Victor Christou backs The Bright SCIdea Challenge

Victor Christou, Head of Growth at YFM Equity Partners, is lending his expertise to an entrepreneurship programme by the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI). Their Bright SCIdea Challenge supports students in the UK and Republic of Ireland as they develop an innovative science-based idea into a business plan.

All entrants to the competition receive business and marketing training, networking opportunities and advice from successful entrepreneurs, investors and patent lawyers. Teams with the strongest business plans are invited to make their pitch to a panel of experts, and the overall winner receives a £5,000 cash prize. The programme is sponsored by GSK and Johnson Matthey among others. This year’s finalists are presenting pitches in a range of areas including health, agriculture and energy.

Victor sits on the judging panel alongside Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne, founder of Genius Foods, and Robin Harrison, VP of multi-national chemicals business Synthomer. Before joining YFM earlier this year, Victor founded two successful technology firms and spent over 15 years backing other entrepreneurs at Oxford Capital Partners, Wellington Partners and Cambridge Innovation Capital. He began his career as an academic at the University of Oxford and was a Sloan Fellow at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business in California.

In the above video from SCI’s How-To Series, Victor speaks to Cláudio Lourenço, EngD student at UCL and 2019 Bright SCIdea finalist. They discuss the importance of homing in on a consumer need and enjoying what you do.

To find out more about SCI’s entrepreneurship competition, including how to enter in 2021, visit their website www.soci.org/brightscidea.