Kathryn Parsons - Founder Decoded

Prime Ministerial Summary

• Prime Minister, we met with an interesting company this week that is a large provider of data and digital up-skilling to large corporates in the UK. They work with Burberry, Unilever, Marks & Spencer to provide Data Academies.

• They have also become a modern day exporter setting up offices across the globe and having trained half a million people in 85 cities, including American companies like Nike.

• Kathryn believes that it should be a legal requirement for boards to understand data and cybersecurity, in the way that all board members have a grasp of finances.

• The World Economic Forum released a paper this week on the future of work saying that whilst 43% of businesses expect to reduce their workforce due to technology integration, they still ultimately expect more jobs to be created overall as a result of innovation.

• Mathematics, engineering and physics are as valuable as computer science, interestingly they noted Southampton has an up and coming talent hub.

• The technology founder has an unusual story, having read Classics at University, demonstrating again that technology founders can come from many backgrounds. (This would undoubtedly pique the current occupier of No.10’s interest as he studied Classics and can recite Ancient Greek incredibly well. Well I say incredibly well, it seems impressive to me when he does it)