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.
Speakers
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- 09 Nov 2023
- 13 Nov 2023
- 16 Nov 2023
- 23 Nov 2023
Nick Bettany – Thursday 9 November 2023
Chief Executive Officer of LV Care Group
After qualifying as a chartered accountant Nick spent a few years working in the Funds industry in both regulation and administration. In order to move away from back office mundanity he completed his MBA at Insead in 2006 across France and Singapore and went on to work in corporate finance in London for an investment advisory boutique specialising in the hospitality sector. Whilst there he helped take a number of listed REITs private as well as provided advisory work for PE firms with the privatisation of a number of listed hospitality firms.
Nick left the corporate world in 2008 to embark on more entrepreneurial ventures and has since founded a vast array of different companies over the last 15 years. This includes companies within the Tech space – a fintech platform and a hospitality feedback business; Hospitality – a hotel in Seychelles, a multi award and Michelin starred restaurant chain in Jersey and London and also CEO and co-investor in the largest global fractional ownership property fund. Finally within Logistics as founder and CEO of a trucking company in Ghana moving bulk materials across the country.
More recently Nick moved back to Jersey to take the role of CEO at LV Group a healthcare business he co-founded in 2009 and which took Private Equity investment in 2016 and aggressively grew in the 5 years of their support to a £20m revenue business. Following a transaction in 2022 the Private Equity was bought out and the company bifurcated into a PropCo which was sold to a Belgium listed REIT and an OpCo which now has a French trade partner as a majority shareholder.
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Registration available shortly.
Panel Discussion – Monday 13 November 2023
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Daniel George, StepEx
After stints as a builder's labourer and farmhand, Daniel began his "proper" career as a government economist. He completed a Cranfield MBA in 2014 after which he joined Deutsche Bank and subsequently a technology consultancy to the banks as sales director that became one of the UK’s top 100 fastest growing firms. In 2017 he founded StepEx, to remove the financial barrier to education, enabling thousands of students to attend over 60 top tier education providers. Providing the infrastructure to offer courses now for a future payment - with the flagship product being payment with a share of future earnings.
More panel members to be announced shortly.
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Steve Frost – Thursday 16 November 2023
Founder of WorkBuzz
From an itch to multi-million-pound business
After graduating from University of Nottingham, Steve left his banking job to start his first company in 2011 – a market research agency, specialising in franchising, with clients including McDonald’s, O2 and Domino’s Pizza. In 2018, Steve launched WorkBuzz, which is headquartered in MK.
WorkBuzz is an employee experience SaaS platform, helping companies gather real-time feedback from their employees and build great cultures. WorkBuzz has raised > $10m from investors to date, has over 400 clients and its vision is to help impact the working lives of over 1million people.
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Registration available shortly.
Nishant Hada and Simon Rowlands – Thursday 23 November 2023
Investor's perspective in emerging markets
Nishant Hada
Principal at Africa Platform Capital
Nishant is an alumnus of Cranfield MBA 21/22. He works as a Principal at Africa Platform Capital, where he is responsible for evaluating technology startups and investment decisions. Before coming to the UK, he was head of Marketing at uFaber Edutech, an Ed-Tech startup in Mumbai, building the marketing department from scratch. He has 15 years of experience in diverse industries, which span startups, digital marketing, tech companies and as a writer in Bollywood- the Indian film industry.
Simon Rowlands
Co-founder Africa Platform Capital
Simon was a Co-Founding Partner of Cinven for 26yrs, the global private equity firm. This entailed acquiring and growing companies across Europe and the US, whilst establishing and running the Healthcare team.
His family office, Africa Platform Capital was formed in 2016, focussed on investing in Disruptive Technology and Healthcare.
His current board memberships include British International Investment, the UK Government funded development finance institution, Alfa Medical Group in Egypt and Jacobs Holdings in Switzerland.
In 2010 he co-founded the Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust in Zimbabwe, active in human and wildlife conflict. The Trust has 25 staff and now raises over $1 million pa.
Simon began his career as an engineer, spending five years with an international engineering consultancy WLPU, on multi-disciplinary projects in the UK and Southern Africa. He holds a BSc in Civil & Structural Engineering and is a Chartered Engineer.
He graduated with an MBA from Cranfield in 1986.
Simon is Chairman of the Cranfield School of Management Advisory Board and was elected to the Cranfield University Council in 2019.
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Registration available shortly.
