This is the perfect opportunity to hear first-hand accounts from successful entrepreneurs. The Bettany Centre Entrepreneurship Speaker Series gives you the chance to hear from a variety of entrepreneurs from across a range of industries.
The speakers will give you an insight in to their journey, identifying their successes and any mistakes that they may have made along their way. You will also be given the opportunity to ask questions, allowing you to delve even further in to the backstory of these well-established entrepreneurs.
Attending these events will provide you with a great chance to network with like-minded individuals who share your passion for entrepreneurship.
The events are entirely free of charge and refreshments are supplied (face-to-face events only).
All of our Speaker Series events take place at 18:00 on Thursday evenings in November and February.
Vincent Choi – Thursday 11 November 2021
Vincent Choi is a 2011 Full-time MBA Alumni and is currently the CEO of Pomelo, a mobile payments company that helps merchants accept payments without any additional hardware, which he co-founded in 2017. Before founding Pomelo, Vincent had started four other businesses, one of which he sold in 2009. He trained as a Chartered Accountant and worked for Deloitte and Macquarie Bank before the Cranfield experience helped him change his career trajectory opening his eyes on the different aspects of business and helping him understand the constant challenges of running a high-growth business.
Pomelo has grown from three founders to 60 staff globally operating in 11 countries. They recently raised a $10m investment round helping them grow across Asia including Maldives, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines. Pomelo is currently the largest processor in the Maldives and it was thanks to another Cranfield Alumni that helped him open up that market. As a result, in a few short years, Pomelo has started from the ground and is set to grow to over 20 countries in 2022 and 34 countries in 2023 processing over $10bn across both European and emerging markets.
His experience in fundraising with angels and VCs and dealing with them on the board has been another challenge that sometimes conflicts with growing the business, one which Vincent has had challenge. He will share his mistakes during this talk and hope to break through some of the myths around fundraising, growing a business and what it takes to grow a small company internationally.
