Mr Michael Starkey

BSc, BEng(Hons), MBA, GAICD

Mr Michael Starkey is the co-founder of Athena Home Loans. Athena is an entrepreneurial venture aimed at disrupting Australia’s two-trillion dollar mortgage market. Mr Starkey has been instrumental in developing Athena from the ground up with the business securing over $200 million in equity funding and billions of dollars in debt capital. Athena has created marketing, credit and treasury functions, developed an innovative mortgage technology platform and established numerous distribution and funding partnerships. Since launching in 2019, Athena has originated more than $7bn of mortgages and expanded its offering to service a broad range of customers through digital, broker and partner channels. Athena was named Australia’s most innovative company by the Australian Financial Review in 2021.

Before Athena, Mr Starkey spent eight years at National Australia Bank (NAB) where he held a variety of senior executive roles – beginning in strategy and moving to the Digital Channel team and Product Management. Most recently, he held the title: Executive General Manager, Deposits and Transaction Services where he was responsible for $3bn of revenue and a team of 600. While there he sponsored development of NAB’s real-time payment capability, contributing to important national payments infrastructure. Mr Starkey represented NAB on the boards of New Payments Platform Australia, the Australian Payments Council and ASX-listed Home Loans.

Mr Starkey’s career began as a strategy consultant. For more than a decade, he spent most of his time abroad advising multi-nationals in the USA, France, Japan, Korea, China and New Zealand.

Mr Starkey has been active in the Australian start-up scene. In 1999, he co-founded iSelect, a pioneering online insurance comparison site that went on to be listed on the stock exchange. He has been an early-stage investor and advisor to Doshii, Lug & Carrie, Surreal and several other technology ventures. Currently, Mr Starkey serves on the Board of CitoPlus, bringing transformative digital technology to the commercial lending sector. He was recognised in The Australian newspaper’s "The List - 100 Innovators 2021.

Mr Starkey graduated from Monash University in 1996 with a Bachelor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering with Honours where he was the recipient of the Victorian Power Industry Scholarship. In 2002, he graduated from Harvard Business School, where he was awarded a Baker Scholar (High Distinction) and the Loeb Fellowship for outstanding achievement in Finance.