Oxford+ in Brief with Ceri Morgan, Partner at Dalloway Partners

Susannah de Jager

Alongside our main episodes of Oxford Plus for Season Four we are introducing a short fortnightly miniseries in between the main episodes. Brought to you by me, Susannah de Jager, and in partnership with Mishcon de Reya. In each episode, we ask our guests the same four questions designed to reveal how they think, what shapes their decisions, and what they're curious about right now. The questions stay the same. The answers rarely do. This is Oxford Plus in brief.

So, Ceri, this is the mini episode where I ask sort of similar questions every week and get a bit of a quick fire. What would success look like if we got this right?

Ceri Morgan

Okay, with 20 years in investment banking, I was arms length as an advisor. Success for me would to be fully integrated with a company and see them grow and develop a product that will reach patients and determine patients' life and make a huge difference. That would be amazing.

Susannah de Jager

What advice would you give someone entering the Oxford ecosystem tomorrow?

Ceri Morgan

Come and find me.

Susannah de Jager

Yeah.

Ceri Morgan

Come and talk to me and I will point them in the right direction. Meet Chris and Michael, Founders and Funders, because they are so warm and kind and considerate. And they will embrace you. And they will help you navigate Oxford ecosystem. Go to the Lamb and Flag.

Susannah de Jager

Absolutely.

Ceri Morgan

The pub is full of ideas and full of really friendly people and amazing staff. So, I think those are three useful pointers to begin with. Oh and listen to Oxford Plus Podcast.

Susannah de Jager

I'll pay you later, Ceri, of course. What is Oxford great at and what is it structurally bad at?

Ceri Morgan

Oxford is great at meeting astonishing people. Oxford is great at meeting people who are so modest. You have to tell people like Dame Professor Carol Robinson to say, don't be modest, Carol. You are truly brilliant. And the fact that I can bump into people like her and Kay Davis, is bonkers. You know, it's a great levelling system, a great levelling environment.

Susannah de Jager

I think it's great very humbling.

Ceri Morgan

Oh, wow. I know Oxford is great at that. It's not good at, and this is going to sound completely hypocritical from what I've just said, at connecting people. I think I am a connector and I love connecting people. So Oxford needs to do that a little bit more.

Susannah de Jager

What do you think Oxford will look like in 2050?

Ceri Morgan

I'd like to think that we're close to the 3% Boston stat. That Oxford has created this real wealth of companies outside the University and OSE, who by the way are doing a tremendous job. I'd like to see infrastructure to support these spin out companies. We really need to support the spin out companies. We're not scaling as well as we should. And why is that? It's okay for companies to be sold to other companies if within that deal they recognise that actually that parent company will supply a balance sheet and critical infrastructure to allow them to scale.

So Demis Hassabis amazing guy who sold DeepMind to Google for 400 million, but he said, I'm going to stay in the UK. You need to recognise that actually how do you accelerate your scale? It's okay to be bought by a company, but allow that parent company to invest in Oxford. Welcome them. So I'd really like to see in 2050, we have some great companies, some great parent companies, recognising that they can do better with companies from the Oxfordshire ecosystem.

Susannah de Jager

I actually was catching up with Tom Adeyoola night preparing for Oxford Tech Week, which by the time people hear this, it will have happened. He was really interesting because he was saying there's been a change in this tide that because of arguably what Donald Trump has done to the academic world and many of the funding roots and quite frankly perception of living in America, for some people that many founders are saying they will not move to America.

And that in response to that, investors are already changing and saying, well, no, we'll fund people in place and we're happy for them to stay. And so I would say to add to your point, which I think is so well made, that for anyone listening there is control over this. You are not entirely subject to what your investors' default setting might have been to date.

I think that people that like being in Oxford for all of the reasons we've been discussing, I would just say, have a bit of faith that you can fight for that if you want to stay.

Ceri Morgan

And also I don't know whether you've spoken to Tom Harty, one of the co-founders of Oxford Ionics, and I asked how did he create what he's created today? When nobody was talking about hardware, nobody was talking about quantum, but here we are now. And he found a mentor within a government policymaker, and he found a mentor within Oxford. And he said, without those two people really championing his cause and his belief, he would've really struggled to where he's got to today.

So I really hope that these learnings are communicated and understood. The only way we're going to grow is for people to really communicate how they can do things a little bit better. So let's learn from that.

Susannah de Jager

What would you do if you had a magic wand?

Ceri Morgan

I would have the very best investor database for people who are looking for particular companies to invest in today. This whole database of people who can support these scale up companies, people who will come in and help them. So actually just have this ecosystem like I created when I worked in the investment bank. If I can replicate that in Oxford to create that huge organogram that allowed people to thrive and be nourished. That would be my magic wand.

Susannah de Jager

I love it. Go do it.

Thank you, Ceri.

Ceri Morgan

Pleasure.

Susannah de Jager

Thanks for listening to this episode of Oxford+, presented by me, Susannah de Jager. If you want to stay up to date with all things Oxford+, please visit our website, oxfordplus.co.uk and sign up for our newsletter so you never miss an update. Oxford+ was made in partnership with Mishcon de Reya and is produced and edited by Story Ninety-Four.