The Chief Technology Officer role remains one of the most sought-after positions in technology leadership, yet also one of the most misunderstood. La Fosse recently brought together seasoned CTOs and CPTOs to cut through the romanticised perceptions and share the unvarnished truth about what it really means to step into these senior technology roles. 

The reality check: it’s not what you expect

The conversation opened with a sobering reality that few CTO roles match initial expectations. The technical playground that many engineers envision simply doesn’t exist at the CTO level. The role demands far less hands-on technical work than anticipated, with significantly more organisational responsibilities that many don’t expect. 

The common thread across all CTO experiences is that there’s no one above you who can answer technical questions. Yet this technical authority comes with responsibilities that extend far beyond technology itself. 

The great title confusion: no two CTO roles are the same

Perhaps the most crucial insight shared was the massive variation in what CTO roles actually entail across different organisations. The title itself can be almost meaningless without understanding the specific organisational context and structure. 

This variation creates a critical challenge for anyone considering the transition. Due diligence becomes essential when exploring CTO opportunities. Understanding the full technology leadership structure, including whether there are CIOs, CPTOs, and other C-level technology roles, can make the difference between success and stepping on colleagues’ toes. 

Different organisational structures dramatically affect the role’s scope and effectiveness, with some companies having multiple C-level technology roles that can create confusion and conflict. 

The courage to seize the moment

Despite the challenges, timing and courage are crucial when CTO opportunities arise. Many successful transitions happen when individuals find themselves already performing CTO-like responsibilities and have the courage to formalise the role. 

The advice from experienced leaders is clear: when the opportunity presents itself, you must be prepared to act decisively. These positions don’t follow linear career paths, and opportunities may not present themselves again if missed. 

The difficult conversations nobody talks about

The discussion revealed the darker aspects of CTO responsibilities that many don’t anticipate. People management challenges, particularly around restructuring and redundancies, often fall squarely on the CTO’s shoulders. 

This responsibility creates a fundamental conflict for those transitioning from engineering management roles. As a VP of Engineering, your primary concern is the engineering team. As a CTO, your allegiance shifts to the executive team, creating difficult decisions that can feel conflicting. 

The guidance for managing this tension focuses on authentic decision-making. Following your heart and doing what you genuinely believe is right for the business becomes essential, even when those decisions are difficult for teams you care about. 

The enterprise architecture blind spot

An unexpected theme emerged around the critical importance of enterprise architecture in certain organisations for  CTO success. Many of these organisations lack proper enterprise architecture functions, which can create a significant blind spot for CTOs.

In these companies, this gap can impact strategic technology decisions and organisational alignment, highlighting how
enterprise architecture skills become increasingly important as AI and data initiatives require
strong foundational structures.

In smaller, or less regulated companies, this is less of a concern and often is picked up by senior developers in conjunction with the CTO.

What makes the role worthwhile

Despite the challenges, the unique opportunities that CTO roles provide consistently emerge as the primary draw. The breadth of impact extends well beyond technology, offering input into commercial vision and organisational strategy. 

Technology leaders are no longer confined to back-room roles. There’s a growing recognition that tech should have a voice at the top table, though this requires fighting for that position in many organisations. 

The networking and learning opportunities, combined with involvement across multiple business areas, create a stimulating environment for those ready to embrace the broader responsibilities. 

The not-so-one-way door

One encouraging insight is that CTO roles aren’t necessarily permanent commitments. Internal promotions in particular can offer flexibility, allowing individuals to step back if they discover the role isn’t suitable. 

This flexibility provides reassurance for those hesitant about making the transition, though it’s more feasible with internal moves than external CTO appointments. 

The challenges: time, politics, and technical distance

When examining what leaders dislike most about CTO roles, several consistent themes emerge. Limited personal time, including challenges taking adequate holiday, represents a practical concern that impacts work-life balance. 

More significantly, the political aspects of senior leadership prove challenging for many technically-minded individuals. The energy required to navigate organisational politics can be draining for those who prefer direct, solution-focused approaches. 

The distance from hands-on technical work represents perhaps the biggest adjustment. The excitement of exploring new technologies and solving technical problems becomes limited, replaced by higher-level strategic considerations. 

The workforce evolution: AI’s impact on roles

Looking forward, the traditional boundaries between CTO and CPTO roles are blurring, particularly with AI enabling product managers to create prototypes and demos independently. This technological shift is driving role evolution and potentially consolidating responsibilities. 

Economic pressures are also forcing organisations to reconsider multiple C-level technology roles, with many companies finding such structures duplicative and expensive. 

Making the decision: honest self-assessment

The final consideration centres on honest self-assessment. Before pursuing CTO roles, individuals must genuinely examine whether they’re prepared to leave behind hands-on technical work. 

Many talented engineers discover they prefer remaining close to technology rather than moving into the broader organisational responsibilities that CTO roles demand. This preference is perfectly valid and important to recognise before making the transition. 

Managing change and communication

Successful CTOs must excel at change management, requiring clear communication about end states and extensive effort in explaining changes to diverse stakeholders. The ability to modify messages for different audiences becomes crucial, whether speaking to technical teams or broader business stakeholders. 

Starting with why becomes essential. People need to understand the reasoning behind changes, even if the specific destination isn’t completely defined. 

Remote leadership considerations

The modern CTO role increasingly involves remote team management across multiple locations and time zones. Success requires dedicated effort in communication, including regular town halls and structured updates that maintain connection across distributed teams. 

While fully remote CTO roles are possible, they demand additional investment in communication structures and relationship-building to maintain effectiveness. 

The path forward

The conversation revealed that successful CTO transitions require more than technical expertise. They demand political acumen, people management skills, strategic thinking, and perhaps most importantly, a genuine desire to operate at the intersection of technology and business. 

For those considering the step up, the guidance is clear: understand exactly what the role entails in your specific organisation, be honest about what you’re willing to give up, and when the opportunity arises, have the courage to seize it. 

The technology landscape continues evolving, and with it, the nature of senior technology leadership roles. Understanding these realities helps ensure that career transitions align with personal goals and organisational needs. 

La Fosse continues to facilitate these crucial conversations, providing technology leaders with the insights needed to make informed career decisions and navigate the complexities of senior technology roles. 

The post To CTO or Not to CTO: Navigating the Leadership Decision appeared first on La Fosse.

The mobile development landscape has matured dramatically, yet mobile engineers still face unique challenges when stepping into broader technology leadership roles. La Fosse recently brought together experienced mobile engineering leaders to discuss how they’ve navigated this transition and what advice they’d give to others looking to expand their influence beyond the mobile domain. 

Escaping the “mobile person” label

The conversation opened with a challenge familiar to many mobile engineers: being pigeonholed as “the mobile person” when aspiring to broader leadership roles. 

Neil Sheppard, Head of Mobile Engineering at Zopa, shared his approach: “One of the things that happened at Moonpig was I’d been a mobile guy for a few years, and my boss said, ‘you’re head of mobile, you’ve got two direct reports. It’s quite a small scope.’ So I said, ‘Okay, well, I need to increase my scope.'” 

His solution was proactive: volunteering to lead the company’s migration from data centre to AWS, despite having limited cloud experience. “It was never really about doing anything technical. When you get to that level of role, it’s more about orchestrating and making sure that people are unblocked,” Neil explained. 

This approach worked, leading to additional platform migration projects and eventually breaking free from the mobile-only perception. 

