Chris Wilcock

Chris
Wilcock
An instigator originating, cultivating and perpetrating creations,
inventions and brands, Chris has been instrumental in shepherding
content, digital and other intangibles-centric endeavors to market,
in several world centers - e.g. Tokyo, Hong Kong and elsewhere
on the Asia-Pacific rim; London; and both the West Coast and
East Coast of America, including in his native New York City.
Career
Chris started out in entertainment, leisure, media and technologies (elements) at the end of
his teens. He has been a writer, producer, executive, cameraman, director, editor,
spokesperson and, even a confidential "script doctor". His interest in visual storytelling media
was sparked in high school by a course with animation guru John Canemaker. In university,
Chris was a force behind what may have been the first completely student-founded, run and
staffed television station, Columbia Television (CTV), serving Manhattan daily with hours of
entertainment, sports and public affairs programming. Chris won the Creative prize in the 2009
Short Story competition of RTHK, Hong Kong's public service broadcaster. His blend of
creative, commercial and capital experience suits him as chairman of Four Rivers, which has
the mandate to realize creations, inventions and brands. Chris has inaugurated the extensive
rolling slate of Four Rivers across several cultivators, going to market under several shingles
in traditionally profitable genres and largely addressing prospective scalable franchises
especially content ranging from the tiniest screen to the biggest screen and everything in
between including mechandise, music, live. He has signed to direct several of the titles.
Before obtaining a world-class MBA, Chris spent a decade with Dow Jones & Co, publisher of
The Wall Street Journal. His roles included ramping up a major overseas bureau as well as
preaching new electronic products in the marketplace after having been part of the team
that prototyped the pioneering third section of the U.S. edition. As a journalist covering
the Bank of Japan, Chris was perhaps the first writer to warn publicly of the risk of deflation.
Since earning his MBA in the late 90s, Chris has been chairman of The Opportune Group, an
instigator of instigators of various business endeavours relating to quality of life. Chris has
been a co-founder, a manager and an angel; he has been sought out, especially by
adventurous-capital investors, for his insights into realizing value from emerging businesses;
and he has, selectively, co-mentored enterprises in several major centers, on three continents.
Masters with Distinction in Management
Chris received the MBA cum MSc in Management, with Distinction, as a Sloan Fellow of
London Business School (LBS), of the University of London. There, at the same time, he also
was a research associate for i:Lab, a digital-business collaboratory set up by a consortium of
20 blue-chip companies. At Columbia College of Columbia University, Chris read English
& Comparative Literature in tandem with Medieval Studies in addition to full-time work at
CTV. He is a proud alumnus of the prestigious, all-scholarship, Regis High School, in Manhattan.
Innovator
Chris was instrumental in realizing Handset Initiation (HI ), giving tens of millions of
basic/feature phones in emerging markets pay as you go access to email, IM, even social
media. His ProActive Profiling , a precursor of big data, was a cornerstone of a pioneering,
VC-backed start-up in the first dot-com boom. Several emerging-enterprise predictive frameworks
have been authored by Chris: ALPsQ, SOFT3 and D-Rive, Chris formulated the Inkspot
go-to-market principle, he devised the collaboratory as a collective authorship of IPR, and
he is a pioneer of the concept of the judgment worker, building on the knowledge worker.
Opportune
Chris is a co-founder of Opportune. It has its roots in a coterie of Sloan Fellows at London
Business School. The predominant mission of Opportune is to benefit The Opportune
Endowments, which is now on the drawing board, via: Four Rivers, also via the Consortia
clearinghouses of private enterprise opportunities and via the resulting direct stakes in IPR,
projects and enterprises. As a confidante of entrepreneurs, investors and businesspeople in major
centers around the world, Chris has long nurtured extensive networks (e.g. alumni of Berkeley,
UC; Cambridge; Chinese University; Columbia University; Hong Kong University; Imperial
College; London Business School; McGill; MIT; UCLA; Wharton). Chris lobbies to improve
practical enterprise training, especially in traditionally business-unsavvy disciplines, such as
arts, he mentors alumni of his schools, and he chaired The Entrepreneurs Club of Hong Kong.