Reflections from members of our White City community. This month's spotlight is with Richard Broyd, Advisory Director at Blenheim Chalcot.
What is your role at White City?
My role in White City is as an Advisory Director of Blenheim Chalcot and Chairman of Scale Space. I am also Chairman of BrightCure, a biotech/femtech start up based here.
What do you enjoy about working at White City?
Being surrounded by Imperial College, and seeing the growth of the Innovation District every day as more is built and more companies move here. We now have more than 70 ventures in our community, and more than 1,000 people using our app. It was great to see three of them on Deloitte’s List of Fast Growing Companies – we doubt there is another community in UK who can match that.
What are the main work challenges for you at the moment?
We are lucky at Scale Space to have such a large and flexible building, but keeping up with the evolving demands of the ventures is a real challenge. For example we are now fitting out a series of labs which were not foreseen in the original plan and created a cutting edge recording studio as ventures use webinars and podcasts more.
As we have grown, we have needed to respond to the needs of our community members, whether it be through tech, space or wellbeing. We have recently installed London's first 190 inch interactive screen in a specially fitted out room for hybrid collaboration. As our members have returned to the office, we have provided more opportunities to socialise, including a multi-use sports pitch and a pop up pub.
What is one thing that you have learned in the last month?
As people have started to return to the office, I have learnt that you can't replicate the energy and creativity that comes from in-person networking and collaboration. The Life Sciences Roundtable that took place earlier this month has shown how the White City ecosystem is being actively chosen for its collaboration potential.