The State of Entrepreneurship in the UK w/ Sir Vince Cable

💥 You’ve been invited to join us for ‘AGORA Presents’ - a series of pop-up events, each focused on specific topics dedicated to helping budding entrepreneurs on their journey! 🔥

Join us for an interview with Sir Vince Cable, where we'll cover the state of entrepreneurship in the UK, and what the UK is doing to support young entrepreneurial talent.

Following that, we’ll have a short Q&A session as well as a networking session afterwards to help you meet other entrepreneurs on the same journey, and to engage with our guests (over drinks 🥂🍻 ) to discuss issues more specific to you!

What is AGORA? 🤔

AGORA is a two-part early-stage fundraising platform. Our team analyses and profiles your start-up’s approach to a pre-seed or seed fundraise round, issuing tailored feedback ranging from pitch deck support to legal advice. Once all preparation criteria have been met, we connect your start-up with the most appropriate investor from our network, before closing your fundraise with the assistance of our partners SeedLegals.

Click here to sign up to AGORA for free!

// Our Partners //

BEC - Birmingham Enterprise Community

Birmingham Enterprise Community (BEC) is a student, graduate & emerging entrepreneur centred revolution creating a community of change-makers right across the Midlands by bring people from different backgrounds and experiences together to work on innovative ideas and build things that can change the world.

BEC is the home of the Midlands based accelerator 'FORWARD', a 6 month comprehensive programme of support for early stage ventures designed to help them develop the resources, skills and mindset to move towards rapid growth.

NACUE - National Association of College & University Entrepreneurs

Formed in 2008, NACUE is a national organisation in the United Kingdom that promotes entrepreneurship amongst students in higher education and further education. It supports student enterprise societies at colleges and universities, through its existing network of 240 enterprise societies, as well as assisting new societies.

NACUE is committed to advancing education and supporting bespoke solutions in developing greater engagement with learners from various academic backgrounds in enterprise initiatives. We believe that all students should have the chance to engage in unique opportunities, supporting them to develop the skills they need to succeed.

Charity Partner: Drive Forward Foundation

Drive Forward Foundation are a London-based charity who work with young disadvantaged adults, aged 13 - 26, in and leaving foster or residential care, to build and maintain successful careers. As a small and local charity, they see great potential in partnering with SMEs and start-ups who can offer flexibility in their approach and a nurturing working environment. Given the challenges that SME’s can face in developing a CSR strategy, a partnership with Drive Forward Foundation offers a win-win solution.

// Speaker Bios://

Sir Vince Cable:

Sir John Vincent Cable, is a British politician who was the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, and Skills from 2010 to 2015 as well as the Member of Parliament for Twickenham from 1997 to 2015 and 2017 to 2019.

Before starting his career in politics, Cable studied economics at the University of Cambridge and the University of Glasgow. He served as a Treasury Finance Officer to the Government of Kenya between 1966 and 1968. In the 1970s, Cable was special advisor to John Smith when the latter was Industry Secretary. In addition, he was an advisor to the British government and then to the Commonwealth Secretary-General in the 1970s and 1980s.

As an academic, Cable lectured in economics at Glasgow University from 1968 to 1974 and was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics, for a 3-year period until 2004. He is the author of several books such as “The Storm: The World Economic Crisis and What it Means”, commenting on global financial crisis and government economic policies.

In 1982, Cable joined the Social Democratic Party – which later merged with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats. He held the position of the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking on issues based on finance, European Economic and Monetary Union, and the City. He was Shadow Secretary of State for Trade & Industry from 1999-2003, became Treasury Spokesman in 2003, and was elected Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats in 2006. In 2010, Cable was chosen by David Cameron to become Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, a post he held until the General Election of 2015.

Sir John Vincent Cable was knighted in the 2015 Dissolution Honours Lists on 27 August 2015.

Moderator - Philip Salter: Founder @ The Entrepreneurs Network; Contributor @ Forbes

Philip Salter founded The Entrepreneurs Network in 2014 with the aim of building an organisation with the aim of helping make Britain the best place in the world to start and grow a business.

Philip was previously Business Features Editor of City A.M. where he wrote a weekly column on entrepreneurship and interviewed many of Britain’s leading entrepreneurs.

He is a frequent speaker at conferences, writes a column for Forbes on entrepreneurship and appears regularly elsewhere in the media.