London is Open
London & Partners is the Mayor of London’s official promotional agency. Our purpose is to support the Mayor’s priorities by promoting London internationally, as the best city in the world in which to invest, work, study and visit. We do this by devising creative ways to promote London and to amplify the Mayor’s messages, priorities and campaigns to international audiences. Our mission is to tell London’s story brilliantly to an international audience.
We are the experts on doing business in London. We help overseas businesses set up in London, help London businesses win business overseas
through the Mayor’s International Business Programme, support companies to grow in London through our business growth programme and attract capital investment into regeneration projects.
At London and Partners, we aim to help business’ through two different programmes which we are currently running.
About The Mayors International Business Programme:
The Mayor’s International Business Programme helps ambitious high-growth (scale-up) companies from London’s technology, life sciences, and urban sectors to expand their businesses internationally. Tailored to fit a company’s specific international growth ambitions, this exclusive programme provides:
■ One-to-one and one-to-many mentoring and ongoing guidance from entrepreneurs and business leaders
■ Focused workshops and events that provide the opportunity to learn from expert advisers
■ Live leads for specific business opportunities in North America, Europe, China and India
■ The opportunity to join high-profile targeted trade missions led by our team of international business experts
For more information on the programme please visit gotogrow.london
About The Business Growth Programme:
Tailored to your business growth ambitions, London & Partners’ Business Growth Programme offers free impartial business advice and support to SMEs looking to grow across London. Partly funded by the European Regional Development Fund, the programme can help unlock your business potential by identifying barriers to growth and providing tailored solutions including mentoring, workshops, business growth advice and opportunities across our London network.
If you are an SME based in London with 3-250 employees, a minimum viable product and an ambition to grow, we may be able to help you. Sign up to the programme via businessgrowth.london.
Profiles of Mark Walker and Amrit Kang
With a strong, growing and dedicated team at London & Partners, we have profiles of a few that have worked extensively with FinTech’s internationally both Mark Walker and Amrit Kang have at least 8 years between them.
Mark is an experienced enterprise technologist, having started his Executive career leading the development of a number of significant new Life Science software and hardware offerings within Brady Corporation. A large international firm selling signage and labeling solutions to identify and protect premises, products, and people, Mark was instrumental in leading new software developments through coordinating a team of developers, writing specifications and monitoring/ testing new software systems.
His successes at Brady led Mark to form his own enterprise software company, producing and selling to Universities and institutions working within scientific research. Mark is a former Senior Adviser in digital and media at UKTI, where he used his time well to build a significant contact base in the technology space and development community, as well as the investment and company accelerator environment.
Managing a team of seven, his role facilitated a good understanding of the London start-up and technology environment. He was also a start-up Mentor at Google Launchpad, an accelerator programme covering Business setup, Product & UX design, and Marketing theory. Many of the learning concepts involved working with teams on HTML 5 and PHP development systems, as well as the various server space providers such as Amazon web services and rack space, with services and advantages differing according to roll out locations and software requirements.
Most recently, Mark was approached by London’s Inward investment agency to be tech adviser to the Mayor’s international business programme. Helping London start-up tech companies expand into new geographies, Mark works closely with partner organisations that support and are adjacent to high growth technology providers, facilitating access to a wealth of different developer types and skills.
Amrit began her career in Law and worked in Criminal Defence and Commercial Law which, enhanced her analytical and written skills from having to comprehend and underpin legal precedent and policy. During this time, she also worked with an NGO which looked at Counter Human Trafficking. Assisting with the designing and implementing policies and procedures for NGO’s, SOCA and UKBA.
Amrit is client focused and has the ability to build strong relationships with clients, which she did during her time as a head-hunter in financial services having moved teams and helped lead on an acquisition she set up her own business Ravenscroft Solutions. Working with banks she took an alternative direction and looked at researching the peer to peer marketplace companies as a result of this she then worked internationally learning the FinTech landscape by working with SME’s and fast-growing companies.
Most recently, Amrit is working at London and Partners on the Business Growth Programme helping a company’s direction, achieving their goals and optimising their core business. This is through facilitating one to one mentoring, workshops and events around the following; Finance and Funding; Team and Talent; Sales and Markets; Marketing and Branding. Amrit is now working with a number of FinTech’s who are looking to overcome certain barriers of growth.
