HIGHER EDUCATION AND MENTORING
Bringing ideas to life
My marketing knowledge and background has proved invaluable in mentoring startup Founders – essentially bringing ideas to life by finding routes to market, building brands, defining proposition, audience research and commercialisation of academic research.
Long standing Entrepreneur in Residence at Future Worlds – the on campus accelerator for highly scalable tech startups at the University of Southampton
Advisor and Mentor for Virgin Startup Community – a space for early-stage Founders to connect, share, learn & grow.
Consultant for Oxentia – Oxford’s Global Innovations Consultancy – bringing ideas to life through innovation strategy, training and accelerator programmes to organisations around the world. This includes projects such as the Santander X Global Awards
Current roles include:
Mentor for the Global Challenge Lab powered by Imperial College London – a programme that brings together some of the best minds from across the globe to tackle some of the worlds most pressing challenges and work towards UN sustainable development. In 2024 the startup I mentored made it to the final 6 out of 125 startups globally.
Passionate about instilling a culture of entrepreneurialism
Through my close engagement with students and academic researchers, I am uniquely positioned to help bridge the gap between higher education and the commercial world including via my network of investors. I am passionate about instilling a culture of entrepreneurialism within higher education and through my experience as a mentor, I understand how best to develop ideas or research into robust business proposals and investor ready pitches.
Most importantly, as a Founder myself, with a strong entrepreneurial background, I can relate to and empathise with the challenges startups face and offer a safe space to explore and develop ideas and tackle challenges.
Sarah has worked as a mentor and EiR at Future Worlds for the last 4 years. Her marketing expertise, as well as her experience as a Founder, has proved invaluable in helping our tech startups especially around the articulation of their proposition, audience research, story and branding. Sarah’s extensive network has also proved to be an incredibly valuable resource and enabled us to establish long lasting beneficial relationships that have stood the test of time.
Ben Clark, Director, Future Worlds