‘Beating the odds’ is the launch focus of a new Enterprise Tuesday series, organised by the Entrepreneurship Centre at Cambridge Judge Business School.
What does it take to overcome probability and gain competitive advantage? How do you identify the pivot points and how necessary is it to be flexible? Where should the balance be between correcting the course and sticking to the plan and how does this help you to beat the odds?
These are questions that many entrepreneurs and innovators have to answer as they develop their businesses, and the sort of issues that will be addressed on 8 November by guest speakers at the first Enterprise Tuesday session of 2016-2017.
Monica Grady CBE, Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University, was involved in the European Space Agency’s Rosetta space probe project. She’ll talk about how the team overcame the odds to successfully land Philae (Rosetta’s lander module) on a comet in 2014. Monica will be joined on 8 November by Tim Jones, CEO of the Allia Group and Chairman of the quoted flavour and fragrance supplier, Treatt.
Enterprise Tuesday, managed and delivered by Cambridge Judge Business School’s Entrepreneurship Centre, is a series of lectures and networking sessions which are free to attend and open to all. They are held in November and in February.
The programme is an opportunity for those looking to explore entrepreneurial opportunities, to get informed on the “how to” of being an entrepreneur, and to build quality networks with peers, practitioners and experts. It’s also a chance for the business community to mix with the next generation of talent. This is the most popular non-assessed programme at the University of Cambridge attracting between 200 and 300 attendees per session and has been running for 16 years.
Other Enterprise Tuesday events in November will feature:
John Williams, Founder of The Idea Lab, is an entrepreneur who has successfully realised his vision. He will be speaking at Enterprise Tuesday on 15 November along with Carrie Bedingfield, Founder of Onefish Twofish, on the importance of creativity in every step of the entrepreneurial process. John started his career in creative technology, and became Digital Media CTO at a European startup incubator before moving to head up a small media technology consultancy team at Deloitte. He founded The Ideas Lab in 1996 and wrote a bestselling book, Screw Work Let’s Play.
Herman Narula founded Improbable, a platform for creating new worlds for gaming and entertainment, in a barn four years ago. Herman is talking at Enterprise Tuesday on 22 November about how the team leveraged resources in the early days to enable the venture to progress successfully.
Lloyd Dorfman has a story to tell about his involvement in entrepreneurship and philanthropy. He is the Founder and President of the Travelex Group, the world’s largest retailer of foreign exchange which he started in 1976 from one small shop in central London. Lloyd is our guest speaker on 29 November and will talk about how he grew Travelex from one small shop in London to a global business. It’s also an opportunity to learn more about his approach to philanthropy, and discover what motivates him to back one business or charity over another.
Speakers in the February series of Enterprise Tuesday will include: Sir Tim Smit KBE, Co-founder of the Eden Project; Ann Cotton OBE, Founder and President of Camfed; and Matt Mayer, CEO of Taylor Vinters. Enterprise Tuesday starts on 8 November at the University of Cambridge’s Engineering Department, nearly across the street from Cambridge Judge Business School.