The mindset shift: from end of chain to orchestrator

Mobile engineers typically work at the end of the development chain, consuming APIs and rendering interfaces for end users. The transition to leadership requires a fundamental mindset shift. 

“With mobile, you tend to be at the end of the chain,” Neil explained. “But when you start to branch out from being mobile, you find that you’re no longer end of the chain.” 

The key insight emerged around expanding impact beyond the immediate mobile domain: “It might be a technical problem, might be a marketing problem, or it might be a process problem, whatever it might be, but really try to branch out to much wider impacts. The wider the impact, the more visible the work, the more valuable it is,” added Vesselin Iliev, Head of Engineering at N Brown Group. 

Building trust across teams

A crucial skill for mobile engineers transitioning to leadership is learning to trust and build relationships with other engineering teams. As Vesselin noted: “You don’t have to learn everything. What you have to learn as you grow is how you can trust and build economy, build ownership with other teams and other people.” 

This represents a shift from the mobile engineer’s tendency to want to understand every technical detail to focusing on enabling others and removing blockers across the entire technology stack. 

Advocating for mobile’s unique value

The discussion also addressed how to champion mobile development in organisations that might undervalue it. The advice was pragmatic and data-driven. 

“For me, it goes back to understanding what the business wants,” shared Greg Pugh, Head of Engineering at Bourne Leisure. “We can say we’re engineering-led teams, but we are business-led. Part of our roles as leaders is to understand what the business wants, what they drive towards, and then build the right products to support that.” 

The importance of data emerged as a key theme from Vesselin: “Show me the data. Is that an assumption that someone has, or is that real data?” He discovered that despite assumptions about their customer base being older and less mobile-oriented, “55% of traffic actually came through mobile devices,” with better return on investment than web. 

The mobile advantage: demonstrating what web can’t do

Mobile offers unique capabilities that web simply cannot match. As Greg put it: “Web development is so homogenised, so basic. It’s not woven into people’s lives in the way that mobile is woven into people’s lives.” 

The end-to-end experience mobile enables creates opportunities to demonstrate value: “That journey that was an email that dropped into their inbox, or was a push notification that took them to just the right place to do the thing and then triggered another journey, that is our unique mobile superpower,” he explained. 

Even simple features like haptics can make a powerful impression on leadership teams unfamiliar with mobile’s capabilities. 

Leadership lessons beyond mobile

The conversation revealed that many challenges faced by mobile engineers transitioning to leadership are universal leadership challenges, not mobile-specific ones. 

Key insights included: 

• Intent matters: Understanding whether you actually want to move into leadership, or whether it’s happening by default, is crucial for success. 

• Leverage existing experience: Most mobile engineers have broader technical backgrounds they can draw upon when demonstrating capability beyond mobile development. 

• Look for growth opportunities: Actively seeking projects outside your immediate domain demonstrates ambition and capability to stakeholders. 

• Focus on business impact: Understanding and aligning with business objectives is essential for any technical leadership role. 

The multiplier effect of good leadership

One of the most compelling points made was about the often invisible value that good technical leadership provides: “Somebody who’s caring about those individuals is multiplying the effectiveness of those individuals. Decisions are being made before they get to engineers, and some of those decisions are really, really stupid. If you can stop those happening, that’s the value you’re providing,” observed one of the panellists. 

This insight resonates beyond mobile engineering, highlighting how effective technical leaders shield their teams from poor decisions and enable them to focus on meaningful work. 

Moving forward

The mobile engineering community continues to mature, and with it, the career paths available to mobile engineers are expanding. The key is recognising that the skills developed in mobile engineering, combined with intentional efforts to broaden scope and demonstrate business impact, create strong foundations for technology leadership. 

As these leaders demonstrated, success comes not from abandoning mobile expertise, but from leveraging it as a springboard to broader influence and impact. 

La Fosse continues to bring together technology leaders across specialisms to share insights and support career progression. These conversations provide valuable peer learning opportunities for engineers at all stages of their leadership journey. 

The post Breaking into Leadership: The Mobile Journey appeared first on La Fosse.

Developing young talent speaks to my personal values and, as a leader, it’s where I’d love to continue to take the business. Providing an equitable starting line for young people to begin their careers is front and centre for me, and La Fosse Academy offers just that – we train and develop the next generation of junior talent, with a focus on improving DEI in the industry. It speaks directly to our vision of helping create a world where talent is recognised regardless of background and lived experience.  

That equitable starting line was one of the reasons I was attracted to the fast-paced world of the recruitment sector in the first place. Irrelevant of your background, upbringing, education, financial backing, or societal beliefs, there’s a home for everybody who has the right skill set – it’s what makes our industry a vibrant and energetic place for your career.  

This sadly comes with its downsides, with varying levels of quality and consistency for our customers and candidates, but I truly believe there’s exceptional talent in our sector, delivering real value to businesses and the wider economy. The numbers speak for themselves, with the UK recruitment market now estimated at £140 billion (a £20 billion increase on 2019), highlighting the importance we play in continued growth.  

One of the most rewarding parts of my job is hearing about the experiences of the rising stars we’re developing at La Fosse Academy. I’ve recently been speaking to some of our current and graduated Associates, alongside some of our key Academy customers.  

Harry de Blaby was part of the first cohort at La Fosse Academy. He completed his placement with C. Hoare & Co., was taken on permanently, and has recently been promoted to Delivery Manager. Harry went from a deckhand on luxury yachts to signing up to the Academy and subsequently beginning his tech career in London.

Harry says of his experience: “The Academy set me up with all the skills I needed. Even going into a role that I wasn’t technically trained for, I still had the technical, industry-relevant base knowledge to understand what an API was, how a system hangs together, DevOps processes, and all the must-haves to develop a successful career.” 

Harry’s mentor and line manager, CTO Chris Loake, says the qualities he’s looking for in entry-level talent are “a general aptitude to learn, to problem-solve, to apply skills to shifting context”. Chris says he believes good leadership is about not walking past problems but addressing them and finding solutions. By identifying junior talent to provide diverse thinking and problem-solving, Chris and his team have unlocked future potential that now contributes to the private bank’s current and future success.  

Sophie Hebdidge, our Academy Director, said recently, “The Academy is special because it’s different. We worked backwards when we designed the programme, asking our customers, “What would you benefit from in terms of junior tech talent joining your business?”. We’re not only training people in specific skills or tech – we’re teaching them the underlying techniques they need to be able to succeed in the workplace. We took this approach because technologies continue to evolve, and it allows our Associates to follow the career path they feel most inspired and empowered by.” 

Some of our Associates have found themselves exceeding their own expectations. Zahra Mahmood is 18 months into her placement at the Department of Transport and has not only developed her technical capability but has gone above and beyond with her wider professional skills. Most notably, she won a nationwide hackathon and attended a presentation at 10 Downing Street. Zahra credits the Academy for giving her the opportunity to stretch herself, and she’s now looking forward to a successful career in the civil service as a result.  

Although there are numerous individual success stories, and we’ve now helped over 200 Associates start their careers in tech and transformation, not everything is rosy. The market is competitive, and the economic backdrop is challenging. As a result, customers in every sector are battling for business and facing the question of where to allocate hiring budgets.  

Whilst many customers buy into the idea of solving junior tech talent shortages and improving long-term DEI shortfalls, the reality is it requires a solid support structure, an attractive employee value proposition, a stable management team, and a consistent flow of good talent. None of these challenges are easy for us to solve, but we’re excited about what 2024 has in store for us, our Associates, and our Academy customers.     

