Tom Ilube, entrepreneur

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2021

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tom Ilube is an entrepreneur, known for his successful start-up companies, and a philanthropist. He recently took up the post of chairman of the Rugby Football Union. He was born in 1963 to a Nigerian father and a British mother, and grew up first in London, and then in Uganda, a stay cut short by the rise to power of Idi Amin. He began his teenage years back in the UK, enjoying rugby and ice-skating, before moving with his family to Nigeria, where he also attended university, studying Applied Physics and launching his first business selling flared trousers to fellow students. He returned to London looking for work in information technology. After many unsuccessful job applications, British Airways gave him a break, and he later worked for the London Stock Exchange and Goldman Sachs. In 1996, he founded his first company and has since been involved with several other start-ups – “thinking up ideas, raising venture capital, building companies, selling them and doing it all again,” he says. He is also involved with philanthropic projects in education, including founding a school for high-achieving but disadvantaged girls in Ghana with a focus on maths and science. In 2017 he topped the Powerlist, the annual list of the 100 most influential people of African and African Caribbean heritage in Britain, and was appointed a CBE in 2018. He is married to Caron and has two grown-up children. DISC ONE: Doctor Who by BBC Radiophonic Workshop DISC TWO: Sweet Mother by Prince Nico Mbarga And Rocafil Jazz International DISC THREE: The Boys Are Back in Town by Thin Lizzy DISC FOUR: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by Ladysmith Black Mambazo DISC FIVE: That's The Way Love Goes by Janet Jackson DISC SIX: Family Business by Kanye West DISC SEVEN: Mr Bojangles by Sammy Davis Jr DISC EIGHT: A Change is Gonna Come by Ayanna Witter-Johnson BOOK CHOICE: The Wormwood Trilogy by Tade Thompson LUXURY ITEM: A solar-powered puzzle generator, designed by Tom. CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Mr Bojangles by Sammy Davis Jr Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Sarah Taylor

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts
0:04.9	Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Deser Island Disks Podcast.
0:08.6	Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them
0:13.9	if they were cast away to a desert island. For right reasons, the music is shorter than the original
0:19.6	broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.
0:43.8	My cast away this week is the entrepreneur and philanthropist Tom Illubay. Back in 2017,
0:50.0	he beat household names like Salua Hamilton and Saleni Henry to top the power list,
0:54.8	the annual chart of the most influential Britons of African or Caribbean heritage.
1:00.3	Though if you don't already know his story, don't worry, that's just his style.
1:04.8	These days, we're used to seeing tech entrepreneurs center stage at product launches,
1:09.5	whooping up the crowd and lapping up the applause. Not him, a self-described hardcore introvert.
1:15.4	He is, he says, a start-up guy who's most at home with an empty office, a flip chart,
1:20.9	and a brand new idea to bring to life. He's made a career of transforming blue sky thoughts
1:26.4	into flourishing businesses over and over again. He was there at the start of the UK's first internet
1:32.8	bank, egg, and launched the credit ratings business, Noddle, another first of its kind.
1:38.1	These were followed by start-ups in cybersecurity, and in recent years, two bricks and mortar
1:43.4	schools, specialising in STEM subjects, one in the UK and the other teaching girls in Ghana.
1:49.4	And he's about to take on another new role. He's the incoming chairman of the rugby football union.
1:55.3	As we're here today, it hasn't all been plain sailing. His successes have made his name
1:59.8	unfortunate, but for him, failure is also an important part of the story. He says,
2:05.2	as a start-up guy, you know that you will face failure. Well, I have a good technique.
2:10.4	When I fall flat on my face, I cry like a baby, then I get up, brush the dirt off my shoulder,
	...

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