Sir Ronald Cohen Impresses Audiences at WJR Business Breakfast
WJR’s popular annual Business Breakfast was held on Friday (20th June) with this year’s guest speaker Sir Ronald Cohen, “The father of British Venture Capitalism”, impressing and inspiring the 250-strong audience with his tales of entrepreneurship.
The event, sponsored by Knight Frank and held at the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel, raised over £110,000 for WJR projects supporting some of the most vulnerable and at risk communities around the world.
Sir Ronald is one of the UK’s foremost business leaders, often credited with taking venture capitalism from the periphery to the mainstream.
In 1972, with three friends, he founded the company that became Apax Partners, which financed more than 500 start-up firms, some of which became national institutions, and invested in Waterstones, Yellow Pages and AOL, among others. Apax Partners is today one of the world’s leading private equity investment groups, operating in nine countries across Europe, the USA, Israel and Japan. Apax advises and manages funds of over $20 billion.
He is currently Chairman of Portland Capital LLP, The Portland Trust and Bridges Ventures as well as being Chairman of the Social Investment Taskforce and the Commission for Unclaimed Assets. Sir Ronald also serves as a Trustee of the British Museum and is a member of the Executive Committee of the International Institute for Strategic Studies as well as being Vice-Chairman of Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
Sir Ronald spoke at length and without a note to the group of business professionals in the room about his fascinating experiences in business as well as his drive to develop the concept of ‘social entrepreneurship’ where the business community can give back to society.
This year’s Business Breakfast, the sixth of its kind, raised over £110,000 bringing the total raised by the Business Breakfast Committee to over £500,000. It has funded and continues to develop a breadth of projects, including those that ensure that children’s basic requirements are met. This work covers urgent day care for children with special needs and safe environments for orphans and at risk children.
The Business Breakfast Committee was chaired by Lawrence Gergel.
