Entrepreneurship Alumni Profiles

8/4/2019 Entrepreneurship Alumni Profiles

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Putting theory into practiceClick on a name to read the full interview

Peter Albers, MBA2008Managing Director, North America, viagogoOnline ticket exchange

Carlo Del Mistro, MBA2009Managing Director, Gelato MioItalian ice cream company

Jim Shaikh, Executive MBA2002Founder and Managing Director, YoomiThe self-heating baby bottle

Ishani Chattopadhyay,MBA2005Founder and CEO, Arctic HoldingsGlobal carbon management company

Vinay Gupta,MBA2007Co-Founder, WhipCarPeer to peer car rental

Chantelle Ludski,MBA2000Founder and CEO, fresh! naturally organicSupplier of organic sandwiches and snacks

Dominic Lake, Executive MBA2003Founding Director, CanteenHigh quality British cuisine


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viagogo isan online ticket exchange that provides a safe andguaranteed way for people to buy and sell event tickets live.

Peter Albers,MBA2008AmericanManaging Director, North America, viagogowww.viagogo.com

Did you apply for your MBA with the idea thatyou would start your own business? The mainreason I pursued my MBA was to broaden myfuture career opportunities. I wanted to avoid beingpigeon-holed in my current industry (infrastructuresoftware), and to give myself a skill-set that couldpotentially be used to start my own venture. WhileI didnt enter London Business School with a plan to launch a business directly after

graduation, I can certainly say the baseline skills I hoped to, and did, develop were withan eye towards entrepreneurship.

In what ways has your MBA at London Business School contributed to yourentrepreneurial success? Discovering Entrepreneurial Opportunitiesstands out,especially in the way it helped me focus on exploring/defining a market need prior toworrying about a business plan. The Entrepreneurship Summer Schoolalso made animpact, as it was a fantastic education to explore my own business idea alongside othercolleagues doing the same. The Entrepreneurship Summer Schoolhelped me realisethat, regardless of the focus of a new venture, there are baseline factors that need to beevaluated (market need, customer propensity to buy). Especially given my background insoftware and Silicon Valley, it was useful to consider how someone launching a fruit

import business, an African leadership consortium, an online social network, or a newfashion line all struggle with similar issues. Lastly, although not an entrepreneurshipclass, Ive found what I learned in both Financial Accountingand ManagementAccountinguseful in my current role leading a growing business.

How do you feel the Discovering Entrepreneurial Opportunities course on the MBAhelped you to develop your new business ideas? Discovering EntrepreneurialOpportunitiesreally hammered home for me the importance of understanding marketneed. It doesnt matter how great you think your idea is; it only matters how great yourtargetconsumer thinks your product or service is. Seems simple, but so many venturesoverlook this important premise.

How did the Entrepreneurship Summer School help you to establish and

implement your business idea? The Entrepreneurship Summer Schoolhelped merealise that the business idea I was pursuing was misdirected. But that business has nowturned into two separate businesses that have potential, and Im on the advisory board ofboth and helping build another start-up. Im living the dream.

Did the networking opportunities at London Business School have a positiveimpact on your entrepreneurial interests? Absolutely. I met Eric Baker, the founder ofviagogo, at the Entrepreneurship Conference at London Business School. The rest ishistory Ive been working with Eric and viagogo ever since. Also, my EntrepreneurshipSummer School mentor, Timothy Barnes, was a great sounding board for the business Iwas considering launching and for considering an entrepreneurial career path.


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Do you feel that there are particular personal qualities that make a successfulentrepreneur? Most entrepreneurs share some similar personality traits, specifically awillingness to disregard the fact that most new business ventures fail. Entrepreneursenjoy battling against those odds, so you could call entrepreneurs overly confident, orsimply foolish. Speaking from experience, Id suggest its a bit of both, but Ive found thechase can be just as fun (if not more fun) than the end result.

Do you think entrepreneurship can be taught? While entrepreneurs may share somesimilar traits, I do think that most entrepreneurs benefit tremendously from support, bothtechnical and personal. Its hard to go it alone. Having a network of friends and mentorsto provide specific advice and a sounding board is key for success (and the maintenanceof sanity), and having the baseline set of skills an MBA provides is useful, especially as abusiness grows beyond the idea stage.

What business advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs? Go for it, but,develop a plan. With a plan, youll realise when youre taking a detour. Without a plan,youll simply be wandering.

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Arctic Holdings is a global carbon management company thatworks with clients and companies to explore opportunitiesemerging in the carbon constrained economy.

