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OakNorth: The pathway to building a unicorn with Rishi Khosla

OakNorth: The pathway to building a unicorn with Rishi Khosla

FromSecret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter


OakNorth: The pathway to building a unicorn with Rishi Khosla

FromSecret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

ratings:
Length:
47 minutes
Released:
Feb 11, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

Today’s guest has been a high achiever since he was a kid, completing his computer science GCSE at 11, his A-levels at 13, and receiving a Masters from LSE by the time he was 20. Some child geniuses burnout before they achieve great things, not Rishi Khosla. 
Rishi, according to LL Cool J, is something of a phenomenon in the world of entrepreneurship, and we are wont to agree with him. 
Co-founding OakNorth, Europe's highest valued FinTech company having raised over a billion dollars in funding to date, in only four years, Rishi is considered one of the stars of the industry. 
And OakNorth is just his most recent headline.
He’s an early stage investor, investing in several businesses including PayPal and Indiabulls. He’s already co-founded a company, Copal Amba, a financial research firm which was scaled to 3,000 employees and sold to Moody’s Corporation in 2014. And he helped establish the family office of the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal amongst many things. With OakNorth he estimates they’ve created about 12,000 new jobs in the UK and 13,000 new homes. 
And has anyone ever thanked him?
“How can I put it? I guess, I've always been sprinting through life, recognition hasn't been what I focused on. I focused on results.”
His advice for aspiring entrepreneurs? You need to have enough hunger inside of you, you’ve got to have fire in your stomach, to say ‘there’s only Plan A’.
We chat about:

Working with Jack Welch at GE

Establishing the family office of Lakshmi Mittal 

Meeting Peter Teal and Elon Musk

Building Copal with business partner Joel, brick by brick

Meeting Son at SoftBank and how he pitched him

Why only 5% of unicorns are profitable

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Released:
Feb 11, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

Find out what it's really like being a top entrepreneur and how to get there. Founders of startups like Monzo, BrewDog, Slack and Jo Malone tell us about their biggest challenges, key decisions and life-defining moments. How would you respond if you arrived in the UK as a penniless refugee? Or had to fire your Mum? Or had a billion dollar deal fall through your hands at the last minute? Learn how to lead from business greats.