CAMentrepreneurs Newsletter #11/24
Richard Lucas
News, forthcoming events and an interview with Tom Peach
The Alumni Office ran a feature article about CAMentrepreneurs origin story, the importance of volunteering and Richard Lucas’s entrepreneurial journey, including photos from events in Dubai, Edinburgh and London.
Launch in Switzerland
On 22nd November, at Impact Hub Zürich under the leadership of Raphael Rothenberger and his team at 19:00 . Details here
CAMentrepreneurs LSE Mixer
Connect with fellow founders from CAMentrepreneurs and LSE for an evening of networking, collaboration and innovation on 20th November in London at LSE Generate, Details here We appreciate the generosity of the partners of Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP who are contributing to the costs of this event.
CAMentrepreneurs Edinburgh: Founder Stories
Claudia Duffy and her team held their first since the pandemic as per here
CAMentrepreneurs Paris with LSE Generate: Innovation & Investment Paris: Driving Growth Through Capital
Luis Briseño-Roa and the Paris team organised a successful event with LSE Generate in Paris. Many thanks to all those involved.
Entrepreneurship Education Partnership with Infrastructure Ventures
We have a new partnership with Infrastructure Ventures offering a short course in Entrepreneurship as per here . More information and application here . Read an interview with Ian Foley, whose initiative this is. here.
Summer Drinks Pitch Festival
Our Australian friends make us aware of the great weather in Sydney with their Summer Drinks Thu, 21st Nov 5:30 - 8:00 pm Tea Gardens Hotel, Bondi, NSW Tickets here
Save the dates.
London First Wharton/CAMentrepreneurs joint event Monday 29th January 2025.
Oxford 3rd February “How to find a co-founder - lessons learned and horror stories”
Organisational News
Victoria Kimonides is launching a group in Greece
Tom Peach co-founder of our Sydney Group, is starting an interview series with entrepreneurs, which may include a podcast. Get in touch with him if you want to be involved via this form
Owen Stubbs and Tom Nolan are planning a relaunch in Warsaw
Interview with Tom Peach - CAMentrepreneurs Sydney Co-Founder & Entrepreneur
Richard: Please introduce yourself, your business and explain what took you and your family to Sydney, Australia.
Feel free to to introduce your wife Rachel’s business as well
Tom: My linkedin can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tompeach/
And my company here: www.pocketrachel.ai is the latest venture we’re building.
Richard Please describe the role you have in CAMentrepreneurs, why you decided to get involved, and the sort of activities you and James Stewart have organised
Tom: I’m one three co-organisers along with the two James’s (Stewart and Butler). I got an email from you (Richard) inviting anyone who had the words Cambridge / Entrepreneur / Sydney in their linked-in bio to a call as you were coming to Sydney on holiday and wanted to organise a chapter when you were here. If memory serves, there were over a hundred emails sent, ten people turned up the call, and two of us organised the first set of meetings and it organically went from there.
Richard: You have mentioned about the participant orientated format of our meetings being particularly important. Please explain more and why it this matters so much.
Tom: To use the teaching cliche you want to have a guide on the side, not a sage on the stage. The people who come to these events have rich experiences and a diverse set of backgrounds, and they each have interesting stories to tell. I love participating and what makes us special is the opportunity for people to share, learn, and make connections.
Richard: You have mentioned community as being important. I know you think that this is particularly important in Australia. Please explain why ?
Tom: I think the problem we’re solving is a community problem. There isn’t yet a Silicon valley, Glen, or Gen in Oz - yet we have some incredibly successful companies that were born here and have changed the world.. So - how do we create in a small way some of that community power and help each other.
Richard: You have positively mentioned the Cambridge Society of NSW . In what ways do you cooperate?
Tom: I think CamSoc does things that we don’t do - from incredible speakers to bare foot bowling (for non-Australians this is worth a google). Because they’re different there are people who are networked in CamSoc who come to CAMentrepreneurs through that channel and vice-versa.
Richard: How might CAMentrepreneurs evolve over the next few years if things go the way you want them to ?
Tom: There are differentiators I don’t want us to lose: our open-ness, sense of fun, and participation culture. In the short term I would like us to get better at networking between chapters and sharing stories across the world. Ultimately I’d love us to have a VC arm to invest in early stage Camentrepreneurs start ups, but that’s probably a few years down the track.
Richard Anything I didn’t ask you would like to share
Tom: Just a thank you for the opportunity to get involved in CAMentrepreneurs, it’s been incredibly stimulating, and fun.
Richard: How can people get in touch with you if they want to ask more questions or want to help?
Tom: tom@criticalstrategicinsights.com and +61 413 462 399 (but beware of the time difference, it’s often tomorrow in Australia).
CAMentrepreneurs Links
Our social network Linkedin Group and Linkedin Page
Official Listing site our website Mentoring platform
Youtube Being a City Leader “About CAMentrepreneurs” here
Richard Lucas, Founder
Linkedin About richardlucas@richardlucas.com