Ishani Chattopadhyay, MBA2005AustralianFounder and CEO, Arctic Holdingswww.arcticholdings.com

Did you apply for your MBA with the ideathat you would start your own business?Not really. My intention for doing an MBAwas to diversify my skills and look at acompletely different sector like socialentrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility. I certainly did not think I would startmy own business so soon in my career. It was the exposure at business school, and in

particular, the people that I met which helped me to achieve it.

In what ways has your MBA at London Business School contributed to yourentrepreneurial success? My MBA contributed a lot. I did almost all of theentrepreneurship classes offered and also did an exchange at Columbia, where again, Istudied entrepreneurship. Electives with John Mullins and John Bates were particularlysignificant. In addition my then classmate, now husband, Pranav has made a hugecontribution to my entrepreneurial journey. Hes been an entrepreneur since he was 19and his entrepreneurial spirit rubbed off on me throughout the MBA. I was also involvedwith the Global Social Venture Competition as co-chair, which was a great experiencebecause I was in a position to see ideas transform.

How did you come up with the idea for Arctic Holdings? Immediately after the MBA,Pranav and I took a UK-based company to India and set it up from scratch. The companywas in the field of emissions trading and the learning opportunity was phenomenal. I thenjoined a huge US power major and my role was to set up a new division. In essence, allof my positions post business school have been entrepreneurial in nature. The idea ofrunning a business in the field of eco-sustainability, climate change mitigation and socialventure was a culmination of my values and experiences. Once I had the idea, I didntspend too much time doing the analysis which might be contrary to what a lot of peoplebelieve in. I essentially plunged into it with some guiding principles in mind and thatsalways been the core of the business. I approached my core group of mentors andsupporters and started building the business from there. My business is essentially mynetwork and relationships that I have developed over time.

Did the networking opportunities at London Business School have a positiveimpact on your business venture? Yes indeed. I constantly use London BusinessSchool alumni for everything! I have also had the opportunity of running my business inAustralia and India and have always reached out to alumni for various things frompromoting events Im doing to more specific needs like finding a lawyer or an accountant!

Do you feel that there are particular personal qualities that make a successfulentrepreneur? I think the basic quality of an entrepreneur is being able to follow yourconvictions. Conviction in my opinion is a combination of your values and something youare passionate about. We all have convictions but more often than not, we dont trust orlisten to them. A successful entrepreneur is someone who is able to trust their convictionand follow through. To the rest of the world it may seem like a risk, but to the

entrepreneur, it seems like the only path available. I also dont think being anentrepreneur necessarily means owning your own business; you can be an entrepreneurwithin the structure of an organisation as well.


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Do you think entrepreneurship can be taught? I dont know if entrepreneurship can betaught. I think the technicalities of running a business can be taught but becoming anentrepreneur is really a path of self-awareness. I took an elective whilst on exchange atColumbia called Creativity and Personal Mastery, which can now be studied at LondonBusiness School. Courses like this facilitate the thought process and should be combinedmore with the business subjects to give a complete picture.

What do you plan to be doing in 5 & 10 years time? Where do you see yourbusiness at these points in time?In 5 years I would like to see my current businessgrow internationally. I would like to work with multiple entrepreneurial ventures in the fieldof clean energy and social entrepreneurship in Africa and other Asian countries. I havealready started an initiative called The Brightest Young Climate Leaders which I ran inIndia this year. The aim is to find young entrepreneurs and leaders working on ideas orbusinesses in the field of clean energy, climate change mitigation, eco-rural projects, andI am now working with the winners to scale up their businesses. I would like to do this ona bigger scale and be an active investor and mentor in these businesses, taking them tothe next stage of growth.

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Gelato Mio is the home of Italian ice cream in London. Thereare three Gelato Mio stores across London and another storeopening soon.

Carlo Del Mistro, MBA2009ItalianManaging Director, Gelato Miowww.gelatomio.co.uk

Did you apply for your MBA with the idea that you would start your own business?It was certainly one of my ideas. The main reason I did an MBA was to decide on whichcareer path to take. It was towards the end of the first term that I made the decision tostart a business. I did the research during the winter break and found the first contacts Ineeded to open Gelato Mio.

In what ways has your MBA at London Business School contributed to yourentrepreneurial success? It gave me a huge network to draw information from. I hadnever started a business before and neither had my friends or family so I didnt haveanyone to ask questions to. Having such a great network of alumni and current studentswho had entrepreneurial experience helped me immensely. Additionally, my classmateswere exceptionally supportive. When we started Gelato Mio in the first summer of myMBA, all of my peers asked their friends and family to come to the opening. I knew veryfew people myself in London, but thanks to the support of the MBA students, it was likeopening a store in my hometown. We had hundreds of people at the opening thanks tothe support of the MBA community.

