Damien Rocchi

Damien Rocchi is the co-founder and CEO of Grand Circus, a technology training academy headquartered in downtown Detroit. A native Australian, Rocchi founded the company in 2013 with Bradley Hoos, backed by more than $1.5 million from Detroit Venture Partners. Grand Circus was built to close the technical-skills gap and open pathways into high-growth tech careers for people of all backgrounds. It became one of only seven Google for Entrepreneurs tech hubs in North America, and by the mid-2010s roughly 2,300 people had passed through its boot camps, seminars, workshops, and youth programs, with strong job-placement outcomes at partners such as General Motors, Ford, DTE Energy, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Before founding Grand Circus, Rocchi held leadership roles at some of Australia's largest media and consumer companies. At Fairfax Business Media he managed a group of digital businesses spanning research and data, professional education, and digital news. Earlier in his career he worked as a business strategist and consultant at McKinsey & Company. He holds an MBA (corporate finance) from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Beyond his operating role, Rocchi is a serial entrepreneur who is active as a startup advisor, board member, and angel investor. He has served as a mentor at Techstars, an advisory board member at Hacker Fellows, and a member of the board of trustees at Music Hall in Detroit. In 2014 he was named a "Champion of the New Economy" by DBusiness magazine for his contributions to Detroit's tech community.

• Invests and advises at the seed/early stage, with a strong bias toward Detroit and Midwest technology startups.
• Deeply oriented toward Detroit's "tech-led renaissance" — his public statements and his life's work at Grand Circus center on talent development and expanding access to tech careers, which informs where he engages.
• Brings an operator + consultant lens (McKinsey strategy background, Wharton MBA, media/digital P&L experience) rather than a pure-finance one.
• Engages through hands-on channels — mentorship (Techstars), advisory boards (Hacker Fellows), and civic/board roles — suggesting he backs founders he can actively coach.