(If you’d like some further reading, I thought this article by McKinsey made some interesting points. And if you’d like to talk to me about any of the topics in this blog, please do reach out as I’d love to hear from you.) 

The post Young talent – The equitable starting line appeared first on La Fosse.

Despite the overwhelming prevalence of technology in our everyday lives, and the progress of gender equality, women are vastly underrepresented in the tech industry, and movement towards a better balance is woefully slow.

We want to change that. 

Our DEI Toolkit relays actionable insights for employers, employees, leaders, and individual allies who want to play their role in retaining female tech talent, and presents practical guidance on career progression for women working in technology. 

Summarising discussions that took place at our Closing the Revolving Door: Women in Tech event, held in partnership with Preqin and the Tech Talent Charter, the toolkit outlines ways to engage and empower women in tech and support female retention across the industry.  

The challenge

Women working in tech increased by just 1% in 2022.  

While conversations on gender disparity at work have gained traction in a wider sense, the increase of women working in the tech industry is barely marginal. But the issues go beyond poor growth.   

An eye-popping 50% of women working in technology leave by the age of 35. For those who stay, the statistics don’t improve, with 20% of women over the age of 35 still in junior tech roles, and only 22% of senior tech roles held by gender minorities. 

The benefits

Gender diversity at work is better for business. 

Improving gender diversity in tech is not only about fostering fairer and more equitable working environments; recruiting and retaining gender-diverse teams simply makes good business sense.

Diverse teams offer fresh perspectives, generate unique ideas, and present new approaches to problem-solving. Out of this comes a greater readiness for innovation, more valued and engaged employees, higher employee retention, and balanced decision-making. Ultimately, a gender-diverse workforce equates to higher revenue growth and a firm foundation to recruit and attract a diverse talent pool. 

According to a report by McKinsey & Company, gender-diverse executive teams are 21% more likely to have above-average profitability compared to companies with less diversity.

Despite the clear advantages of retaining female tech talent, leaders keen to adopt a more inclusive culture can be doubtful of the value DEI programs bring, with a significant 51% of CEOS reporting that current DEI initiatives are not effective.

The solution

How to promote gender diversity and inclusion in the workplace. 

We each have a different role to play in promoting gender diversity at work. If you’re asking yourself “What can we do as a company? What can I do as an individual?”, we have actionable insights to help you make better decisions.  

Learn how to: 

• Recognise and reduce the gender pay gap 
• Create gender-equal promotion and progression opportunities 
• Foster family-friendly work culture 
• Overcome hostile work environments 
• Educate and create allyship through support networks 

Download the DEI toolkit

The post Women in Tech DEI Toolkit: How to drive diversity and retain female talent appeared first on La Fosse.

Within the corporate world, women often face difficulties in advancing their career at the same rate as men, with the industry’s longstanding diversity and gender gaps both causing and compounding this issue. Although it is everyone’s shared responsibility to #BreakTheBias – the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day – there are many ways women can get ahead in the industry, creating space for themselves to thrive, driving change, and inspiring others.

For this blog, we interviewed three women who are leading the way in technology and tech recruitment within the La Fosse group:

Hannah Crisp – Managing Consultant at La Fosse

Sophie Hebdidge – Academy Director at La Fosse Academy

Claudia Cohen – Head of Commercial at La Fosse Academy

Excelling in your career

Be bold and play to your strengths

Being self-aware within any career is important, and one of the main keys to growth is knowing your weaknesses but playing to your strengths. Hannah Crisp advises women in tech to “find the aspect of tech you are passionate about and let that fuel you!”

Although there may be boundaries or restrictions which make it harder to succeed, you shouldn’t let them limit what you can achieve. In order to thrive, you must believe in your own potential. When you assertively challenge societal norms and put yourself first, this attitude will change how others perceive you, and you in turn will inspire other women to succeed.

“Be bold and dream big. You can achieve whatever you set your mind to.” – Sophie Hebdidge

Step of your comfort zone

With the tech industry constantly evolving, there is always something new you can learn. Claudia Cohen reiterates the importance of this. Her advice is to “have the right attitude, be willing to learn, take feedback, and always look to constantly be improving.”

​Use the ever-changing environment and new emerging trends to create opportunities for yourself by offering up your own unique opinions and knowledge to your networks. Say yes to new opportunities that arise – you may end up surprising yourself!

“The best way to learn is to do – so say yes to chances when they come your way.” – Sophie Hebdidge

​

Standing your ground

Stay true to yourself

Although ambition is vital for success, it’s equally as important to stay true to yourself and your values. Standing your ground can be difficult to do and is something that women often struggle with, especially those with less experience in leadership roles, but it is a skill worth developing. Hannah is just one of the many female leaders who find this challenging at times.

“I saw my male colleagues as headstrong or determined but I was worried about being deemed as “inflexible or difficult.” – Hannah Crisp

This is a common theme within the workplace, but it doesn’t mean you should compromise – have conviction in your own beliefs, stand your ground, and don’t be afraid of what people may think. Chances are you may be raising opinions on behalf of other underrepresented groups and setting a precedent to help your peers feel comfortable in speaking up too.

Rock the boat

Within the world of work, you’re going to have different opinions from others (and maybe even better ones!) so contribute, lead, and shake things up a bit! Never fear the rejection that may come with presenting new ideas because every opinion is valid and everyone has the right to be heard. You’ve worked just as hard to be where you are as everyone else, so trust your ability, take that opportunity, and run with it.

“Don’t be afraid to rock the boat. You’re at the table, so make it worthwhile.” – Sophie Hebdidge

​

Connecting with others

Find a mentor and be a mentor!

Forging relationships with people on similar journeys to yours and drawing from their experience helps you to expand your knowledge base and skillset. When interviewed, Sophie swore by mentoring as being the best way to get ahead. She advised that women “never stop asking for advice from someone who is a few steps ahead in their career. Use them as a sounding board for big decisions, tricky situations, and guidance.”

If you already feel like you are in a position to help others, do the same – you will probably be surprised by the number of people who view you as someone they look up to. ​

“Be a mentor. You don’t need to be senior to mentor others, you’ll be surprised by how much you can learn from passing your experience onto others.” – Sophie Hebdidge

Build a support group

Surrounding yourself with people who inspire and support you can be incredibly useful to your career. Especially given the tech sector’s lack of female representation, having a support circle with other women and allies is a great way to explore your thoughts and ideas in a safe space.

“Seek out mentors and sponsors within the business who can help you develop.” – Claudia Cohen

If you’re confident and keen to enact change, there’s no stronger force for breaking the bias than using your experience to become a leader and supporter of other women. As Hannah states; “It’s our role to champion other women.”

Find inspiration

Make use of other influential figures – gender irrespective – within your business and wider networks to learn and take inspiration from. Some other ways Sophie does this is through reading books, listening to podcasts, and following inspirational people on social media.

“I feel so lucky to be part of a team and to work with so many women internally and externally that really inspire me and challenge me to be more ambitious!” – Hannah Crisp​

​Where to next?

To read about how we are creating an inclusive environment for women at La Fosse, learn more about our dedication to Diversity and Inclusion within the workplace here.

​If you liked this blog, you might also like:

Women in Dev #1: Why software talent wants more than table tennis

Women in Dev #2: CTOs, Software and Sherlock Holmes

The post Getting ahead… as a woman in tech appeared first on La Fosse.

The conversation around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) is not a new one. And yet, excessive time spent studying and talking about what the problems are only delays change and results in lost generations of opportunity. The time for action is now, and conversations across the board need to start moving from ‘how do you see the problem?’ to ‘what are we actively doing today to solve it?’

