrough AI capabilities and solutions that scale.

Sam divides his time between London UK and Geneva, Switzerland, where he lives with his Canadian wife and their 8 year old daughter.