Which specific courses, people and experiences from your MBA stood out? Theentrepreneurship classes were particularly helpful, especially for providing examples ofscenarios and start-up stories and we heard from guest speakers who had experienced

the process themselves. Hearing about their successes and failures was extremelyhelpful. I especially remember Managing the Growing Business, it was my favourite classand was the most inspirational. There are many classes that are very practical, from abusiness sense, they helped me immensely in getting the concept ready, howeverManaging the Growing Businesshelped me with the aspirational elements. It helped meto overcome my fear of starting a business.

How did the Discovering Entrepreneurial Opportunitiescourse on the MBA help you to develop your businessideas? It gave me the idea and it gave me lots ofinformation. My study group spent half of the classdeveloping one idea until we realised that it wasnt viable

and then we used the rest of the class to develop my GelatoMio idea. We did a lot of market research which helped mewith my primary research. Every study group was invited toshowcase their idea at the trade show, which was attendedby lots of people from the alumni community, and it wasincredibly helpful to have feedback from potential customers.

How did you come up with the idea for Gelato Mio? Idbeen living in London for a couple of years and I knew that Iwanted to do something related to my Italian heritage andsomething in retail. I realised that there was a distinct lack of good ice-cream parlours soI said, why not? I started talking to a couple of people and I went along to a few tradeshows and that is how Gelato Mio began.


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Vinay Gupta, MBA2007AmericanCo-Founder, WhipCarwww.whipcar.com

WhipCar is the first neighbour-to-neighbour car rental serviceenabling private car owners to rent out their cars for money.

Has your MBA at London Business School contributed to your entrepreneurialsuccess? It has definitely opened up doors for me. The experiences I had on the MBA,both in the classroom and the School clubs, allowed me to meet lots of great people. Iwas very active in the media club and was involved with co-ordinating the media summiton campus. I made good friends and I also gained a lot of practical experience aboutvarious companies in the sector. Thanks to these kinds of activities and the class work, Idiscovered exactly what I wanted to do.

How did you come up with the idea for WhipCar?I was working at a media-focused investment fundwith my business partner Tom, looking ataddressing the problem of excess capacity in a waythat really impacts society. We saw cars parked onthe road and we decided to find a way to decreasethe wastage associated by putting safe car driverstogether with spare car time and that was howWhipCar was born in February 2009.

How did it progress from there? Tom and Icontinued in our current jobs and worked on the business outside of hours. We did a lotof market research at this stage. Its a new user behaviour, its not something thatactually exists right now. We also knew that we had to raise investment in order to runthe venture so we also arranged meetings with potential Venture Capitalists. The LondonBusiness School network turned out to be very useful during this stage as one of myclassmates, Nick Conway, put me in contact with Rob Johnson at the venture capital firmthat we receive investment from. Rob was a London Business School professor for 10years and had been mentioned in various cases that we studied in the entrepreneurshipclasses, so I was keen to meet with him. Another classmate, Sumit Mehra, gave us agreat connection to a senior managing director at Willis, one of the worlds largestinsurance brokers and it was his team that helped us to develop and structure ourinnovative insurance product over the last few months.

Has the research and experience of London Business Schools faculty been a

useful resource? Weve set up something in our company that we call the Board ofMentors and one of our mentors is a London Business School professor, Bruce Hardie. Itook Bruces Analysis for Marketing Planning and Decision Makingclass when I was astudent and I enjoyed it immensely. He has met with us a number of times over the past10 months and proved to be a really useful sounding board.

Do you think there are any particular qualities that make a successfulentrepreneur? I think that you need lots of tenacity and you cant take no for an answer.At the end of the day, you make business by doing things. An idea only takes you so far.You need to have a high tolerance for pain and a lot of motivation and belief in whatyoure doing.


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Do you think that entrepreneurship can be taught? I definitely think that it can. Thereare lots of discussions about nature vs. nurture and I think there are certainly personalitytraits that enable people to succeed as entrepreneurs. The practical and academiclessons I learned at London Business School have helped me to deal with situations andinteract with people. I think that has helped me to become a better entrepreneur. Idisagree that you are either born an entrepreneur or not. Thanks to my time at London

Business School, I knew that I wanted to be in a position where I could craft my ownfuture and work on the things that were interesting to me. In that sense I felt that the MBAequipped me with the skills and the confidence to pursue what I wanted.

