Piers Linney has an extremely impressive business profile and is widely regarded as a leading figure in entrepreneurship, business, innovation and finance. Currently a Non-Executive Director of the UK government-owned development bank, British Business Bank, he also runs the StartUp Loan Company and British Patient Capital, a £2.5 billion fund launched in 2018. However, things did not start out so well for the budding entrepreneur.
Growing up in Bacup, a small mill town in Lancashire, Piers suffered an early setback when he failed his 11+ but recovered by making money through business acumen and ingenuity. With aspirations of being his own boss even at the age of thirteen, Piers gave up on his week-day paper round and cut out his local newsagent by going direct to the wholesaler and starting his own Sunday paper round, which he sold off a few years later.
Piers began his professional career in the banking industry, making him well-acquainted with finance and effective profit-making. He left the city in 2000 to start his own internet enterprise as he recognised the enormous and disruptive opportunity the Internet posed. Since leaving the city, Piers has been involved in a wide range of sectors and businesses through direct investments and via several funds ranging from property to pharmaceutical research to dance music. In 2007, along with his business partner, Simon Newton, Linney led the buyout of Genesis Communications, a mobile voice and data reseller, which was rebranded Outsourcery in 2009.
He was a founding member of the Governance Board of the UK's Cloud Industry Forum and in 2014, he joined the Cabinet Office SME Panel, advising on small/medium business issues. His media profile was boosted when he appeared on Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire in 2011 which covered the ten days he spent in Wolverhampton’s Brinsford Young Offenders’ Institution. His celebrity stock was raised even further when, in 2013, he joined the panel on the BBC2 TV series Dragons' Den, along with fellow new dragon Kelly Hoppen.
During his time in the Den, Piers exhibited his aptitude for seeking out the importance of new innovations and his resources to invest in new businesses covering a variety of sectors. Piers has received numerous industry awards such as, to name but a few: featuring in the JP Morgan-Sponsored Power List as one of the Top 100 Most Influential Black Britons 2013; Entrepreneur Leader of the Year in 2014 at the first Black British Business Awards sponsored by EY; and in the top 20 of Financial Times' list of the Top 100 Minority Ethnic Leaders in Technology 2018.
As a business management speaker Piers offers insights into how to devise, develop and maintain successful businesses whilst his experiences across a range of businesses allow him to understand and advise on a variety of business queries and problems.
