Latest news with #E2E
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
'My currency is the people I get to know not the money I make'
Shalini Khemka puts her people person skills down to moving schools every six months in her early years, with her father's locum work as an orthopaedic consultant. 'I enjoy being with people because I had to keep mixing with new people,' says Khemka. Her 30-year career has taken in a raft of business and advisory roles, from co-founding the world's first online "bank to bank" trade finance company to launching E2E, an entrepreneurs networking platform. E2E was founded by Khemka in 2011 largely due, she freely admits, to the mistakes she encountered in her first co-venture and the need to share with other entrepreneurs. Networking and people skills to the fore. Read More: 'Future is the USA' for Pasta Evangelists, the £40m British made success story It was also never intended to be the business it is today, with over 24,000 members and 80% based in the UK, it holds around 50 events annually. 'It's been a massive privilege,' she says. 'My currency is the people I get to know, currency isn't the money I make. It's actually the life experiences.' 'I've got some people I can phone, but I also wonder when people are not part of this kind of community, who do they phone? How do they solve it? That's the problem we're trying to solve for our members.' The premise is for the community of entrepreneurs, investors and non-execs to make connections for founders, raising capital and securing talent. It is geared towards founders with a £1m plus turnover with its sweet spot in the '10m to £100m range'. 'If they're looking to fundraise, they're a decent founder and we believe in their credibility of the business and where they're trying to take it, we will support them,' adds Khemka. Born in India, Khemka graduated with an economics degree from University of Essex and worked for Coopers & Lybrand before writing a business plan for the world's first trade finance platform while at Deutsche Bank ( When its global head of trade finance left and started a company, in 1999, with three other co-founders, Khemka became the fourth using the business plan that she had concocted to trade letters of credit online. Read More: 'In our workplace, we look for passionate, slightly unhinged mountain climbers' It was only when she joined the private equity arm at Lloyds (LLOY.L) TSB five years later that she realised shortcomings with her first company and the first seeds were sown at E2E. Her learnings were three-fold — raise money on time, don't exit too early and have the right advisors around you. 'I had met some amazing entrepreneurs and I realised that I wasn't so amazing and that I'd done some really poor things,' she says. 'So I thought, why don't I help other people not make the mistakes I had?' Initially, Khemka had sought to help other founders through her employment with Lloyds Development Capital (LDC), who were then backing Richard Branson and the Virgin Racing team. This is where luck plays an important part in life, she adds. 'I got an opportunity to ask Richard to be the president, initially he said no three times, but on the fourth attempt he said yes, and that helped me open the doors to the business it is today.' With membership starting from £750, E2E's current community consists of 24,000 SMEs who contribute £230bn in turnover to the UK economy and employ over 1m people. Its tech platform links founders with entrepreneurs based on profile and interests, with expertise ranging from tax issues, boardroom challenges and mental health issues. 'It's very common for entrepreneurs to go through so much stress and they can't talk to their immediate family," says Khemka. 'It's actually better sometimes to talk to a CEO equivalent and how they have coped with it.' Read More: Meet Britain's 'king of billboards' who sold his business for £1bn In 2023, Khemka launched the E2E 100, which showcases the top British companies that are excelling and recognise scale-up entrepreneurship. 'We have to celebrate entrepreneurship a lot more in the UK,' she adds. 'And this is one way of celebrating the people who have made the biggest impact. "But I'm also doing it to understand what's working well for them, what's not working well, to share with the broader community and be able to then go to government. One of the things that we need to do is make access to funding a lot easier here. Khemka said last autumn's budget revealed Labour as "not the government for business" following the tax adjustments which would affect both small and large businesses and stymie investment. 'The big thing I'd like to try and achieve is to keep building this ecosystem, keep making the UK the place to start and scale rather than to start and then go elsewhere," she says. 'I want to be solutions-based rather than problem-based and the solution for that is to open the doors for institutional investors to find the UK more attractive through the VC funds.' It is little wonder that the people person come passionate campaigner for entrepreneurs is venturing towards 25,000 members. 'My dream is that this business becomes the go-to organisation if you're a founder,' she adds. Read more: The boss who has found 'nature's answer to plastic' 'I had one good idea and turned it into a £3m voiceover and talent success' The life lesson behind a 335-year-old funeral business? 'Never sleep on an argument'
The Independent
19-07-2025
- Business
- The Independent
As unemployment rises, the AI era of universal basic income has just got closer
It is becoming harder and harder to talk to a human being. Twice recently I have wanted, needed, to speak to customer services. On each occasion, finding the actual phone number proved tortuous. There are FAQs and online 'help' to be bypassed, and even if you get through, an automated message implores you to return to the internet. Likewise, a new Thai restaurant has opened up the road, and its novelty is not the food but a robot waiter. How we revel in its brilliance. How we forget, too, how warm and friendly were the staff in the old place before it was taken over by tech-minded – and yes, penny-pinching – newcomers. Progress, I'm meant to say. That may be so, but these are also jobs. And work is slowly but surely disappearing. At an E2E business networking gala the other evening, a panel of successful entrepreneurs was asked what effect AI was likely to have on staffing. 