(updated December 2023)
My name is Richard, I'm a business and social entrepreneur with over 750 employees in technology companies in Europe and the USA.
My activities centre around entrepreneurship, the promotion of entrepreneurship, projects fighting social isolation and loneliness, alumni activation, event hosting, public speaking and leadership. For 15 years I was very active in the world of TED and TEDx. I teach entrepreneurship and run workshops in universities, business schools, schools and at community events. I don’t have any need/desire for “work/life balance”. I like being productive and doing things that matter to me and hopefully other people.
Some projects I lead or support/(ed) include Open Coffee Lisbon, Lisbon Newcomers Welcome Club, CAMentrepreneurs, Village in the City, Open Coffee Krakow, Krakow Enterprise Mondays and the Wojtek the Soldier Bear project - which I have written about here. I’m particularly interested in changing the way that schools and universities interact with their alumni with respect to the support of entrepreneurship.
I have been a Couchsurfer and still occasionally host and stay with people.
Public SpeakinG
Although my formal commitment to TED and TEDx ended in 2021, I remain in close contact with and continue to support TEDxKazimierz, which I founded and led until January 2021. I hosted TED Circles while TED supported this innovative form of discussion group based on TED content. and you can find my TED.com profile here.
Podcasting
The New Books Network has grown to be almost certainly the largest non-fiction author interview podcast in the world, with over 140,000 downloads a day (data from December 2021). The NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast which I founded with my business partner and friend Kimon Fountoukidis is a small part of a much bigger picture.
Entrepreneurship
My businesses are listed on my Linkedin profile – with all of those businesses having clients, staff, management, revenue and sometimes profits. I’ve done nothing as successful as Google or Facebook, but some – like Argos Multilingual – are among the best companies in the world in their sector, others like Zalamo and ISL are market leaders in Poland, and others like Unicard and SKK Global are very strong in some of the markets they are active in. PMR has a powerful brand in Poland as a source of unbiased forecasts and analysis, sectoral events and business services especially in the Construction, Life Sciences, IT and FMCG/retail sectors. I have been on the management board of some of these businesses, CEO of two of them, and am on the Supervisory Board of three. If you want to do business with them and the idea makes sense I can help make introductions but I am not the ultimate decision maker, so don’t think that persuading me will be enough.
Angel Investing
I was angel investing before I knew that this term existed. Some of my investmewnts are regarded as successful even though they have never paid me a dividend, salary, consulting fee or made a profit.
I exited Targeted Provision Crowdcube, Everuptive (formerly Notatek.pl), Untitled Kingdom, Racing Life and Vantage Power. I made many investments that never made it. I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time, to have the risk tolerance to trust in my instincts even though I was often wrong.
I can and do share advice for people looking for investors in my most popular blog post Questions from a potential investor, mentor or partner and what not to do! If you are ambitious, want to have a great life but don’t know what to do, watch my TEDxTarnow talk on “ Opportunity Readiness”.
If you want to meet me to talk about your business idea, please read this first.
Public speaking, hosting and event improvement consulting
If you want me to help with, host or speak at your event, take a look at "Will you attend/speak at/sponsor my event ?. I wrote it in a bad mood when the event I was speaking at started late. The ten thousand hours I have spent preparing speakers for the TEDxKazimierz stage, hosting, and organising events have had a noticeable impact on me. I don’t accept badly organised events.
I have experience in making events much better than normal - if the organisers are interested. My own speaking and hosting skills have improved in recent years - I’m good now and always aim to get better.
Let’s have a coffee
My Linkedin and Twitter profiles can be found below - or you can get in touch via the contact page. I am open to new ideas - assuming you come to me with the right expectations.