We brought together 25 DE&I leaders from organisations of all sizes to discuss their visions for the future, common stumbling blocks, and how we can support each other to make this vision of equality a reality.

​What DE&I initiatives can I implement in my business?

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach for DE&I. Where large organisations may have large spending pots, for start-ups and scale-ups, competing budget priorities mean it’s often hard to implement large-scale projects. But regardless of size, so long as actionable steps are put in place at all levels and a percentage of the organisation’s budget is dedicated to ensuring this can be executed, true DE&I is an achievable goal.

Government legislation is also an effective way of driving change within larger organisations. One example of this is affirmative action planning, something which is mandated in the US for organisations who have over 50 employees and specified federal ties.

An affirmative action plan (AAP) is a written document which outlines an organisation’s specific plans and data on representation within the workplace, including information on how many colleagues are hired, how many leave, a target growth rate for improving DE&I and the plan to make this happen. Currently, the US law surrounding AAPs only measures three strands (female, Black and Hispanic employees) but the scope for expansion of this legislation is promising, and certainly something that other countries and organisations would do well to adopt in the near future.

To encourage buy-in past implementing formal policies and a DE&I officer, another initiative many organisations are setting up are employee networks (also known as affinity or employee resource groups). Usually run voluntarily by employees, these provide a safe space for their peers to openly discuss thoughts and experiences around DE&I, among other topics. Not only have networks been shown to increase employee retention rates and make organisations more desirable, with the right backing from HR and the executive board (such as rewards or incentives for those involved) they can provide highly beneficial insights in all areas, from D&I to business growth and customer relations.

​What has been done so far to improve DE&I?

Across the board, progress has been made towards improving demographic diversity (gender, race, ethnicity, age, religion, sexual orientation, neurodiversity etc.) but there’s still a lot to be done. Here are some positive examples given by our panellists:

• Women in Finance Charter – over 330 financial firms across the world have pledged to promote gender diversity by committing to implement four key industry actions.
• After hitting its goal of achieving a minimum of 30% female representation on FTSE 100 boards, the 30% club has now expanded its 2023 targets to include there being “at least one person of colour on every FTSE 350 board […] with half these seats going to women”.
• In October 2020, Legal and General told FTSE 100 organisations that they will vote against those who fail to diversify their leadership teams by 2022. They will openly vote against re-election of chairman or head of nomination committee if this is not met.
• The Diversity VC Standard is an assessment and certification process that sets a benchmark for best practice within VC and sends a signal that a fund follows best DE&I practices to the rest of the ecosystem. With more funding, this could be extended to start-ups and scale-ups to better support D&I as they grow and give them more exposure.
• The Investor Leadership Network is currently building a dashboard that allows people to mentor and coach each other. This has a lot of promise for fund/project managers who aren’t ready for institutional capital and perhaps don’t yet have a board of directors but have a lot of potential. With the right attention, this project could help people to get to board level more quickly.
• The Private Equity Women Investor Network (PEWIN) has recently announced plans to expand its US-based Project Pinklight – an accelerator program designed to help women launch their own private equity funds – into London. The project helps female founders to give and receive assistance with upfront capital to get off the ground.
• Investment firms including KKR, TPG and Goldman Sachs have programs which involve office hours for advice and a ‘big sibling relationship’ where they take on an advisory role and lend their name for fundraising – some seed capital needs to be used, but this is not always easy to get in the first place, so smaller organisations could do with more support in this area.

Many organisations, including La Fosse, are also now including socio-economic factors in their D&I plans. Our coding academy was founded in 2018 to tackle the diversity issue within software engineering, and uses a free-for-students policy to provide equal opportunities and focus on applicants’ individual ability rather than their ability to pay.

​What are the hurdles faced when trying to achieve DE&I?

The consequences of not focusing on DE&I are clear: continued employee tribunals, continued BLM protests, and general injustice and imbalance across the world.

And yet, when budgets are tight, DE&I initiatives are often the first thing to come under scrutiny for being a ‘nice to have’ rather than an essential function. Even tech giant Google has recently been accused by employees of reducing their internal D&I training team, leaving vacancies unfilled, and cutting back or dropping some programmes completely.

1. D&I is not simply an HR/CEO/board-level responsibility – although they are responsible for setting tone, every employee is responsible for ensuring D&I. Approximately 50% of DE&I best practices are not directly related to diversity, but are practices desired by everyone, such as fair treatment and organizational flexibility.
2. Currently, there is no consistent measurement system for data regarding the D&I process. This makes it hard for judges to compare when one organisation has data and others don’t, and in most cases, the one with auditable data will win
3. Whether conscious or unconscious, bias exists everywhere. According to blind hiring organisation FairHire, 20% of 540 UK female BAME jobseekers surveyed altered their name in applications and almost all who changed their name reported a higher level of call-backs from potential employers – unconscious bias training can help us to eliminate this.
4. Differences in legislation (such as LGBT rights) between countries can make it difficult to implement a cohesive strategy.
5. There are a lot of barriers in the way for people from diverse backgrounds hoping to start a VC organisation or fund. Founders are expected to have tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds readily accessible, as well as the ability to relocate, which simply isn’t viable for a lot of people.

How can we close the DE&I gap?

Successful DE&I initiatives are not ‘pet projects’ to be put on the backburner, they are long-term, targeted campaigns which include every single leader and hold people personally accountable for meeting objectives. To see results, programs must be connected and aligned at all levels, and also require organisations to invest in doing it properly. D&I results require passion – individuals at all levels need to have the right mindset and be personally committed to achieving positives and contributing towards fighting injustice. As one of our panellists asserted, ‘diversity shouldn’t be a layer on top or a topic of the week, it should be baked into the DNA of the organisation’.

For the final part of the event, attendees were given a hypothetical scenario: with £100,000 and a 12-month window, what can we do to close the D&I gap?

• One of the difficulties in finding talent is that firms often seek highly experienced candidates who are well-established names within their industry. Expanding the pool of candidates to be considered doesn’t necessarily require capital, but instead is dependent on networking and open-mindedness on the part of employers. Organisations should be agile and willing to give opportunities to people without previous board experience, whether it be nurturing internal talent or looking for external candidates with an ambitious mindset.
• Create a database of corporate leaders willing to take board seats within VC-funded organisations. This could also be reversed, giving scale-up leaders the opportunity to sit in on board meetings and gain valuable experience.
• Develop a database of diverse corporate executives and match people from different backgrounds with people at scale-up/start-up businesses to help them develop with D&I in mind. Increased effectiveness could be achieved by pairing people by sectors or specialisms.
• Implement a reverse mentoring scheme whereby executives from diverse backgrounds mentor leadership teams on the benefits of having a diverse executive team. This could be executed within or across sectors.
• Establish the UK’s first DE&I talent investor, funding the program through corporate sponsorship and family capital. Corporates would make a commitment to contribute X% saved from postponing, cancelling or modifying graduate schemes (and the like), with family capital using the broader momentum behind impact investing to entice investment.

Rather than simply recruiting and promoting people in their own personal likeness, leaders should focus on competency-based hiring. Why do you want to hire someone diverse – what soft skills like growth mindset and innovation are we assessing, and what does ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ look like in these areas? Having data and a scoring mechanism could help shift the dial, but it’s up to business leaders to evangelise and bring everyone along on the journey.

