I wanted to talk about investing not diversity – Anu Adebajo, CEO, Newton Venture Program

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UKTN

Uktech, Investing, Sales, Tech, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur, Funding, Hr, Business, Technology

5.0 • 6 Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2026

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Anu Adebajo, CEO of Newton Venture Program, discusses how we train the next generation of investors, the real solutions to a lack of diversity in the industry and how much of VC success is down to pure luck.

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you ask me, I think a very high percentage is luck.
0:08.0	I don't think anybody is a born investor. Nobody has some sort of golden magic touch.
0:14.0	I have heard many at a venture fund talk about the fact that the reason why they do not have diverse teams is because they can't find the talent.
0:25.6	Yes, AI can absolutely scan a founder's pitch deck and draw out some of those important things.
0:34.6	What AI can't do is be able to pick up on the body language
0:38.6	and be like, oh, they're saying this thing, but there's something, I'm going to vibe,
0:41.8	that's just something slightly off here.
0:50.1	And now a message from our podcast sponsor, HSBC Innovation Banking.
0:55.6	You're not ordinary.
0:56.9	No nine to five meetings about meetings or compulsory corporate team building for you.
1:02.7	Your business is extraordinary and you need an extraordinary bank.
1:07.1	From pre-seed to IPO and beyond, HSBC Innovation Banking offers VC-backed tech and life science businesses custom solutions, co-created by actual industry experts and delivered by a dedicated team you can call whenever you need.
1:23.0	Discover extraordinary at HSBCinnovation.co.com.com.
1:38.2	Hello and welcome to the UKTM podcast, a weekly chat with the movers and shakers of the UK tech industry and the destination for all things UK tech related. I'm your host, Jane Wakefield,
1:45.8	and today I am joined by au Adabarjo, CEO of Newton Venture Program, which trains the next generation of investors. Welcome,
1:54.6	Anu. Thanks very much, Jane. Really lovely to be on the show with you. Now, before we talk about
1:59.4	what you're doing now, let's rewind and talk about
2:02.0	some of the places that you work beforehand and a bit about your background. So you were born in
2:06.3	Nigeria, but you were working at some of the sort of big funds. What was the sort of, how did you
2:11.7	get into, into VC in the beginning? Let's start with that. Yeah. So I was born in Nigeria,
2:16.5	but I mean, I spent about three months, I think, there. I grew up, I grew up actually in most of my time in the north
2:23.5	of England in Sheffield. And that was kind of my start in venture was actually in Sheffield.
	...

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