Oxford+ in Brief with Eva Barboni, Executive Director of Enterprise Britain

Susannah de Jager

This is Oxford Plus in brief. 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.

Eva, we always do a little mini episode of quick fire questions, so what would success look like if we got this right?

Eva Barboni

Success would look like more scale-ups choosing to stay in Britain, creating jobs here, reinvesting in their communities here. It would look like more Brits having skin in the game, investing directly in some of our most exciting businesses and it would look like a country that has high ambition for our place in the world, and how we can not only secure that space, but help shape the world around us.

Susannah de Jager

Amazing. I love that. What advice would you give, and this normally says Oxford, but I'm going to broaden it out for you, what advice would you give somebody entering the UK ecosystem tomorrow?

Eva Barboni

The advice I would give to someone entering the UK ecosystem tomorrow is to bring your insight and your experience from other countries and help the UK to learn from that. So I think coming from the US has given me a perspective about what perhaps we can learn from the states in terms of creating a really dynamic and ambitious economy and also some of the pitfalls that we can potentially avoid by creating stronger, worker protections here. So I think bring your experience, bring your insight from whatever ecosystem you're coming from, and help to shape the policy discussion and the debate here.

Susannah de Jager

What is the UK great at, and what is it structurally bad at?

Eva Barboni

The UK is fantastic at innovation. you look at some of our world leading universities, whether that's Oxford or others, that are creating incredible advances in frontier technologies. We've seen the benefits of that in terms of the spin-outs coming out of those universities.

What we're not great at is the next step of really backing those companies, helping them to commercialise and grow here and so we need to get better at deploying the capital they need to scale and succeed, creating the culture that champions that success, and making sure they can find the talent they need to grow here.

Susannah de Jager

Amazing. What do you think Oxford and/or the UK will look like in 2050?

It's quite a long way away.

Eva Barboni

What I hope the UK will look like in 2050 is that we are one of the leading innovation economies in the world. That we have incredible tech companies that are thriving and growing here across all sectors, and that we have a workforce that is equipped to succeed in roles of the future that those companies are going to create.

And I hope that, having built that economy and provided those opportunities, that we have a country where people are ambitious and champion the success of British business and want to be part of it themselves.

Susannah de Jager

Love that. What would you do if you had a magic wand?

Eva Barboni

If I had a magic wand, I would probably go back to the early days of the North Sea oil discovery, create a sovereign wealth fund, and invest that money exclusively in British scale-ups that are at the leading edge of frontier technology and innovation. I think if we had done that and we had used that fund to not only invest in Britain, but make sure that the economic benefits of that accrue to every British taxpayer, then we'd be in a very different situation than we are today, and we'd also have a very different attitude towards the success of British businesses than we do today.

Susannah de Jager

I like that. Who have you met recently that's extraordinary?

Eva Barboni

One of the people I met recently, was at an event at the LSE where they were announcing the scale up concierge service, and her name was Katie King, and she's the founder and CEO of a company called BioOrbit, which manufactures drugs in space. I did not understand half of what she was saying in terms of the innovation that she was driving, but it was clear that she was building an incredible, innovative company, and that she has such ambition, not only for the future of that business, but also on the benefits that it can bring to society as a whole. And I think we need more visibility for those kinds of founders who are building incredible companies here, and not only to celebrate their success and the innovation they're driving, but to really tell the story about why that matters for society and why more Brits should get behind them.

Susannah de Jager

I agree. Eva, thank you so much.

Eva Barboni

Thank you.

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.