​Final words from our event chairs

“D&I leadership and sponsorship has come a long way in the last few years. Today’s executive leaders need to do whatever they can to ensure that in 20 years we are not having the same conversation. We hope this event provided impetus and insights into how we can collectively work together to close the D&I gap.” – Sunil Jindal

“In order to create change we must be bold and decisive. We must stop talking about stats and the issues we have in our society and hold everyone accountable to create change now, not in 10 years’ time. It was a delight to work with our amazing speakers on this event and thank you to everyone who attended.” – Sean Kiff

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With this in mind, it was a pleasure to host “Discussing Diversity,” a panel event held in partnership with GfK and Kobalt Music, facilitated by CEO and co-founder of the Tech Talent Charter Debbie Forster MBE. Debbie was joined on the panel by: Jessica Cecil, Director of the BBC’s Online Project; Ben Jones, CTD at GfK; Tessa Clarke, co-founder of OLIO; Oliver Beach, CEO of Futureproof and chair of Out in Tech London; Jacqui Lloyd, apprenticeship lead at Citi; and Kelly Vickery, employer branding manager at Kobalt.

The need for greater diversity

Growing concerns around D&I have led many businesses to rush their diversity initiatives. While the eagerness to create a diverse organisation is to be commended, the need for speed can lead to “box-ticking,” with businesses filling quotas and considering the job complete.

However, this approach is short-sighted. Diverse hires will not remain at an organisation which does not have an inclusive culture. The positive impact of diversity on the bottom line is well documented, but this impact won’t be felt if the business cannot retain these staff.

What’s more, without diverse voices in the meeting room, businesses will fail to reflect their customer base, appeal to a broad range of demographics and broaden their potential market.

With many organisations still at the start of their D&I journey, our panel discussed what organisations can learn from one another on the way.

Build an inclusive culture first

Culture plays a huge role in promoting DE&I, which means Inclusion needs to be at the heart of strategy. The common epithet is that ‘Diversity is inviting people to a party. Inclusion is asking them to dance,’ or as one panellist put it – “diversity is a reality. But inclusion is a choice.”

This means assessing and changing current ways of working in order to best suit each individual, and building an environment which allows everyone to thrive. We can see the beginnings of this in the increasing number of businesses offering a “remote-first” policy on flexible working, making it easier for people to work in a way which accommodates their lives.

However, it could go further, and luckily there are organisations around to help drive the initiative. Debbie’s Tech Talent Charter is a commitment organisations can undertake to deliver greater parity amongst their technical staff, while the Valuable 500 has recently launched a similar mission specifically focused on disability and neurodiversity in the workplace.

The role of allies

Because people are fearful of offending and saying the wrong thing, they sometimes fail to say anything at all. In fact, an important part of inclusion is the role of allies in supporting marginalised groups.

Individuals should feel able to support minority candidates in their organisation, and safe spaces where those inside and outside of diverse groups can have difficult conversations are key. As one panellist put it: “there is no point in having conversations in isolation.”

Where next?

The first step needs to be assessing the diverse needs of your organisation. Businesses can begin by learning more about their employees, how diverse are they, what are their specific needs and wants when it comes to DE&I and how inclusive they feel the organisation is.

The role of leaders is vital to highlight the importance of these initiatives, and those in senior positions must be seen to be the driving force behind D&I plans.

Finishing on a high, panellists explained that the time is ripe for change – as demonstrated by the number of companies signing up to the Tech Talent Charter in the past few years. Though there’s still a long road ahead, many have taken the first steps – and we look forward to seeing a more inclusive future.

I’m Claudia, Head of Client Services at La Fosse Associates. If you’d like to learn more about this or future events, or discuss driving diverse hiring in your organisation, get in touch: Claudia.cohen@lafosse.com or tillie.hands@lafosse.com

If you want to read more on Diversity in the workplace, check out these blogs:

10 Ways to Overcome the Diversity Challenge

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This season, the Secret Leaders team organised a series of live events, each bringing together brilliant guests to discuss the ups and downs along the way to building their companies, and how they are trying to change the world for the better.

In the second of these, held on the night before International Women’s Day, host Dan met some of the most respected leaders in the UK to discuss all things leadership, equality, and entrepreneurship from a variety of perspectives. See below for insights from: Renée Elliot – Founder of Planet Organic, Alexandra Depledge – Co-Founder of Hassle & Resi, Reshma Sohoni – Co-Founder of Europe’s biggest seed investment fund, Seedcamp and Alicia Navarro, founder of Skimlinks.

Role models are timeless

The lexicographical implications of “female founder” can be unhelpful. All of the entrepreneurs on the Secret Leaders panel have achieved phenomenal things in business – and don’t count being women as restrictive. ‘I have succeeded because I’m a woman, not in spite of that.’ Pointed out Reshma. Alicia concurred. ‘If being a woman has been the hardest thing you’ve had to deal with on your journey in business, you’ve been lucky.’

Female role models are still important though, hence the old adage: “You cannot be what you cannot see.” This is why Renée’s role models aren’t just those who are older than her. ‘I am inspired by any woman, whatever age, who is following a business that they believe in, that makes a difference, that they have a huge passion for and that they just can’t go through life without doing. I look up to those women – no matter what their age.’

Investment X Factor

For many founders, VC Seed investment is the first trigger towards dreams becoming reality. Winning funding from this community is notoriously difficult for women – for every £1 invested by VC in the UK, less than 1 penny goes to start-ups run by women. As entrepreneurs, some of whom won first round of funding over a decade ago, what’s their perspective on the current landscape?

‘It’s getting easier, but you still have to be incredibly tenacious and determined.’ Observes Renée. But Alicia also pointed out that investors aren’t just looking for passionate entrepreneurs – VC investment necessitates a very specific business model.

‘People have a misconception that raising money is like X Factor. But if you’re seeking VC investment, you’re essentially committing to raising a massive caffeine injection of funds every two years. It’s crucial to understand that dynamic when you’re pitching.’

Do your homework – and don’t be afraid of your ambition

With 1 in 5 UK businesses run by a woman, perhaps the rollercoaster of VC is simply not the route that the grand majority are choosing to go for. ‘The stats don’t lie – there aren’t enough women getting funding.’ Observed Alex. ‘But part of this might be because women might want to do it slightly differently – they want to build a business, their way and in their own time, and don’t want to get on that treadmill where you have no life.’

Reshma, founder of one of Europe’s first early-stage VC funds, Seedcamp, didn’t deny the pressures associated with her industry.’ Not every business should take VC, so definitely do your homework. But, if you like the sound of it, don’t be afraid of your own ambition. For me, I’m in this because I love the pressure.’

Having children

With 2019’s theme for International Women’s Day as #balanceforbetter, one of the most difficult balancing acts for many entrepreneurs and parent is the tightrope between work and family. Though women’s role as the primary care-giver is increasingly being challenged, subjects like childcare and paternity and maternity leave remain thorny issues.
‘When I meet mothers aged 30-45 who have battled through their careers, it’s very rare that their husband hasn’t taken a step back in their career which has allowed them to do that.’ Said Reshma.

Alex is unsatisfied with the way mothers are treated in business. ‘When I got pregnant with my first child, my investors were furious. But with my second, I committed to taking 8 months off. During that time, my business partner took the company from £70,000 revenue to £150,000. So I defy anyone to tell you that a CEO can’t have a child whilst advancing a massive high-growth company.’

As an employer, Alex ensures that her business grants equal maternity and paternity rights to reflect these values. ‘Men need to be taking equal care of children if we are going to get further.’