What business advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs? I would tell themnot to give up. If you have a good idea, opinions will be polarised. There are going to bepeople who support you and there are going to be people who think the idea is crazy. Butthere is a difference between having a bad idea and having a good idea and not being ina position to execute it. Never take no for an answer. Secondly, look for a great co-founder. I am incredibly lucky to work with someone like Tom and I think finding a partneris the most important thing you can do, more important than the idea itself. Because youwill spend so much time with that person, you will need to have complimentary skill sets

and be able to support one another. You will serve as each others sounding boards andif you find the right person it can be a potential partnership for life. The average businessmay last for around 5-10 years, but if you find the right business partner, that can last fora lifetime.

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Canteen is an informal restaurant with an all-day menu servinghigh quality British cuisine at reasonable prices.

Dominic Lake, Executive MBA2003BritishFounding Director, Canteenwww.canteen.co.uk

How did your Executive MBA at London Business School contribute to yourentrepreneurial success? Jonty Crossick, another student on the programme, whofounded the English Teddy Bear Company, became a close friend and inspired me tomake the step into the wonderful world of entrepreneurship. The electives I chose werevery entrepreneur-focussed: Managing the Growing Business, Financing theEntrepreneurial Businessand, of course the Entrepreneurship Summer Schoolwith JohnMullins. In the final week of the course, we were reflecting and I remember the question'where do you want to be in 5 years time?' specifically in regards to finite wealth, family,location and career. I took that on board and concluded that I wanted to be in a positionwhere I was able to sell a business, or be part of a team selling a business, to allowfinancial independence.

How did you come up with the idea for Canteen? How did you proceed once youhad the idea? I wanted to do something that matchedboth my personal and professional goals. I have a greatlove of food, and along with a new buddy Patrick, Idecided to raise the quality of food on the high street withgreat British food. Why? Because where do you go if youwant to get some great food for under 20 which usesfree-range additive-free meats, organic eggs and fresh fishfrom the day boats on the south coast? Also there was a

trend for food programmes on TV in 2003/4 which raisedawareness but offered no obvious solution or place to gofor this type of food.

Do you feel that there are particular personal qualitiesthat make a successful entrepreneur? I think there aremany personal qualities that help, confidence andconviction are key. The ability to inspire others is a traitthat I see working well in my business and in others I am aware of.

Do you think entrepreneurship can be taught? You can teach theory and offer thetools, environment and support which enable entrepreneurs to assess, navigate and

assist in decision making. I have always wanted to work for myself but lacked some ofthe tools and contextual knowledge which the MBA at London Business School certainlyprovided. I believe its a combination of a personal desire to follow your dream and thetools to assess the likely risks ahead, but you cannot teach people to take the final stepand take that risk.

What business advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs? If after having readJohn Mullins book What to do before you write a business planyou still believe in youridea, you should have a go. Life is about learning from failure and not being afraid to failagain and again!

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Chantelle Ludski,MBA2000South AfricanFounder and CEO, fresh! naturally organicwww.freshnaturallyorganic.co.uk

fresh! naturally organic supplies organic sandwiches and snacksto supermarkets, cafs and shops across the UK.

Did you apply for your MBA with the idea that you would start your ownbusiness? Absolutely not! Im an accidental entrepreneur. fresh! started on the backof a total lack of a decent cappuccino on campus. I decided to open a little coffee baron campus to satisfy the demand. It became a coffee/juice/salad/soup/sandwich bar.

In what way has your MBA at London Business School contributed to yourentrepreneurial success? Which specific courses, people and experiencesstood out? The energy at the school and the top class talent I was able to draw on

whilst writing the business plan during the firstphase of starting the business were invaluable,not to mention the fantastic network of people thatyou have access to. Operations ManagementandMarketing, along with the entrepreneurshipcourses were the best. Increasingly I find myselfreferring back to Growing the EntrepreneurialBusinessand finally understanding what the casestudies were on about!

Do you feel that there are particular personalqualities that make a successful

entrepreneur? I think that determination,resilience and self-belief are essential charactertraits for starting a business.

What business advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs? Research yourconcept, fine tune the original idea once youve had the benefit of some research,peer review, feedback and then step off the cliff and just do it. Dont be afraid to tryand dont be afraid to make mistakes, but learn from your mistakes.

What do you plan to be doing in 5 & 10 years time? Where do you see yourbusiness at these points in time? Selling loads more of our fabulous, fresh!naturally organic food and being a well established, well recognised and well loved

brand in the UK, with aspirations to expand beyond the UK a 25m per annumbusiness!

