Simon Devonshire

Simon’s career working with start-ups and corporates has given him a unique and privileged vantage from which to observe the repeat behaviours common to successful entrepreneurs.

Simon has helped co-found and scale-up a remarkable portfolio of businesses, from social ventures such as One Water through to pioneering fin-tech with Zopa.com the world’s first crowd-funding platform.

In addition to being a serial entrepreneur, Simon has also had a notable corporate career. He ran the business division of O2 for five years – during which the size of the business doubled. He then went on to lead one of the biggest corporate innovation programmes on earth – he co-founded Wayra Europe the business accelerator that belongs to Telefonica through which he and his team invested in 234 fast-growth digital businesses in only three and a half years.

Simon is expert in digital innovation; corporate transformation; and how to scale-up both large and small enterprises. His observations are packed with original thinking and practical applications.

He knows how to infect organisations with entrepreneurialism.

In 2014 Simon was formally appointed as the Government’s Entrepreneur in Residence, reporting to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He was reappointed in 2015.

Simon's blog Tall Man Business has over 10,000 followers and has a wealth of great business advice and observations.

In 2016 Simon was awarded an OBE for his services to enterprise and humanitarian issues.