What works for networking works for dating

So what should up and coming female entrepreneurs bear in mind on their journey? Alex believes it’s a good time to be a woman. “A lot of people are looking to tick a box, so take advantage of it.”

Alicia and Reshma reflected on their time at breakfasts at Piccadilly Waterstones, and the value of networking – as you never know which meetup will change your life. ‘What works for networking works for dating.’ Said Alicia. ‘Most people are just happy when someone is easy to chat to and takes the initiative to talk to them.’

Superpowers

To conclude, all the guests were asked by an audience member what their superpowers were:

Renée: ‘I have a clear vision, bags of integrity and an open heart.’

Alicia: ‘Empathy – truly understanding how people feel about a challenge let you build a great product around it. Resilience – aka the ability to laugh off everything that happens to you and make a great story out of it.’

Reshma: ‘Optimism. I’m smart. And humour – I don’t take myself or anyone seriously, so I don’t get bothered by what anyone says.’

Alex: ‘I’m humble. I’m quite authentic. And I have an incredible sense of what’s fair – I don’t build companies to make money, but because I want to make a difference to my staff.’

The post Leadership, equality, and entrepreneurship appeared first on La Fosse.

Here are Emma, Dominic, Liz and Simon’s key considerations for creating and nurturing a world-class culture.

Culture is fundamental to business growth

Our panelists each have their own take on what great culture is, and how to attain it, but one thing they all agree on is its importance. It’s not just about keeping people happy – it’s crucial to business success.

“If you’ve got a good culture, you’ll get 40% more discretionary effort from your employees,” explains award-winning business coach Dominic Monkhouse. La Fosse Founder, Simon, agrees. He started La Fosse in 2007 with the premise that a caring and collaborative culture should be not just encouraged, but expected. “The company is culture,” he says. “We’re a people business and everything else is built out from there, so we take it very seriously.”

For Liz Robinson, Head Teacher of Surrey Square Primary School (rated outstanding by Ofsted), culture and values are much more than something to aspire to. They represent everything which the school is about: “values are at the heart of what we do,” she explains. If a behaviour, a project or a programme doesn’t meet those values – Responsibility, Respect, Enjoyment, Community, Perseverance, Compassion and Excellence – it simply won’t be tolerated.

Leaders lead by example

To build a great culture, you need to know what you expect from your team – and they need to know that too. “Culture is what people do when no-one is watching,” says Dominic. “A good culture is when people choose to do the right thing all the time, not just when they’re likely to face consequences if they don’t. ” To get to that stage, it’s vital that your colleagues know what the right behaviour is, and see it in action.

That means leadership from leadership – senior figures demonstrating what the right thing is when everybody is watching. Emma Cerrone, Co-Founder of digital transformation experts Freeformers, is clear on this point: “Management sometimes talk about culture as if it’s separate from their own behaviour.” She says “In fact, they need to start by thinking – what are five behaviours I can exhibit which bring our values to life?” By clearly demonstrating these in every opportunity, they are asking employees to replicate their behaviour.

That’s why, under Liz’s leadership, the mantra of “personal and academic excellence: everyone, every day” underpins everything that happens at Surrey Square. Because both staff and students are clear on that, the school is a better place.

Maintaining culture means reaching everybody

We often expect business leaders to be infallible. But if leaders are to encourage a culture of openness and honesty, they need to admit that they don’t do everything flawlessly. “Leaders need to have the humility to admit they mess up sometimes”, Simon admits, “It’s this which gives their employees permission to be less than perfect, and get on with learning – the activity which is at the heart of a great culture.”

Dominic agrees that the tone set right at the very top is key. He has seen it first-hand himself in turning around companies where poor management is making everybody unhappy. “The CEO in a business casts a very long shadow,” he notes. “If they’re miserable, they’ll have a very miserable company, and they’ll deserve to be miserable for the rest of their lives!”

But leadership won’t guarantee that every member of your team buys into the culture, even if management adopts it wholeheartedly. Finding ambassadors who are willing to maintain standards at every level is vital. Emma likes to ask: “Who sits in the canteen at lunchtime? Who organises the most nights out?” If the social hub of the office upholds that culture, others are much more likely to buy in.

A changing culture needs great recruitment

Cultures will change over time – for better and for worse. When founders and leaders are developing their values and aspirations, they need staff who are willing to get on board with their vision.
At Surrey Square, Liz makes no apology for demanding that her team adopts the values which have seen the school skyrocket to excellence. As she points out, there are 22,000 other schools in the country for them to try if they can’t, or won’t, adhere to the school’s values.

But finding the right people is no easy task. Dominic’s advice is to invest time in getting recruitment right. We’ve all seen the job ads which warn: “If you have not heard from us within 10 days, you should assume that your application has been unsuccessful.” “Why would I want to work for them?”, he asks. No company which treats applicants with a lack of respect from the outset deserves to recruit the best talent. “If you outsource your recruitment, make sure you know what impression your job ads are giving of your business.” he advises.

Trust in culture

The challenge for many young businesses, start-ups and rapidly scaling disruptors is that with so much going on, it can be difficult to focus on building, maintaining and changing culture for the better. But when done right, culture is not just an asset – it can be the basis for the success of a whole organisation.

Take Simon’s word for it: “The journey we’ve been on has simply been about getting the culture right, and the rest has followed.”

Want to find out more about building a world-class culture through world-class recruitment? Get in touch with claudia.cohen@lafosse.com, or call on 020 7932 1652.

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Venture Capital is funding the future. Therefore, it’s imperative the decisions made by VCs are free from bias, and that they encourage their portfolio companies to hire from a diverse talent pool. This will have a knock-on effect on the wider tech industry. Unfortunately, VCs cannot promote diversity within their portfolios without first addressing the lack of diversity in their own organisations.

A study of 160 active VC firms and over 1,500 employees, carried out by the non-profit partnership Diversity VC in May 2017, found that:

• Women comprise just 27% of the VC labour force compared to 47% in the U.K. labour force overall. This figure includes non-investment professionals within VC.
• When specifically considering investment roles (from the titles of Analyst to Partner) women are further underrepresented at only 18%. The equivalent figure for non-investment roles (such as Investor Relations, Marketing and Legal) stands at 43%.
• Women represent only 13% of decision-makers in VCs (decision-maker = An individual on an investment committee, typically an investment partner, who makes the final decision over which investments to make)
• Almost half of all firms have no women in their investment teams. Looking exclusively at decision makers, a staggering 66% of investment teams have no women decision-makers.

Diversity VC is aiming to significantly improve female representation at a senior level in the industry, through working with firms to set targets that are both ambitious and achievable. Their industry-wide goal is to see women holding at least 20% of senior decision-making positions in U.K. VC by 2020.

To help achieve this, they partnered with a number of industry experts including two La Fosse consultants, Tillie Hands, and Andrew Richardson, to co-write ‘Diversity in VC: A Practical Toolkit.’ The toolkit is designed to help VCs recognise their own biases and drive diversity within their own teams, as well as their portfolios.

Andrew and Tillie co-wrote Module 4 on ‘Offer Management and Induction,’ including:

• Questions to ask prospective candidates to test how inclusive an atmosphere is promoted within your business
• How to tailor your job offer to suit the requirements of individuals from different backgrounds
• How to design an induction process, PDP and Buddy System which provides employees with a structured support network from Day one

Read the toolkit here >

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For tech enthusiasts who grew up dreaming of a world of practical applications for intelligent machines, these are exciting times. The use of AI in everyday life has rapidly become ubiquitous, governing everything from how long we spend waiting at the traffic lights to the price we pay for a pair of jeans online.  

