Piers Linney

About Piers Linney

Having wanted to be his own boss since the age of thirteen, Piers was destined to become a business leader.

Piers is a British businessman, best known for being a ‘dragon’ on BBC Dragon’s Den. He is a non-executive director of British Business Bank, the UK government-owned development bank with £6.2bn of funding to improve small and medium-sized business access to debt and equity finance.

Piers has a potent presence in the media having featured on Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire in 2011 which covered the ten days he spent in Wolverhampton’s Brinsford Young Offenders’ Institution. He was one of the Dragon’s between 2013-2015, where he exercised his keen eye for innovation to invest in a wide variety of early stage ventures.

Piers has a professional background as a lawyer in the City before he became an investment banker specialising in mergers and acquisitions at Credit Suisse. He has had a stunning career working across a wide breadth of businesses in the finance, technology, media and communications sectors. Piers has always been inspired by the disruptive power of technology and the Internet, social business and the need for alternative financing options for growth businesses and he firmly believes that business can be a force for good.

Piers has used his profile, experience and knowledge to champion entrepreneurs and SMEs and is a passionate believer in the importance of SMEs to the success of the UK economy. He has represented and supported SMEs on a Cabinet Office committee as well as in the media.

When he’s not seeking out the next revolutionary technology, Piers is a keen cycling and mountain biking enthusiast and works extensively with charities, He is a trustees of the UK’s leading innovation charity, NESTA. Piers has been recognised on the Thomson Reuters sponsored Powerlist as one of the top 100 most influential black Britons.