Nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset

The following article was first published in this year's edition of The Wheel, the College's annual newsletter, in July 2022. 

It is a source of great pride that the knowledge and experiences gained at St Catharine’s have enabled entrepreneurs in our community to seize opportunities, challenge the status quo and create innovative solutions that benefit wider society.

Tsemaye (Tse) Uwejamomere (2018, Engineering) recently met Stan Boland (1978, Natural Sciences) and Mark Richer (1982, Natural Sciences; Fellow Commoner 2009) to discuss their time at St Catharine’s and experiences during their careers as entrepreneurs. Reflecting on their conversations, Tse commented:

“I really appreciated Stan and Mark taking the time to share so much knowledge, wisdom and experience with me. It has been fascinating to compare our experiences of life at Catz and how this has helped to nurture an entrepreneurial spirit. I’m glad to have the opportunity to share their insights with the wider alumni community.”

	Alongside her studies, Tse Uwejamomere is an aspiring young entrepreneur with a passion for sustainable development and harnessing technology to provide more sustainable solutions. She was awarded a Social Impact Award by the Vice-Chancellor for her innovative work on social and climate justice, including an app called Cascade, which aims to make climate research more accessible by combining it with behavioural science, to support people in forming sustainable habits.
	Stan Boland joined Rolls-Royce from Catz as an engineer, prior to a career spell in Treasury and Financial Management, before coming back to technology as the CEO of Acorn Computers, which created and owned ARM. Stan went on to found and run several semiconductor companies and now leads FIVE, a Cambridge-based software company using AI to solve the challenges of automated driving.
	Mark Richer has founded a number of companies, which specialise in video conferencing and business meeting solutions. Mark was inspired to ensure that video conferencing could become ubiquitous and he is currently Chairman and Founder of StarLeaf – software designed to enable easy to use business quality video conferencing for meeting rooms, desktops and phones.

Thinking back to his time at St Catharine’s and how this experience supported his career. Stan recalled:

“It is eye opening when you first come to Cambridge. There’s a fire hydrant of information to try and drink from and it’s incredibly challenging. Having the ability to understand, to listen and to learn remains constant throughout an entrepreneurial career. It is important to keep that hunger for knowledge, embrace learning throughout your life, and retain the technical skills to be successful.”

Mark added, “There’s huge scope to explore and build upon different talents and interests at St Catharine’s. I ran the College’s Computer Science Society, which was quite fun. I’d originally started programming when I was 15 – back in 1980 when computers were quite rare – and I actually ended up teaching on training courses to help managers learn how to program computers, which gave me a confidence boost. I was a high-tech person and I knew I was going to do something like that.”

Tse also had a chance to reflect on how important support from St Catharine's has been:

“Whenever I have an idea about anything, I always find the St Catharine’s community really supportive in helping me get the idea off the ground with volunteers, connections and funding. When I first shared my idea for Cascade, I received support from the Master’s Fund, not only in helping us to fund some parts of our development, but also helping us connect with the wider Catz community who can offer advice and guidance.”

Tse, Mark and Stan realised during their discussion that they share a passion for creating innovative solutions that address challenges in wider society, and this purpose has driven the decisions they’ve made.

Mark commented, “I am happiest and proudest of the ways in which I have managed to help individuals through the success of my companies; either through products and services or individuals within the company, or by supporting charitable causes including St Catharine’s and other educational and social initiatives. This is what makes success meaningful for me.”

Similarly, Stan said, “The biggest reward is actually knitting together people and their ability to solve a problem. The UK and Europe has so much entrepreneurial talent and I became interested in how we could configure this kind of talent to build businesses that could be as successful as their US counterparts.”

Tse also took the opportunity to ask Mark and Stan about their advice for the next generation of entrepreneurs in the St Catharine’s community. Their responses emphasised the need think creatively and flexibly, while at the same time maintaining a steadfast belief in what you are striving to achieve.

Mark explained, “On the one hand, I will present a product to a customer as somebody with no doubt whatsoever and I will absolutely believe in the product; but on the other hand, there will always be little bit of me that doubts and challenges current thinking about what would work better and how to strive to respond to any challenges that customers may continue to experience.”

Stan agreed: “The most valuable thing to do is to be able to conceptualise and imagine the world that you’re about to create and to passionately believe in it and convey that passion and not to be overly cautious. Of course, the initial idea you have will almost certainly be wrong, but it doesn’t matter because you will learn that you can pivot and flex along the way. The important thing is to remain flexible and be able to carry the team and the investors along with you.”

Stan even offered a recent example from his current company Five:

“We set off building a full software stack to enable a car to drive safely in European cities. However, we soon realised that there were so many software components that it would take billions of pounds of capital to achieve, which was beyond what we can raise in Europe from venture capital. So we pivoted the company to build a cloud simulation and testing environment, which was very challenging but ultimately the right pivot to make.”

St Catharine’s always enjoys hearing from our Members and friends. If you have any news or achievements to share, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the Alumni and Development Office: alumni.office@caths.cam.ac.uk