The Anthemis Fellowship: Who We Are and What We Believe

“Education is not about filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” William Butler.

Lighting a Fire

If the early 2000s was a time of disruption and so-called re-volution in Financial Services, the latter part of the decade saw the advent of collaborative practice and much broader, creative participation within the industry.

2016 was, in fact, the year with the biggest range of sources of funding into financial technology startups. Fintech is soon to achieve global reach as London, New York and Paris join Silicon Valley as global hubs, and India and China fast approaching.

Between entrepreneurs and incumbents, it is no longer the “us-versus-them” game. Financial technology is graduating from a (genius) kids’ craze to the “manufactured serendipity” of your teenage years and planning for first dates. The number of bank innovation consortiums, corporate innovation hubs, foundries and the sandboxes by regulators are at an all time high. And they are all trying to achieve what adjacent industries, like healthcare and pharma, have had in motion for some time: supporting the transition from pure science, to applied science, to scalable business.

At Anthemis, we are dedicated to keeping great ideas and unique talent flowing into financial services. To keep lighting a fire. In 2017, we renew our commitment to the Anthemis Fellowship and call on all talented entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs-to-be to commit early on your New Year’s resolutions. Take up the challenge of starting a business!

Cultivating, Not Teaching, Entrepreneurship

Since 2014, The Anthemis Fellowship has been an early example of a VC-backed venture building initiative, with the participation of investors who sit on the boards of some of the most disruptive companies in fintech today. We bring expert leaders from our Advisory clients, inspired founders from our portfolio (and partner) companies, subject matter experts from our Investment team, as well as inspired technology and venturing enthusiasts from our very own team at Anthemis.

We believe that entrepreneurship breeds entrepreneurship. It’s not a surprise that all three of YouTube’s founders had previously worked at PayPal when it was still a start-up. At Anthemis, we recognise that entrepreneurship cannot be taught: entrepreneurs have a distinct mindset. While it’s true that top entrepreneurs earn MBAs at a rate of more than three times the general workforce, many of them come from prior entrepreneurship experience, and large corporates still absorb the vast majority of talent coming out of MBA courses.

But even if it’s impossible to “teach” someone into becoming an entrepreneur, it’s absolutely possible to teach venture building with rigour and practice. And that’s where the Anthemis Fellowship comes in. Whether you have an idea for your own startup, or are looking at building a business case for a corporate product or service, our Fellowship will provide you with a rigorous design and systems thinking framework and the expert support you need to turn an idea into a venture brief in six months.

Inspiration

In the Information Age, Financial Services operate through digital networks and progress through distributed, collaborative innovation efforts. From the Experiential Learning Theory by Harvard alumnus David Kolb, to Christensen’s (yes, Clayton, the father of the The Innovator’s Dilemma) theory of organisational, not individual, Capabilities Framework, to the present-day practice by Google and the Digital Academy, the consensus is that the line between learning and working, corporate and educational institutions has been blurred. For good.

This means that learning comes from practice and collaboration, and the classroom comes to the work place.

Almost twenty years ago, Peter Senge wrote about the Learning Organisation, a system where people do not share knowledge or skills, but “commitment and capacity to learn at all levels […], where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, collective aspiration is set free and people are continually learning how to learn together.”

Fast-forward about ten years, and information designer and author Dave Grey writes about the Connected Company, which “link[s] into rich networks of possibility and expand their influence.” Our Founder, Sean Park, refers to this as the Anthemis City, where companies and individuals join in creative and productive processes and where they may choose to stay or to transit from. You can be a citizen, or you can be a tourist. Together, we are part of a much bigger system of companies and individuals who share a vision for just and effective Financial Services (and companies) in the Information Age. In turn, we are part of a much much bigger system (World) of economic drivers and shifting cultural values.

Indeed, our Fellowship operates in a values-based environment, to help you and your company thrive. We agree with David Slocum, Faculty Director of EMBA Programs at Berlin School of Creative Leadership, that entrepreneurs should be surrounded by a “plethora of unbundled and individualised opportunities,” and this calls for a new type of learning, where we understand the “values and priorities” we share. Combined with our commitment to diversity of thought, background, ethnicity, age, gender and experience, we want to provide Anthemis Fellows with the most enriching environment possible to achieve entrepreneurial success.

Join Us

If you are hungry for an environment that reflects your values and expands your knowledge; if you are ready to kindle the fire and seek the challenge of realising your ambition as an entrepreneur; if you seek for an industry expert to support you in the journey, then read more about our Fellows’ journeys and apply to the Anthemis Fellowship!