In the Spotlight: True’s Strategy Director, Richard Anson
Raised in Hong Kong and Tokyo, educated at the University of Bristol and the Cranfield School of Management (with a PhD in Engineering Geology and an MBA to boot), and boasting one of the most diverse professional CVs out there, Rich Anson has seen and done it all.
Rich has been part of the True Live Network pretty much since its inception and came on board in an official capacity in 2014 as True’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence where he played a key role in advising our early stage startups on the development of their propositions and helped these startups with their growth trajectories.
Rich recently transitioned from this role to Strategy Director, and now has a mandate of overseeing True’s wider business from a strategic perspective, to identify and grow areas that will benefit and impact not only our early stage portfolio, but also our PE investments and corporate partners. His new role complements his vast experience built up over a lengthy and varied career — however, we all know where Rich’s heart truly lies: our early stage fund and the startups we work with.
Rich sits on our early stage investment committee. Despite being softly spoken, he’s a specialist in the ‘knee chopper’ question — with one pithy point or question, he gets to the crux of an investment debate, and more often than not, turns around the entire focus of the debate.
His ability to distil information has been honed through decades running and advising a myriad of businesses, from small startups to large corporates. He’s probably sat in more board meetings than I’ve had hot dinners.
Rich started his career at private equity house, 3i, before changing tact and spending four years in the world of Civil Engineering in the late 1990s. During this period, he also spent time at the University of Bristol as a Postdoctoral Researcher.
Seeing the light towards the end of the dot com boom, and deciding he actually wanted to earn some money, Rich joined KPMG as a Senior Strategy Consultant in TMT in 2000, and also held a leadership role at Orange in the early 2000s.
At the time Dame Ellen MacArthur was setting a new world record for the fastest person to sail around the world in February 2005, Rich was preparing to make his own mark on the world by setting up the user generated content marketing platform, Reevoo.
Reevoo is still going strong today. Formerly CEO, Rich has let go of the reins in recent years and now sits on the board. He oversaw £8m of venture funding, from VCs such as Talis Capital and MMC Ventures, and led Reevoo’s growth to a point where they were serving some 250 corporate brands. This experience means that he knows pretty much every trick in the book when it comes to the fundraising process. More importantly, it means that he knows exactly what founders are going through when they meet with us. As a result, he’s able to empathise with them but he also knows how to identify pain points or future challenges.
Rich has also held various startup and venture directorship roles. To top it all off, he’s been a Senior Teaching Fellow at UCL since 2017, where he teaches Entrepreneurship.
He really has seen the business world — and the startup world in particular — from all angles, as he has sat on every side of the table at some point in his life.
Now, I hear you ask, when does this master of all trades have time to put his feet up? Well, he doesn’t! Rich spends most of his weekend court or pitch-side, watching his two daughters play either netball or hockey. When he’s not doing that, he’ll be revelling in the exhilaration provided by my pre-read materials for our Monday afternoon investment committees.
Given his diverse experiences and interests, Rich brings a wealth of operating and investing experience to our early stage fund and True’s wider business. He helps focus minds in our investment committee meetings by sniffing out and homing in on key issues. Most importantly, he’s a thoroughly decent and kind bloke, and is always looking to support those around him.
