Andy Ayim MBE

Why organisations work with Andy Ayim

• He works with leadership teams where the brief is not a keynote but a measurable shift in how the team makes decisions, handles conflict and holds each other to account.
• His track record sits on both sides of the table: senior product roles at WorldFirst and Zilch, then Managing Director at Backstage Capital running accelerators on three continents. He has been the executive being coached and the investor pushing portfolio leaders to grow.
• His MBE, awarded in 2020 for services to diversity in the technology industry, signals a substantive record on inclusion rather than a stated commitment. Clients booking inclusive-leadership work get an external voice the room cannot dismiss as marketing.
• Through the Angel Investing School he has trained over a thousand new investors and built the curriculum used by 100 senior Google executives who went on to raise a $70m fund. He brings that operator’s view of capital, ownership and opportunity into corporate rooms that rarely hear it.

Biography highlights

• MBE for services to diversity in the technology industry, awarded 2020 (London Gazette, Issue 63135).
• Founder of the Angel Investing School, which has trained 1,000+ new angel investors and produced the Open Angel platform.
• Former Managing Director at Backstage Capital, helping run accelerator programmes in Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and London.
• Senior product roles at WorldFirst (acquired by Ant Financial for $700m) and Series C fintech Zilch.
• Trained 100 senior Black executives at Google who formed the Black Angel Group and raised a $70m fund.
• Named in the Financial Times Top 10 Most Influential BAME Leaders in Tech; HSBC and UK Black Business Show Top 25 Black Entrepreneurs to Watch.
• Opened the Venture programme at SXSW London 2026 (Christ Church Spitalfields).

Biography

Most senior teams are not short of intelligence or ambition. They are short of safety. People hold back the disagreement, the bad news, the half-formed idea that might change the decision. Andy Ayim’s work begins there. He is hired by leaders at Google, Stripe, Uber, Diageo, Novartis and Tesco to do the harder thing: change how a team behaves with each other in the room.

His authority is built on doing the job, not describing it. He held senior product roles at WorldFirst before its $700m acquisition by Ant Financial, then at Series C fintech Zilch. In 2018 he joined Arlan Hamilton as Managing Director at Backstage Capital, designing accelerator programmes for underrepresented founders in Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and London. The pattern is consistent: operator credibility first, advisor work second.

The inclusion record is documented. He was appointed MBE in 2020 for services to diversity in the technology industry, gazetted by the Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood. In the same year he founded the Angel Investing School, which has since trained over a thousand new angel investors and built the curriculum that produced the Black Angel Group, 100 senior Google executives who went on to raise a $70m fund.

What that means for a client is straightforward. When Ayim walks into a leadership offsite, he is not a consultant translating a theory. He is a former executive and active investor who has seen the same trust and capital problems from inside companies, inside portfolios and inside an honours system that has recognised the work.

Key speaking topics

• Human-centred leadership
• Inclusive leadership and team performance
• Psychological safety in senior teams
• Diversity and inclusion in technology
• Angel investing and ownership
• Future of work and hybrid team design
• Talent and the next generation of leaders

Ideal for

• CHROs and Chief People Officers commissioning inclusive-leadership and culture work for senior populations.
• ExCo and board offsites where the brief is honest conversation, trust and decision quality, not a standard keynote.
• Heads of Diversity and Inclusion looking for an external voice with a credentialled record rather than a generic DEI speaker.
• Investor and founder audiences inside corporate venture, accelerators and innovation functions.

Audience outcomes

• A clearer picture of the specific behaviours that produce psychological safety in senior teams, and the ones that quietly destroy it.
• Language for naming the inclusion problems leaders are nervous to name, with examples drawn from operator and investor experience.
• A view of inclusion as a leadership capability tied to performance, not a compliance function bolted onto HR.
• An informed perspective on angel investing, ownership and wealth creation for audiences that rarely get it from a credible practitioner.