Join our panel of speakers as they discuss the opportunities and challenges of an entrepreneurial career, drawing on their range of experience to reflect upon the diverse range of career choices and the skills required to succeed.
‘Perspectives’ is a series of free, public lectures hosted by Bolton School. They are free to attend and open to pupils in Year 9 and above, parents, alumni, and all other members of the School and local community.
Speakers
Rob Dobson – Class of 1982
After leaving Bolton School in 1982, Rob gained a first-class degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Southampton. He went on to found Actix, a tech business focused on algorithmic optimisation for mobile phone networks, growing the business to over 200 people with offices in eight locations around the world. Rob, who was the Boys’ Division Prizegiving Speaker in June 2017 and Primary Division's inaugural Hulton Lecture Speaker in May 2023, is now one of the most active independent angel investors in Scotland and is passionate about empowering young people to start their own businesses.
Krish Patel – Class of 2010
Krish Patel shows the proof of how a person can change their values to impact the world in which we live. He went from one of society's talkers, to becoming one of society's walkers and went on a journey of showing people how much helping others mattered. Krish created Tales to Inspire, a platform and social enterprise to share people's real-life stories to encourage real-life outcomes to inspire change.
Krish is also the founder of StoryOak a service that captures people's life stories on film and passed onto their family members, so that no family story goes forgotten.
Krish truly believes in the power of real life stories and shows this through his entrepreneurial endeavours.
Charlotte Morley née Maddrell – Class of 1999
After completing a Geography degree at Cambridge, Charlotte spent 10 years working in Intelligence, tackling threats to National Security and experiencing things most of us can only imagine. But she couldn’t shake the belief that Sustainability was where she could have the greatest impact. And so she moved into tech, to build amazing consumer products which might help to change the way we live.
Charlotte founded thelittleloop while working as Head of Digital Product at Notonthehighstreet - leaving her role to build it full time. She describes it as both the biggest risk she's ever taken, and the best thing she could imagine doing for her children's future.
Katherine Swift née Conlon – Class of 1990
Katherine had a successful career in media and fundraising when a significant life event had such a profound impact on her that she completely changed the course of her career in a way that she never would have expected.
In January 2010, Katherine’s mum was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. Katherine vowed to do everything she could do to help her and started working with a breast cancer charity that funds world-class research. She spent a lot of time in the research unit and was fascinated to see what was being discovered. The Research Director had an interest in antioxidants, and Katherine found out about the potential green tea had to fight disease. If her mum was going to drink any green tea, it had to be the best, and it was then that she discovered matcha. They both started drinking matcha green tea and felt great, Katherine’s mum was taking back some control that her illness robbed from her and Katherine herself was doing something positive to help. Katherine felt so passionate about matcha that five years after my mum’s diagnosis, she launched OMGTea, a specialist matcha green tea company. Almost 10 years on and they are now stocked in Holland & Barrett, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Ocado, Planet Organic, Daylesford Organic, Wholefoods Market to name a few.
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