The Path Less Travelled: From EastEnder to Footballer to Biotech Entrepreneur
You are warmly invited to join the next E-Lab event with Darrin M Disley on The Path Less Travelled: From EastEnder to Footballer to Biotech Entrepreneur.
Monday 20 March
6 pm – 6.30 pm: Wine reception in Chetwynd Room
6.30 pm – 7.30 pm: Talk in Keynes Lecture Theatre
TICKETS: book your free tickets here
Dr Darrin M Disley OBE, Parallel Entrepreneur, Angel Investor and Enterprise Champion.
My story is an improbable one. I was born into a poor family in the East End of London, where my father was an ex-convict and builder and my mother a meals-on-wheel lady and cleaner. I was told at age 13 that I was not good enough to study chemistry at O-Level (GCSE) and so went on to leave school at 16 with no formal qualifications in order to pursue first a career in professional football. Finding only moderate success with this, I went back for further education which eventually opened a more rewarding career as a serial entrepreneur, angel investor educator and enterprise champion.
My journey of self-discovery started at Cambridge. Here I developed a new level of confidence that came from a realization that I could succeed in academics and hold my own on a social level with students that came from backgrounds that I considered to be superior to my own. From a research perspective I also identified that intellectual breadth rather than depth could be strength instead of a weakness, as it helped me to see how technology could be applied to deliver commercial and societal impact. This, along with an aptitude for bringing those smarter than me together to solve big problems, combined into a platform for building a career in the commercialisation of technology.
I have gone on to start-up and grow of numerous business ventures securing over $700 million business financing from grant, angel, corporate, venture capital and public market sources as well as closing over $700 million of product, service, licensing, and M&A deals. Three of these businesses failed and each of the successful ones have gone through difficult phases that required resilience, resourcefulness, reflection, and a sense of reciprocity to overcome.
This talk/discussion will focus on entrepreneurial traits, mind-sets and motivations as well as highlighting my idea of a “Home Run” model of how to build a successful business that works for all stakeholders. I exemplar the lessons (good, bad and ugly) learned from my journey from EastEnder to footballer to entrepreneur, angel investor and enterprise champion