'Net positive' was the answer from a tech boss. That sounds good, and there was plenty of nodding from a packed crowd, but what I think he was really saying was that some employees would go, others would join, and the overall effect would be beneficial for the bottom line. Not everyone was so enthusiastic. Those wondering what the future holds for their children were probably not applauding. Because commercial folks are humans, too – we were reminded of that, forcibly, by Steve Byrne, CEO of Travel Counsellors, the UK's largest and fastest-growing digital platform for travel operators. In a quite brilliant address at the same E2E event, Byrne, whose business was listed by the London Stock Exchange as one of its 100 'companies to inspire' and has twice won Amazon's Growing Business of the Year, spoke passionately of the need to treat people – staff, customers, everyone – properly, and to build relationships. He was spot on, but that is easier said than done when AI is gobbling up jobs like some kind of employment Pac-Man. Byrne was speaking on the very day that the latest official UK unemployment figures had reached 4.7 per cent, their highest level since June 2021. The Office for National Statistics accompanied this announcement with the news that wage growth had slowed. A couple of weeks before that, it was revealed that the number of entry-level roles being advertised had fallen by a third (32 per cent) since the launch of OpenAI's chatbot in November 2022. It's a decline that is outpacing the decrease in the number of overall vacancies, which fell from 1,091,909 to 858,465 – a 21 per cent drop – over the same period. This week, economists were quick to cite the rise in national insurance contributions (NICs) for employers, along with rising inflation, as being responsible for the uptick in unemployment. Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has said that the NICs increase is hitting employee headcount and wages harder than expected. Certainly, closer analysis shows that pubs, bars and supermarkets are where the axe has fallen since the chancellor made her shock move last autumn. So, phew, not AI then? No – but steady on. Hospitality and retail are the two sectors that provide flexible working and first-time jobs for young people. If you can't immediately secure a place on the career ladder, you can always fall back on bar, restaurant or shop work. The lower rungs of the ladder are occupied by positions in customer services, admin, research and logistical support – which happen to be the areas that AI, still in its infancy, is beginning to hammer. It's grim, and AI is emerging as a principal worry. Fewer jobs means lower tax receipts, which means less income for the government and little buying power to revive a flagging economy. The increasing use of AI – especially in white-collar sectors, as predicted – could lead to rising unemployment, particularly among recent graduates and those who hold routine professional roles. This, in turn, could mean fewer people being able to afford rent or mortgages, which would have a knock-on effect on the rental and housing market. This is not a future scenario that might apply in, say, five to 10 years; the rapid pace at which AI is replacing entry-level jobs is only going one way, and it won't be long before the effect is felt higher up the ladder, too. The rollcall of companies being affected by this is lengthening. BT is blaming AI for further job cuts, having announced plans to lose 55,000 employees two years ago. Some of those were the result of automation; now, there are to be more. Amazon, Ocado, Microsoft are all saying similar. They're tech giants, so they know a thing or two about what is coming. We ignore them at our peril. Even ChatGPT agrees: 'Yes, AI is contributing to job losses in the UK, but its impact is nuanced and varies by industry, skill level, and job function.' We would also be unwise to ignore a warning from Boston Consulting Group, whose research revealed that half of UK companies are planning on redirecting investment from staff to AI. Or the International Monetary Fund, which reckoned that 60 per cent of jobs in advanced economies, such as the UK and the US, are exposed to AI, and that half could be negatively affected (which is a polite way of saying drastically reduced or cut completely). No advanced calculator is needed for this sum: that is 30 per cent of the workforce. Sitting in an Uber Tesla on the way back from the E2E evening, and marvelling at the dashboard screen displaying apps galore, I was reminded of Elon Musk's forecast that the threat pertaining to AI was its potential effect on jobs. At the VivaTech conference in Paris in May 2024, Musk predicted that AI and robots would eventually perform every role in the supply of goods and services, making traditional jobs obsolete. He described work becoming more of a hobby than a necessity, and predicted that governments would be forced into providing a system of UBI (universal basic income). How this would be funded in a world of dwindling tax receipts is something that remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the government carries on oblivious, holding AI summits and pushing Britain forwards in the great global AI arms race. It is right to – our businesses must compete, and we desire foreign investment – but we must also begin urgently addressing the cost to society, and start game-planning solutions. 'Net positive' is not good enough.
The Citizen
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Citizen
Educate to Elevate celebrates Youth Day at St Ives Primary
Educate to Elevate (E2E) visited St Ives Primary School (StIPS) in Klipspruit to give back to the youth and mark Youth Day. E2E is dedicated to empowering children through education in fun and engaging ways. The event brought together children from the community to participate in activities such as art, gwijo (a cappella) singing with St Davids College, and dance lessons led by a local instructor. ALSO READ: Pimville foundation celebrates Youth Day by honouring seniors Mduduzi Mngomezulu, the director of E2E, said, 'We felt it was important to host this event on Youth Day to give back to the children. 'One of our speakers highlighted that today is about reminding young people of their role in society. 'We want to assure them that they are responsible for making the world a better place and that they are capable of doing so.' An informative discussion on the significance of Youth Day followed, where the youth asked questions. ALSO READ: Funda centre celebrates 13 years with career expo for Soweto youth A grateful StIPS principal, Ilana Heradien, said, 'I am thankful for this event. It keeps our learners off the streets and away from violence. Activities like these ensure the children gain something valuable. I'm grateful to E2E for hosting this; it will benefit them greatly.' At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
The Independent
11-06-2025
- Business
- The Independent
E2E Tech 100 partner OakNorth: 'Supporting these businesses is a privilege'
OakNorth's partnership with E2E on the Tech 100 is indicative of this mission, and Kristensen considers it OakNorth's privilege to be able to support these businesses on their growth journeys. Describing OakNorth's own journey, Kristensen outlines the exciting upcoming product expansion, and the impact the bank has had in the US since opening there in 2023. For more information and to see the full E2E Tech 100 2025 list click here.
The Independent
11-06-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Universal Partners co-founder on the 'interesting benefits' of partnering with the E2E Tech 100
Partnering with E2E for the Tech 100, allows Universal Partners to support and network with fast-growing entrepreneurs and disruptors, and learn about their growth trajectory and where the tech industry is headed. For Universal Partners, the future holds further AI integration, and acquiring different licenses outside the UK, allowing them to further service clients and provide them with different products. For more information and to see the full E2E Tech 100 2025 list click here.