The business opportunities presented by AI, and machine learning within it, are vast – and it’s down to Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) to apply AI-driven predictive technology for the benefit of their customers. We sat down with a selection of leading C-suite tech executives from businesses old and new, in sectors from fashion to transport, and asked them to discuss what challenges they’ve faced, and share insights around the solutions found (or the failures experienced) in their organisations when it comes to Machine Learning and AI. 

Here are their top 3 key priorities.  

Keeping it personal

“The problem with personalisation is that if you always show people exactly what they want, they never discover anything new. We’re trying to find a way around that.” 

Some of the most innovative work in machine learning currently goes into building the engines which serve personalised content. Depending on the sector, an intelligent platform can offer a customer hundreds or thousands of options, based on sophisticated assessments of what they want, where and when they want it, and how much they are willing to pay. 

Successfully presenting those options to consumers can drive sales, traffic, and customer loyalty: a buyer is more likely to return to a platform if they know it can pick out the products they want, based on existing browsing and spending data. But even the most accurate engines can serve up problems as well as predictions.  

Developing an algorithm to crunch data on the choices a consumer makes online and predict what they will need next is simple enough in theory, but tricky in practice. Focus that calculation too closely on previous choices, and you can inflate a ‘filter bubble’ around a customer, so that they are only ever offered what they know they already like. Suggestions can become obvious, repetitive, or boring. But placing too much emphasis on other predictive variables, like age, location or gender, risks losing accuracy and precision. 

Tech leaders are already tweaking their engines to address the personalisation problem. Leading news organisations know that their readers want pieces which challenge, as well as support, their views. Fashion retailers know that when trends change, so do the tastes of their consumers. So, increasingly, CTOs are looking to develop tools which will serve some options with a lower degree of certainty – products or services which buyers might want, as well as what they will want. Some CTOs are even building two or three different versions of an engine, to experiment with that balance, allowing for more speculative predictions of what a customer may want, to supplement the safe bets.   

To Spotify, or not to Spotify?

“We’re not as agile as we’d like to be. Spotify isn’t really on our radar. I’m focused in addressing our legacy challenges first.” 

As competition for talented developers and data scientists intensifies, and digital-focused organisations place more importance on agility and adaptability, CTOs are finding that structuring and staffing have become an increasingly important part of the role. Every CTO will be familiar with software development principles and practices, like Agile and its sub-set Scrum. But that does not mean that they agree on how they should be applied to the production of new AI products and capabilities. There are new debates among management: one of the largest being, to Spotify or not to Spotify? 

Spotify is famous for its adoption of an ultra-Agile working structure, in which developers are organised into autonomous, collaborative ‘squads’, with freedom to decide themselves what they want to create, and how they should go about doing it. Many CTOs have embraced the philosophy and have set about instilling a culture with maximum trust and minimal control from the top. For others, though, the model isn’t realistic.  

Keeping a team responsible for developing new machine learning tools nimble and responsive is an especially important challenge for tech leaders in older companies, where manual workforces and traditional operating models present real legacy challenges. Whilst start-up CTOs enjoy a blank canvas on which to plan their internal structures and operations, those in mature organisations are not always so lucky.  

Too much data?

“I’m not sure if sending your team away to dig through the data and look for general patterns is the right way to do it. I’d rather they were productising from the start.” 

A true CTO will tell you that there is no such thing as “too much data”. But with the amount of information companies can store rapidly expanding, it is easy to collect data simply for the sake of it – without actually considering which customer problem it is there to solve. 

The temptation for many CTOs is to take all their available data, and then create a product that can use it – but that is generally thought to be the wrong way around. As one C-suite tech leader acknowledged: “It’s easy to find yourself trying to develop an app to use the data, simply because the data’s there.”  

There is no doubt, though, that having large amounts of information to analyse is a benefit, not a hindrance – it just needs to be used correctly. For some, that means delving into the data and searching for patterns with predictive value. Others would prefer for their teams to be “productising” from the very beginning of the process.  

CTOs agree, though, that it is wise to keep asking two basic questions throughout the development process, regardless of philosophy: “What is the problem that I’m actually solving here? How am I making the customer experience better?” 

Are you leading a digital team and considering how ML and AI can help drive your business forward? Let us know what you would add to this list. 

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David Peto has just returned from lunch where he has been picking the brains of an old friend about the ongoing repositioning of the company. As part of the evolution of the business he has recently hired a COO; an ex-Sega man who brings some big company rigour to what is still a very entrepreneurial company with many of the slightly chaotic characteristics of a start-up, “I can come up with an idea, build a small core team, build it, get people to buy-in, buy the product and pay me some money, but after that I’m pretty rubbish!” Would he describe himself as stressed? “Yes, I would!” How does he deal with it? “I ignore it. We may be a highly successful company or we may be acquired for millions or we won’t. In 10 years, if I’ve made a bit of money, I’ll have joined a gentleman’s racing circuit – bought a GT with a pro-driver. Stress over.”

David Peto the son of a Scottish farmer is 34, lives with his wife and daughter in Lewisham, south east London, and Aframe is his brainchild – an idea hatched after a career that started out on stage. It is a cloud-based video production company that changes client’s video production from, he says, “capex. to opex.” His tag line is “better video everywhere”. “The world of professional video has gone tapeless, the shoot ratios have gone from 4 hours for every hour you see on TV to 70 hours for every hour you see on TV and people need to invest in hugely expensive equipment, Aframe is a system in the cloud that will make it remarkably easily.” That is, or was, his elevator pitch when securing his first round of angel funding 4 years ago. With companies like MTV, Red Bull, and ESPN on board things seem to be headed in roughly the right direction.

They all said I was nuts and that it wouldn’t work

It seems the idea had been coming for a while; he is tight-lipped about the exact timing. For years, he’d been watching people struggle with video while working as an actor and later as a producer in the film industry, “you or I will struggle organising our family videos, multiply that by ten thousand and you have the average challenge of someone who makes video professionally”. So, in March 2009, he found himself squirrelled away above a strip joint in the West End of London with a desk, a phone, a laptop and an idea on a side of A4. Things must have felt exposed. “I’d gone from having 10000 sqft of prime Soho real estate, at Unit Post which I co-founded, with runners that bought me tea and sushi and shiny things, and a bar onsite that I owned”. He took the idea to various people he trusted – “they all said I was nuts and that it wouldn’t work”. He then took that idea round to various people who had wanted to put money into his previous firm, but couldn’t, for whatever reason, and said, “Gimme 10 grand.” And they did.

At a recent La Fosse roundtable David had spoken out against UK entrepreneurs constantly bemoaning the tight fisted VCs, ” it annoys me, but there is money out there” he says, “It’s not like the US here, but they complain that people don’t get the idea, when actually 90% of ideas out there are flawed”. He continues, “A few good ones get funded, but if you can’t get funding it means your idea is crap or you need to work out a better way to pitch it. You have to be credible enough to make someone believe that YOU are the person to deliver on your ideas. It’s always the same, ideas are meaningless, anyone can have an idea. I have five a night in the bath; it’s about making it happen. Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything”. You can see the passion in him that has certainly been the significant contributor to his success so far. “The idea behind Aframe is not so amazingly brilliant that I am the first person to think about it – BT spent 150 million quid trying to build what Aframe is, about 3 years before I did it. They just did it wrong”.

