Guy talks to Duane Jackson, founder of KashFlow, Supdate and Staffology. After a turbulent childhood - separated from his mum at the age of 11 and growing up in care - Duane left school with no qualifications. In between IT contracting and looking for some fast cash, he became involved in his friend's drug trafficking business, but in 1999 at Atlanta airport, he was caught with over 6,000 ecstasy tablets and was handed a five-year prison sentence. On release, he set up as a web developer with support from The Prince’s Trust, but finding that accounting products such as Sage and QuickBooks didn't meet his needs, he developed a web-based application, initially for his own use; that software became Kashflow, and within 10 years, Duane had sold the company for an undisclosed sum, thought to be in the tens of millions of pounds. Duane’s story is one of adversity, resilience and redemption, with many personal and professional triumphs, including the full-circle achievement of becoming a patron of The Prince’s Trust.
In this episode, Guy is joined by Bobby Healy, Founder and CEO of Dublin-based Manna - a potentially game-changing drone delivery start-up - and a highly-valued member of the Tenzing Entrepreneurs Panel. Like many of the guests on The Ascent, Bobby discovered a love of coding as a teenager, and before he’d turned 18 he’d landed a dream job writing video games for Nintendo. While passionate about gaming, Bobby found his way to a job in the emerging travel tech sector, at Amadeus, the global distribution system (GDS) - a behemoth technology platform providing travel agents with direct access to the world's airline booking platforms, but inspired to build something better, he struck out on his own and moved to Mexico City to found Eland, a middleware SAAS business that allowed airlines to connect their booking systems into various hosting platforms. Twelve years later, with over 50 staff, Bobby sold the business to trade. On his return to Dublin, he chanced upon a business with bags of potential, and over the next 15 years, transformed what was then a family-run physical car rental operation into CarTrawler, the world’s biggest B2B travel technology platform. Bobby exited CarTrawler during the pandemic to focus on Manna, which, he says, within three years will either be gigantic or nothing at all.
In this episode, Guy talks to Tom Ilube, serial entrepreneur, Founder and CEO of Crossword Cybersecurity, and a man with such an insanely long list of achievements that it would take pages and pages to list them all. Highlights include: Chair of the Rugby Football Union, CBE for services to technology and philanthropy, non-exec director of WPP, former BBC Board member, founder of the African Science Academy, and 2017 top ranking on the Powerlist, the annual listing of the 100 most influential Black Britons. Tom describes himself as a “start-up guy” and has founded, and sold, businesses that include Noddle – the pioneering credit rating service – and Garlick, the identity protection company, and he was part of the original team at Egg, the UK’s first internet bank. The son of a British Maths and Science teacher and a Ugandan who arrived in Britain in the 50s to attend army training school, his story is refreshingly different from most in the UK tech sector.
In this episode, Guy talks to Rob Pierre, co-founder and CEO of Jellyfish, a global digital marketing and transformation partner to some of the world’s leading brands, including Google, Samsung, Netflix and Nike. Jellyfish has had a seriously rocket-boosted few years – French investment giant, Fimalac, bought 50% of the company for just over $700 million in late 2019, which led to a buying spree, and then the pandemic saw revenue grow exponentially, in part because any business that hadn’t already made the migration to digital woke up to the fact that they had to do it, and do it immediately. Now employing over 2,000 people across 40 offices globally, Jellyfish has featured in The Sunday Times Top Track 250, and Rob has been crowned Media Leader of the Year at the Media Week Awards and featured on the Powerlist 2022, as one of the 100 most influential black Britons. He’s a man brimming with thoughts and ideas and insights, and there’s lots to learn from his determination to do things differently.
In this episode, Guy talks to Sam Smith, Founder and CEO of FinnCap - the largest AIM-listed corporate adviser and broker. Sam started down a typical path for a Bristol University economics alum - as a KPMG graduate trainee - but felt compelled to quit, the moment she qualified, in pursuit of something riskier: co-creating a new division at private client broker, JM Finn. The gamble paid off, and several years later, she masterminded a partial management buyout of the division, which led to the formation of FinnCap. The rest really is history: Sam became the first female chief executive of a City stockbroking firm. Among the many fascinating anecdotes and pieces of intel, Sam reveals the moment a mentor nudged her into thinking much bigger about her ambitions for FinnCap. A shift in thinking that everyone could benefit from channelling, and for Sam, the rocket fuel that led to the exponential growth of the business and an acceptance that her insatiable drive is just that - insatiable. Happily, she channels a good deal of that drive into giving others - women and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds - the tools to unlock potential and the skills to succeed in business.