The Innovation Factory are excited to announce that Vikas Shah will be joining us as Entrepreneurial Mentor following (and concurrent with) a string of mind-blowingly successful ventures in a plethora of industries.

Currently CEO of Swiscot Group, Vikas is a venture-investor in fast-growing technology businesses internationally, and sits as a Non-Executive Director and advisor to numerous organisations, including the UK Government. Vikas was formerly a Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan (The Lisbon MBA) and is currently an Honorary Professor of Business at The Alliance Business School, University of Manchester and an Honorary Industry Fellow at the University of Salford Business School. He is one of the UK’s highest profile entrepreneurs & philanthropists, and was awarded an MBE for Services to Business and the Economy in Her Majesty the Queen’s 2018 New Year’s Honours List. No surprises there.

 

“With the notable exception of my cat, very little in life makes me as happy as working with entrepreneurs, and at the Innovation Factory I have the opportunity to work with some of the very brightest and most exciting entrepreneurs in the UK. It’s genuinely a privilege, and such a thrill to work with businesses ideas from inception success and often to exit. I’m hoping I can share my learnings from over the years with them, and I have no doubt I will learn a lot in the process too” – Vikas Shah MBE

You could say it all started when Vikas, not content with merely consuming the vast and varied Internet, decided to learn to code. At 14, naturally. (He refers to this in his TEDx talk How To Save Your Own Life in which he philosophically delves in to the psyche of his own successes, and shows himself to be human after all). From then, he built a portfolio of companies, delved in to philanthropy and got that MBE.

As a philanthropist, Vikas now sits as Chair of In Place of War (international peace building and entrepreneurship NGO), as a Trustee of Mustard Tree (helping tens of thousands impacted by poverty and marginalisation across Greater Manchester) and as a trustee of the We Are Family Foundation (artist Nile Rodgers’ global charity).

With his professional life leaving big, lofty minutes unaccounted for each day, Vikas decided he needed some hobbies and so took to interviewing the world’s leading thinkers. These interviews were published in the 2021 book Thought Economics, described by Steven Pinker as ‘Stimulating, intelligent and enjoyable discussions of the most important issues of our day.’ What hobbies do you have?

Vikas will be joining The Innovation Factory to offer support as an expert in Entrepreneurship, though there’s undoubtably more that we will profit from during his time with us, in view of his extraordinary list of achievements to date.