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A bottle and warmer in one, Yoomi warms feed to the naturaltemperature of breast milk at the touch of a button.

Jim Shaikh, Executive MBA2002BritishFounder and Managing Director, Yoomiwww.yoomi.com

Did you apply for your Executive MBA with the idea that you would start your ownbusiness? No, I didnt. I was an academic in my early career and moved intomainstream engineering with BMW Rover. The aim of studying for an MBA was to try tochange my skill set to make the move from a purely technical position to more of amanagerial role.

In what ways has your Executive MBA at London Business School contributed toyour entrepreneurial success? Virtually 100%. My entrepreneurial career sort ofhappened by mistake. While doing the core topics, I hadnt really considered theentrepreneurial courses although I tended to enjoy the mixed discipline courses. When Ichose electives in the second year it just so happened that every one of my choices weretaught by the entrepreneurship faculty. I thoroughly enjoyed them, particularly Managingthe Growing Businessand Managing Corporate Turnarounds.

Which specific courses, people and experiences stood out? A number of thingsstood out. One was the Entrepreneurship Summer Schoolwith John Mullins. The focuswas what to do before you write your business plan, so we did a lot of research andfollowed Mullins 7 Domains framework from his book, which formed the basis of thebusiness plan I put together later on. Ive started three businesses now and Ive used the7 Domains framework for every one. The atmosphere around the School was vibrantwhen I was studying. It was 2002-2003 and people were running around with business

plans and getting funding which made me realise that I could too.

How did you come up with the idea for Yoomi? Itwas actually my wifes original concept. My son Danielwas born prematurely and was in hospital for sometime. When he came home, he was a very low weight,so we were focused on feeding him regularly. It wasmy job in the middle of the night to warm the milk butunfortunately I was very bad at it as Id fall asleep andoverheat it. Daniel would be screaming and my wifewould be screaming and Id be frantically cooling milkunder the tap. After about a month, she said, youre

an engineer, do something useful, fix this. At the time,I had started an engineering business, which is stillrunning, so I set it as a fun background project. Whenthings were slack we would kick ideas around andapproximately a year later, over lunch, a few of us hit upon the actual concept that wereusing now.

How did you proceed once you had the idea? It was not until 2005 that I thought theconcept had legs and could fit into a nice package, and it was then that I began theserious work of trying to understand the feasibility of the idea, which is where JohnMullins framework came in again. I went back to London Business School for a projectand some students helped to thrash out the idea from a business perspective. We

realised that we definitely needed an Intellectual Property Patent for this business towork. I spent some time researching and once I found that there was space for thepatent, I started the engineering in earnest. I got a small government grant to work with


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Queen Mary University on the chemistry elements of the product and the focus was to doenough development to file a patent which we did in September 2005. The next step wasto put the bare bones of the business plan together, which I finished in January 2006. Icouldnt fund the project myself so I had to decide how I could make the businessappealing to investors. I came back to London Business School, did lots of marketresearch and data monitoring and managed to flesh out the business plan. Then I started

to look for funding. I was fortunate enough to be able to come back to London BusinessSchool again and present at Enterprise 100 (E100), where 40-50 investors came towatch our presentations. After presenting at E100, I had around 20 people interested,which whittled itself down to four/five and I was able to secure investment andagreement. I had money in the bank in January 2007 and that was when we formed thebusiness.

Has the research and experience of London Business Schools faculty been auseful resource? Yes. Its been eight years since I left and I still come back. I keep infairly close contact with the entrepreneurship faculty and I still have discussions with JohnMullins and Keith Willey about what Im doing. Sometimes I go back for an update andother times I ask for their opinions or ask for contacts. Theyre willing to give me that free

advice.

What business advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs? Its a balancingact. Its all about balance and communication. Although people are precious about theirideas, entrepreneurs have to test their ideas and assumptions, because the best test isother people. When I started, I would speak to parents that I knew and Id accost mumsin supermarkets, Id talk to investors and Id try to understand what they wanted. Youhave very little information and while you do have to be careful not to give the idea away,you need data that is not sat in a written environment, which means talking to yourpotential customers. I took prototype mock-ups to independent nursery shops and wouldsay, Ive got this idea what do you think? They thought I was slightly mad initially butwhen I explained the idea, what it would look like, who I would look to sell to and asked

them for their thoughts, they were really helpful. People are happy to give the benefit oftheir knowledge; you just have to ask for it!

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