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Before going to Cranfield School of Management, I’d had what people call a portfolio career. I’d decided the corporate life wasn’t for me and I had an opportunity to move back into professional sport. I was a rugby player but not a very good one, so I moved into coaching and sports performance directorship. Then I started to capitalise on that experience by analysing how lessons from high-performance sport could apply to teams working in high-pressure situations elsewhere.
In my mid-thirties, I worked alongside recruiters who were building and selling recruitment companies. Perhaps it’s my rebellious nature, but I wanted to do it myself, so I set up my own recruitment business, which allowed me to learn first-hand how to grow, structure, raise investment in and sell or spin out companies. All the business-school buzz words I was later to learn, I was living and breathing in my thirties.
I had a co-investment with a UK investment dragon. I loved the business. And they saw potential in me, which was fantastic. But I lacked the language and financial acumen. And I felt my personal values and their values weren’t compatible in the long term. It was a very amicable exit but that’s what I did.
I’d always wanted to do an MBA because my father did one and he talked about how it impacted his career and his life. He was a lot younger than me when he did it. I came to Cranfield, in Bedfordshire, in 2020 as a slightly unusual person compared with the normal demographic because I was in my late thirties.
I was terrified of the academic rigour I was walking into. But what Cranfield did really well was explain the language of business. And the course focused on you as an individual. It was very personal — and emotional — for me.
I felt I’d use the MBA to transition into the corporate world. But it actually did the exact opposite. I was interviewing at a well-known investment bank, and we were talking about what my role would look like. It was a fantastic opportunity, but I wanted to be in a position where I could feel the outcome of my decisions directly.
Halfway through the MBA, we had the opportunity to work on individual or group projects. I did both. I looked at new ways of investing, particularly around sustainability and social impact.
That brought me into contact with other people on the MBA and faculty who bought into that vision. It’s with those people that I spun out Colab-8 Consulting, an investment adviser that helps early-stage entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs who’ve hit a sticking point to use innovation to move forward.
I left Cranfield understanding my purpose and re-energised. But I stayed close to the school through involvement in its Cranfield Venture Capital Investment Competition. It became the catalyst for Oakmere Partners.
Chief financial officer Martin Spiller was a senior lecturer in entrepreneurship at Cranfield. He’s always thought that there are more equitable ways in which businesses can be built and funded for the long term. He and I had spoken about the idea for Oakmere, but we lacked the other people to make that happen. Then Martin said, “I think I’ve found some people from Cranfield.” It took me 15 seconds to say, “When and where?” And Oakmere came to life.
Everyone at Oakmere has come through the Cranfield programme. Three of us have done the MBA and one was teaching. We have all coached participants in subsequent competitions. For the past couple of years, Martin and I have judged it.
Staying close to Cranfield has allowed us to see the best of the best coming through the programme. It’s become almost a recruitment ground for future people as we grow.
We position Oakmere as private equity with a difference. I’d say it’s nearer to growth equity. With a combination of our own money and leveraged funds, we’re targeting the UK small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market to help companies move through succession planning to sustainable growth.
We’ve got a couple of businesses in the pipeline. It’s the classic four years of work for an overnight launch. So it’s very new to the market. But my hope is that in 20 years’ time, Oakmere will be the go-to UK SME acquisition partner. And with Oakmere and Colab-8, I’m like a kid in a sweet shop because I’ve got the opportunity to work with companies from inception through to exit.
