Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, January 2026 – Alisa Belova has been appointed as Head of People at MLAI (Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence Australia). In this role, she will lead people strategy, community capability building and talent ecosystem development as MLAI advances its bold mission of enabling 1,000 AI startups by 2030.
Alisa Belova brings a strong blend of startup, digital commerce and enterprise talent leadership experience. She joined MLAI after serving for over four years at Coles Group, where she most recently led large-scale digital talent programs as Program Lead – Insourcing, and earlier as SSC Talent Acquisition Lead – Digital and eCommerce, playing a key role in strengthening Coles’ technology and digital workforce pipelines.
Alongside her enterprise leadership role, she served as Venture Talent Acquisition Lead at Swaggle, Coles Group’s pet-specialty retail startup venture, where she led rapid team growth and talent strategy for a high-growth digital commerce business.
Earlier in her career, Alisa held recruitment leadership and consulting roles at Kogan.com, Finite IT Recruitment Solutions, Resource Solutions Group, and PwC Russia, building strong foundations in digital hiring, data analytics, startup workforce building and graduate recruitment.
About MLAI
MLAI Aus Inc. is a non-profit organization and Australia’s leading community of artificial intelligence and machine learning enthusiasts. MLAI hosts community-driven events with the mission to help create 1,000 startups by 2030, strengthening Australia’s innovation ecosystem.
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