Turning Ideas into Value with Ken Charman
Ken Charman built enterprise software start-ups that were acquired by the likes of IBM, Oracle, and SAP. He later led start-up that came out of King's College London Department of War Studies, that ran simulations and corporate wargames to test business strategy, including response to the Swine Flu epidemic, and which was later sold to Deloitte.
Ken is now the CEO of uFlexReward, a cutting edge HR company that consolidates employee costs into one real time platform. The technology was built for Unilever, underpinned by agile methodology, and has now been rolled out across Unilever globally; it’s a case study Ken presents to master’s students at the University of Oxford.
Life as an academic and tech entrepreneur may seem an unlikely route for a person suffering from dyscalculia, a condition sometimes known as dyslexia for numbers. While dyscalculia caused Ken to mistake a house number and begin a remodeling project on the wrong house as a young man, it hasn’t held him back from building companies.
In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin & Simon Daw, Ken talks about growing up in East London and overcoming his challenge with numbers to build a career and many companies in technology across Europe.
Connect with Ken: LinkedIn // uFlexReward
Video Highlights: Tech entrepreneur and war gaming specialist Ken Charman
Ken Charman on what drives an entrepreneur.
“We have to rediscover the value of telling the truth.”
Ken Charman on the post-Covid workplace.
“I wanted us to be as successful as the bad guys by being good.”