David Gill's meandering
investment journey has taken him from law, to corporate finance, to running
fund operations at HSBC, to managing the highly successful tech incubator St
John’s Innovation Centre, in Cambridge. Along the way he learnt some important
lessons about early-stage startups. In this podcast David shares these lessons:
the hard decisions early-stage entrepreneurs have to make; about his three
rules for smart investment; judging an entrepreneurship ecosystem; and
when investors should trust their instincts. David Gill is Managing
Director of the St John’s Innovation Centre in Cambridge. He previously ran the
Innovation & Technology Unit at HSBC Bank in London (1997-2004), then
served as an executive director of a technology venture fund (2005-08).
Educated at Cambridge, he was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple before
working in corporate finance for US and UK banks. A Sloan Fellow at the
Stanford Graduate School of Business in California (2004-05), he is an Academic
Visitor at the Institute of Manufacturing (University of Cambridge Department
of Engineering), co-author of numerous publications on innovation, incubation
and finance, and a non-executive director of Syndicate Room Ltd and Ask
Inclusive Finance Ltd.