“VCs I talk to say, “Would we rather fund a great idea with a b-grade team or a moderately good idea with an a-grade team?” They’ll go for the a-grade team every time because they will make it a better idea. If people aren’t ready to invest go away and come back in 6 months and show that you have started to complete the steps, i.e. build a small prototype or do some detailed market research. Keep feeding people proof that you are going to do what you say you are going to do. Try and show potential investors the steps to delivery”.

So, has his elevator pitch changed over the last four years? “Yes, it has. For companies that are serious about video Aframe empowers their teams to deliver. THAT’S IT. You work with video, we’ll make it better.” And what about the industry, has it changed too? “Not really, broadcast media in general moves so slowly, but when it adopts something that makes it better it does that very quickly. The good news is that the cloud is firmly on the agenda now and so it’s up to us to go and educate people. After 4 years, we are still educating the market on what the cloud means. We are becoming the dominant thought leaders about what it means to work on video in the cloud.”

Now we’ve mentioned the C word can he define what it really is or means? “I’m not a fan of the term; it just means you don’t need to put something in your office, I mean, it’s all about collaboration, saving on IT, saving on staff, office space, adding new services. Most people who buy a cloud service these days are business people NOT techies. The power is shifting from the CTO, who may want to spend their time talking about latency, to the user.”

So what about his competition? It does seem a little unlikely that David is building his business largely unopposed. “Our main competition is the status quo. I don’t see anyone else who has our capabilities, which sounds ridiculous because we are only 30 people…..one or two have some of the features, they just don’t have the grunt under the bonnet”. There is, of course, some competition to Aframe – one in particular, MediaSilo, was founded back in 2008 by Kai Pradel, in the US. It has just received $2.25m of series-A funding from Schooner Capital – the Boston-based VC led by Vin Ryan, the man behind Iron Mountain. “We take them very seriously, but we are not just a flashy piece of software, we own all our own service, own our network globally, the entire security infrastructure, every single line of code, everything is under our control. You can throw 70 terabytes of media at us and we can handle it without breaking a sweat.”

Our main competition is the status quo

So, 4 years in and is he where he wanted to be? “NO! I expected to be way bigger. Of course you do. Otherwise, you’d never do it. You’re never happy where you are” Define way bigger? “Well, in year 3 I thought £23m revenues”. And did he think that was realistic at the time or did he think, ‘you know what? I am just going to shout about big numbers, and see what happens’. The first casualty of the year is the plan right? “Every VC expects that.…we could have had £23m in revenues if certain things had gone differently, it wasn’t pie in the sky. We are way ahead of where most people would be.” So, no raised eyebrows among your backers at those numbers then? “Look, a business plan at that stage is there to show that you are capable of planning, when you sit with the VC they will check the market size and the opportunity, and that your numbers are realistic within those parameters. The number one reason companies don’t get backing is that the market is too small….no matter how cool your idea. It’s a credibility exercise. Everyone gets hung up on the plan! The backers flick straight to the back of the plan, ‘got any customers?’, ‘have they paid you?’ ‘Now, let’s see the CVs of those involved.’ “You know what? If I started again, I’d get a better valuation…..”

“Revenue projection is clearly more important now, but it’s still a bit of a game – you set your numbers so people buy into them, but so you’ll be able to beat them.” To start with David acquired all his seed capital from a super-angel round. “Some without seeing numbers, can you believe it!?” Although he now has some bigger VC involvement, in the early days the backers were all private individuals who seemed to work far more on a gut instinct and on ‘who vouched for you’ before parting with their money. So no Dragon’s Den then? “No! I hate that programme. It’s not a business programme….why make a fool of yourself on TV…… everyone has meetings that don’t go well, why on earth do that on TV.”

So what about the more human side of running a business like Aframe then? “When you start up you are a little family, but it doesn’t mean you all go round to each other’s houses for dinner. We are a company of people, in their 30s, so we have families and other commitments out of work. We are not a group of 23-year-olds, who live in each other’s pockets. Back in the last firm the guys I was with were and still are among my closest friends, we’ve all been to each other’s stags and weddings……it was a very different time.”

One of the biggest changes at Aframe last year was the people. I mean, you never find yourself sitting back and saying I’m really glad I waited that long to fire that person – you will come up with almost any excuse not to do it, one of my problems is that I become really close to a lot of these people, and I’m asking them to do difficult things, to push themselves outside their comfort zone and work long hours….However, I do have a rule if you want to work for me – “no d*cks”! You have to be a nice person to work at Aframe. I’d rather have someone who is very good and a lovely guy than someone who is a genius, but who is a total d*ck! I’m doing this because I hope to make some money, but I have to enjoy it. It’s an interesting question – would I rather be making money hand over fist and not really like any of the people I work with or would I rather be doing fairly well and really like all the people I work with? I’d have worked in an investment bank if I’d been happy with the former I suppose. Friendless and loaded!”

You need common sense, not an MBA

So is finding good people tough? “Operations and marketing is relatively easy, technology and finance is a total nightmare. We avoid contractors where possible.” And what about a ‘consigliere’, is there someone you can offload some of the day-to-day pressures to? “Wedo now, the new COO. I had been doing this alone. I had a CTO, who is a mate, and was my wingman although he’s left now – on good terms. I have been the frontman, salesman, press man, and operations man all at once and have been doing all of them pretty ineffectually.” David has clearly been stretched – he does have a chairman and, one assumes support from the VCs but no one operationally in the business. “I needed someone who could say ‘… this is f*** *d, but don’t worry I can fix it’…..most importantly pulling me up when I’m wrong. That’s a key role of a wingman in my view – to whisper in your ear,’ now you’re being a d*ck’…. that’s not something everyone can do”.

So what advice have you got for people setting out on a similar path to yours? “Just do it. No one can tell you what it’ll be like….you need common sense, not an MBA, and don’t go to the Doug Richards School of Start-ups and slavishly write things down. Just go and do it. I have a rule of three…if I don’t know something, I’ll firstly phone someone and ask really stupid questions and they’ll no doubt think I am a total pillock. Then I’ll contact someone different and talk to them, sound a little less like a pillock, and then I’ll ask the person I really need to speak to and sound like I know what I’m talking about.”

David has, unsurprisingly given his boot-strap view on the world, no formal business qualification – he studied politics at Warwick and then chose the theatre. He was brought up on a farm, “mixed arable and barley for whisky”, in Scotland near Melrose. He was educated in Scotland – then a boarding school in England.

Was acting his number-one choice? That didn’t work so go and run your own technology business? “well, no, because if you asked me to go back to acting I’d say, ‘over my dead body’. It didn’t really work like that….when I was 7 years old living in rugby country in Scotland, I was small, wore glasses and was slightly rotund. When I first walked out on stage I played The Wizard of Oz, it felt really good. All through school I acted. I always wanted to act. I went to drama school, got an agent and did some TV commercials and some plays. Some did ok, but most tanked. Then basically, I just started coming 2nd for everything, I just missed out on a major HBO movie -life could so easily gone in a completely different direction.” Eventually, he found being in a play doing the same thing week in and week out was boring him, so he started producing them and films. One day he bumped into a friend that owned a production company that then morphed into co-founding Unit Post, where he took the CEO role and that was that.

So does he differ from the classic model CEO – is he quirky? He doesn’t think so. “I liked to be judged on where I am now, my credentials for raising money for Aframe were having grown Unit Post Production not having been an actor. As the years go by and Aframe is stomping round the world crushing all before it, then maybe I can have some fun with my background. Until then I want to focus on the here and now.”

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