A few of my contemporaries were surprised to hear that I was at the CBI Conference this past week and given the demographic amongst the conference attendees I’m honestly not surprised.  We had a laugh on Twitter about how only 5 of 1,000 or so delegates were tweeting – but that’s a subject for another blog.  From my perspective, it was worth the time & effort just to hear Fiat & Chrysler Group CEO, Sergio Marchionne, speak about how he’s wrestled Fiat back from the brink of oblivion, kicking & screaming – again a subject for another blog.

My real interest was in hearing what the CBI, the Prime Minister & the Foreign Secretary had to say about helping SMEs with potential high value overseas opportunities get started with and be more successful at export.  Just to give you some background, we at Learning Pool have had what could be described as quite a frustrating experience of export as a UK based SME.  Our online learning content has been created exclusively for the UK public sector, and as such is of value & immediate interest to any of the former British colonies, especially those that have adopted the UK local government model.  Here in the UK, we have 500,000 public sector employees & stakeholders (primarily school governors, elected members and government “partners” such as community & voluntary sector groups & charities) making use of our learning environments & sharing great content.  However, despite displays of strong interest from overseas governments in our products, we have spectacularly failed to convert any of that interest to tangible sales – and I promise you we’ve tried really hard.

Learning Pool completely gets that the economic future of some UK based SMEs will be dependent on their ability to sell to the emergent BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China) who together are forecast to import goods & services valued at $4 trillion over the next 10 years (source, Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs, CBI conference 21 Nov 2011 – he also coined the BRIC acronym a decade ago).  Our issue has been that it is incredibly difficult for overseas governments to buy from a “foreign” SME – no matter how fabulous & suitable their product is.  Our experience of this is that the type of export assistance our own regional development agency here in Northern Ireland, Invest Northern Ireland, has been able to give us (up to 40% financial assistance for trade missions overseas, paid after you’ve spent the money) is not what we need.  We’ve repeatedly explained to our contacts at Invest NI that what we actually need is some assistance from their people based overseas – but unfortunately those people are tasked with bringing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Northern Ireland & are therefore unable to help us.

I was therefore very heartened to hear from first the Prime Minister, then the Minister of State for Trade & Investment Stephen Green, then from William Hague that the current government has helping UK SMEs export firmly in its sights.  They each described how training of UKTI employees is taking place to make that team more commercial (I was a bit dismayed when someone said this consisted of forcing their people to read the FT every day – but hopefully that’s just a start!), how 30 and 50 new business-focused employees have been brought into the UKTI offices in India & China respectively, and how the new UKTI Chief Exec Nick Baird (appointed September this year) has a remit to encourage more UK SMEs to move into the international domain.  William Hague specifically described how the role of the Foreign Office has been reshaped to place more emphasis on commercial diplomacy and David Cameron reminded us that our overseas embassies are there to help UK businesses host launches and win orders.

I am pleased to have seen David Cameron lead trade missions to India, China & Turkey since he became Prime Minister and as a co-owner of a small SME fail to understand why he has been so publicly criticised for this.  Governments of the BRIC nations understand how important it is to build relationships with other countries and take a long term view of commerce.  The UK has been swamped with visits from teams from the emergent nations and the lack of reciprocal behaviour is leaving the UK behind the curve.  At the moment, the value of UK exports to the Republic of Ireland is greater than total export value from the UK to the BRIC nations...surely everyone can see how that path isn’t sustainable?

We are serious about growing Learning Pool and seizing our opportunities so what does that look like for us?  We’ve accepted that it’s nigh on impossible to achieve from a Northern Ireland backwater so we’re grasping the nettle and opening a London office in January that I’m going to be heading up.  We’ve also asked our contacts at the Cabinet Office, on the back of Learning Pool’s success in the Innovation Launchpad competition this summer, to request a meeting for us with Nick Baird so as we can talk directly to him about how UKTI can help Learning Pool get started in India, selling to their local and central government.  I’ll keep you posted on how we get on.  Interested in your comments or advice as always.

It’s been a while since I’ve told you about someone interesting I’ve encountered in my travels so this blog is all about Sherry Coutu, award winning entrepreneur and a successful angel investor.  She has the smarts (MSc with Distinction in Economics from the London School of Economics & an MBA from Harvard), the track record as a practising CEO (her first start up was acquired by Euromoney plc and her second was floated via an IPO in 2000 when Sherry was five months pregnant and it was later valued at $1 billion), a successful investment track record (she’s invested so far in over 35 companies, one of the most recent being Artfinder) and the network (she sits on the boards of LinkedIn and Zoopla.com as well as being an investor in two VC firms).  Are you impressed yet?  There’s a lot more.  Sherry also has 3 young children and aims to spend one day per week putting something back via philanthropic pursuits (she’s on the board of Cancer Research UK, a trustee at NESTA, a non exec at Cambridge & Harvard universities and she works with NSPCC on a programme for disadvantaged teenagers).  I suspect on the philanthropic front there’s probably a lot more.  I know for a fact on the professional front there’s an awful lot more.  Wired Magazine voted Sherry one of the 25 most influential people in the wired world in May 2011.

I hate to tell you this but Sherry Coutu is also very understated, very cool and very nice.  I met her first a couple of months ago when Learning Pool was selected as one of the 9 SME finalists in the Cabinet Office’s Innovation Launchpad competition.  Sherry has been the driving force behind this initiative which seeks to improve in a practical way government engagement with SMEs.  I snapped the pic accompanying this blog when Sherry was delivering her presentation last Tuesday to the 120+ civil servants gathered at BIS.  We’ve been lucky to have her input and insight into our Big Society School idea as part of the Launchpad process.

My favourite Sherry Coutu quotes that I’ve come across so far are “I think the most important question for any startup is “Is what they’re aiming for going to change the world somehow? Is it going to make it a better place?”” and about working in the technology space “it’s a great industry that we’re a part of … being able to peer into the future and to invest in things that are likely to change our world. … It’s a huge privilege”.  In one video interview she tells how her father waved a bunch of fibre optic cable at her when she was 5 years old & told her it was going to change the world.  Life is all about those moments, isn’t it?

I’ve always thought I was a decent enough plate spinner and until I met Sherry, I’d never been envious of another person’s career.  I now realise I can surely do more.  Sherry’s tutor at the LSE talked to her about considering becoming an entrepreneur...I turned down my place at the LSE when I was 17 because I didn’t feel ready to move to London.  I wasn’t brave enough.  I’ve wondered over the past few days about how different my life may have been if I’d grasped that particular nettle – but then I also got to thinking about all the good things I might have missed and I’ve concluded that life really is too short for regrets.  It’s only in Kurt Vonnegut novels that we should visit those forks in the road & examine different outcomes.

I’ll leave you today with another great Sherry Coutu quote “As entrepreneurs you’re either seeking to disrupt something, or as a dominant market player, you’re seeking to retain your position. You know, you have to ask yourself, “Where’s the puck going to be in 25 years?”  Yep – the gal’s still a Canadian!  Sherry – it’s been a privilege to get to know you.