Meet the Founders on a Mission to Curate Knowledge-Sharing Discussions Worldwide

A “Shields Down” Environment

The Ortus Club was built on a single, radical idea: remove the pressure to sell and let executives talk as peers.

The founders call it a “shields down” environment. These are executive dinners, roundtable discussions, and curated peer groups held in intimate settings. The focus is not on the company an executive represents. Instead, it is on the wealth of personal experience they bring to the table. There are no presentations, no pitching, and no branded lanyards. Just senior leaders with shared challenges, talking openly over dinner.

“The idea was to cut to the chase,” say the founders. “We wanted to create a room where every participant is engaged because there is something in it for them. It’s not a direct pitch — it’s a space to solve shared challenges.”

This participant-first philosophy became the foundation of everything The Ortus Club does. While a hosting brand supports each event, the conversation is strictly curated to remain enriching for every guest. By selecting peers with similar responsibilities across different industries, Ortus allows executives to realise something powerful. Whether they sit in Tokyo or Toronto, they face the same hurdles with KPIs, internal stakeholders, and growth.

From Sydney to 40+ Countries

The very first Ortus event was a roundtable dinner at the Park Hyatt in Sydney for the KMC Group. It set the tone perfectly. High-calibre guests, a carefully chosen venue, and a conversation that participants didn’t want to end. Word spread quickly. Within the first few years, Ortus had established a strong presence across the APAC region. Even including markets traditionally difficult to engage in, like Tokyo and Seoul.

From there, the model proved it could travel. London was the first event outside APAC. Then New York, then Riyadh, Oslo, Las Vegas, Calgary, and Wellington. The format didn’t change — intimate, curated, and strictly pitch-free — but the reach expanded rapidly.

Today, The Ortus Club hosts over 60 events per month across more than 40 countries. The team operates from offices in Manila and Rome, with client directors embedded across the UK, US, and APAC. Over 400 brands have partnered with Ortus to curate their executive engagement. These include Google, Oracle, Adobe, AWS, Salesforce, Visa, Freshworks, Vonage, Tata Communications, and Palo Alto Networks, among many others.

In the Age of AI, the Human Element Wins

As the business world becomes increasingly screen-bound, the founders believe offline dialogue has never been more valuable.

The Ortus model is deliberately analogue in a digital world, favouring small groups instead of 500-person halls. It prioritises real conversations over webinar monologues and builds relationships over a shared meal rather than cold, LinkedIn connection requests. Every event is designed to create what no algorithm can replicate. The spark of a new idea, the relief of a shared challenge, and the beginning of a relationship that will last long after the dinner ends.

This conviction is what drove the company from a handful of events in Australia, growing through rapid word-of-mouth, to a global platform that now serves as a strategic partner for some of the world’s most recognisable B2B brands.

What The Ortus Club Does Today

The Ortus Club is a global B2B marketing platform specialising in facilitating executive knowledge sharing. The core offering remains the same as day one — intimate, high-level events that provide a neutral space for C-level executives to discuss pertinent business topics, learn from their peers, and build meaningful professional relationships.

The portfolio has expanded to include:

Roundtable Dinners — Intimate gatherings of 8–15 senior executives, curated by role and industry, held at exceptional venues worldwide.

Masterclasses & Panels — Larger-format sessions for deeper dives into specific topics, featuring expert moderators.

Large-Scale Events & Summits — Full-production executive events for partners requiring broader reach, including the Ortus Productions series with brands like AWS.

CMO Chats — An ongoing interview and community initiative connecting marketing leaders globally, launched in 2020.