We are two business partners with high expectations and huge respect for each other.
We enjoy the challenge of working together and have a lot of fun. The same goes for the founding teams we work with.
We listen hard to founders, to their customers in the market, and to the investors that back them. We push to challenge them, and we expect to be in this for the long haul.
ANNA-LISA WESLEY
Anna-Lisa earned her stripes at Deloitte, and Accenture, leading change programmes under C-suite sponsorship at HSBC, Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group.
Start-up mentoring from 2015 meant Anna-Lisa worked with a greater sense of urgency. Voted top mentor by the Startupbootcamp InsurTech cohort, Anna-Lisa was invited to join as Strategist In Residence. She has gone on to offer transformational leadership support to FTSE 100 and start-up leaders, taking an entrepreneur in residence post at SETsquared.
With Sapphire & Steel, Anna-Lisa chairs and advises boards, always bringing that combination of ambition and execution. Or she’ll just chew the fat with the founder. Starting a business is really hard.
PeteR Blake
Pete began working with entrepreneurs in the '90s supporting the launch of digital products and ethical consumer brands. He’s built and sold two digital agencies, and co-founded two social enterprises that invest in young talent across the UK.
For five years in the early 2000's he worked at IBM to drive the commericalisation of deep tech, before leaving to lead large scale tech innovation programmes across media, consumer technology and health sectors.
Since 2013 he has focused on working with mission minded tech founders, and in 2018 established Sapphire & Steel with his business partner Anna-Lisa Wesley.