Unbeknownst to most people, LSE’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is on a par with MIT and Harvard’s, producing 27 unicorns, 25,000 founders, who collectively raise c.$5bn in venture capital investment every year. This first-of-its-kind event will see four LSE alumni, both founders and VCs, come together to share their experiences and insights of building, scaling and funding businesses in today’s environment, discuss the role that LSE’s network has played in their careers to date, and why now a social sciences mindset is more important than ever.
Whether you’re an aspiring founder, already on the founder journey, a VC investor or simply keen to learn more about entrepreneurship and venture capital, this is one not to miss.
Adam French is a partner at Antler, co-leading their UK fund. Additionally, he is a founding partner and chair of Houghton Street Ventures, an early-stage fund investing in the alumni of LSE. Adam previously co-founded and built Scalable Capital, Europe’s leading digital investment platform. Scalable Capital is a fintech unicorn and has raised $350M across five funding rounds with participation from the likes of BlackRock, Balderton Capital, Tencent, Hedosophia and HV Capital. He is also a Non-Executive Director at Innovate Finance.
Julia Salasky is a lawyer and entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of Legl, a business process automation platform for law firms, enabling regulated firms to drive revenue, compliant operations and better client eperiences. Legl, which raised a Series B last year, is her second venture; she previously founded CrowdJustice, the award winning platform democratising access to the legal system (which got acquired by Crowdfunder). She has been named the Financial Times Legal Innovator of the Year, a Marie Claire Future Shaper, and to the Lawyer’s Hot 100.
Tommy Stadlen is founding Partner of Giant Ventures, a global VC firm backing purpose-driven technology founders, and the Co-Founder and Chairman of Tailwind (NYSE: TWNI), which has launched three public companies with a combined market cap of over $1bn. He was previously Co-Founder & CEO of Swing, an imaging technology company chaired by Twitter founder Biz Stone, which exited to Microsoft in 2017. He is also the best-selling author of Connect: How Companies Succeed by Engaging Radically With Society, written with former BP CEO Lord Browne. He started his career at McKinsey, previously worked for President Obama and has a BA from Oxford and an MSc in Environmental Policy from LSE.
Hayden Wood is the Founder and CEO of Beams, a new digital platform making home renovation simpler for homeowners and contractors, and greener for the planet. A certified B-Corp, Beams manages projects end-to-end, provides award-winning designs and pairs homeowners with vetted contractors, all while offering sustainable guidance at every step of the journey. Hayden was previously Co-founder and CEO of green energy supplier, Bulb. Prior to founding Bulb, Hayden read economics and economic history at LSE and spent 10 years as a management consultant, first at Monitor Group then Bain & Company
Hannah Leach is a partner at Houghton Street Ventures, and co-director of VentureESG, a London-based non-profit organisation working with 500+ VC funds and 100+ LPs and asset owners, globally, on meaningful ESG integration across the VC value chain. Hannah has worked in and around the venture and entrepreneurship ecosystems her whole professional career - building accelerator programs, helping corporates innovate, working in high-growth companies, and even starting a company or two.
Larry Kramer has been President and Vice Chancellor of LSE since April 2024. A constitutional scholar, university administrator, and philanthropic leader, he was previously the President of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Dean of Stanford Law School.
More about this event
LSE Generate supports the School’s students and alumni to develop entrepreneurial skills as they build businesses and innovate in the UK and around the world. We offer an all-year-round programme to help at every stage of your entrepreneurial journey and provide the infrastructure to validate, build and scale your business and innovate for the betterment of society.