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OC Profile
OC PROFILE Dahlia Dana (S95)Investing herselfDahlia Dana left Saunderites in 1995. Here she tells us what she’s been up to.
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I had a wonderful time at Charterhouse and still stay in touch with my Charterhouse friends. It was a real privilege to explore so many different activities. I was quite an active member of the Debating Society and I ran the Junior Society which was great fun and gave me a lot of confidence, which has helped me later in my life, especially in my career. I always recommend the School as there are so many opportunities. I probably had a little too much of a good time(!) as I had to redo my A levels afterwards. But this really grounded me, and I got the message that if you don’t work hard then you won’t do very well. So, with a little extra work, I went on to read Economics and Politics at Bristol University.
Having enjoyed my degree, it was a natural progression for me to enter a career in Finance so I researched various areas and made a number of grad scheme applications for investment management. I undertook a graduate training scheme at James Capel Investment Managers, who would later merge with HSBC in the late 90s, and completed my Securities Institute Diploma. In total I spent five years with the Bank. From then I went on to work for various family offices and started to specialise in tech investing about 10 years ago.
Saunderites 1994
I was interested in tech because of the huge changes that were occurring. The premise of the tech boom in the late 90s was that the internet would pervade every aspect of our lives, but this hadn’t really happened yet. It was, however, being priced into the stock market. Some of the first iteration companies were highly indebted. It took a while before the best management teams at say Apple, Amazon and Microsoft perfected their business models and started to scale. Once that started to happen, the stock market really began to rate those companies in a meaningful way. Straight after the financial crisis key companies went public like Google and then Facebook. The public equity market then had exposure to some of the companies that were taking on meaningful market share from traditional companies. It started with enterprise software, then consumer and now it is pervading health, energy and possibly transport and logistics.
Shortly after the financial crisis, I found myself lucky to be part of a team that saw tech as very cheap and started specialising in investment of it. I then went on to help start a tech firm in New York which was a tech hedge fund. That was Tekne Capital where I became a Managing Director. I was in New York for about eight years and came back to London last year. Living overseas was a great experience – daunting at the beginning as you are starting from scratch, but I thrived on it! New York is very different; it’s very meritocratic and success is recognised and rewarded which is great. But the pace is very intense, and the culture is very direct, which some might find overwhelming. People are always in a hurry there! And there’s definitely no chit chat about the weather! Over those eight years I learn a lot. My core role was to be in charge of raising capital in the business and helping to manage the team, plus some risk management functions. Although I’m in Finance specialising in tech, rather than tech itself, I have been able to watch the advancement of technology through the last decade. Even just thinking about how we communicate today, it would have been pretty much impossible to have worked remotely from home as we have all done during the pandemic, ten years ago. And with this advancement I can work remotely with America from here now, although I do hope to travel more again post-Covid.
I’m very fortunate in that I love what I do. I love looking at markets. I enjoy analysing what’s going on and the changes that are going on, particularly in this very disruptive environment that we’re in. If you want a career in anything you have to enjoy it, and everyone I know who is very successful does something they love. You can’t pretend, not in the stressful times. For example, when the markets don’t go your way there’s actually nothing you can do about it.
Since I’ve come back to the UK I’ve been on a kind of sabbatical from paid work although I have continued to advise a couple of smaller companies. I’ve been helping the Design Museum in Kensington raise funds post-Covid. I live nearby and have always been a regular visitor so wanted to get involved. I’ve helped the museum to build the first entrepreneurs’ programme in any museum in the UK. I’ve been very inspired by the museum and it’s an incredible legacy – Britain is so great at design and it has the potential to create so many jobs. We found there’s a huge gap where creative founders from underrepresented groups or low-income groups don’t have access to the type of networks they would want and need to start their own businesses.
I’ve also taken quite an active role in mentoring the founders on our programme as well as seeking out inspirational speakers and successful entrepreneurs to participate on the programme. We have been astounded by the talent that we have found and their progress during their time with us. It’s been a very interesting and also a very humbling experience.
Looking back over my years in Finance and my career, one of my highlights would have to be working for Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild. This was a huge privilege. But I probably see my proudest moment as the work I am doing today: building this entrepreneur’s programme for the Design Museum. I feel like I’m doing some real good – both for the community and the museum.
