What’s next for ALEX RAMAMURTHY OA?
I attended Dulwich College from 1995 to 2006, during which time the Ramamurthy name was synonymous with mischief. After graduating from Surrey University in 2010, however, I was pleased to apply my entrepreneurial mindset to the world of start-ups.
In 2018 I stepped down after two years as CEO of the Care Workers Charity, having spent the previous six years leading on business development in start-ups. One memorable company, SpeakSet, aimed to tackle social isolation and loneliness in old age through simple video calling on the TV. We won several awards for innovation and social good, and were even invited to Buckingham Palace to demonstrate our kit to the Queen. I was recruited into the Care Workers Charity following a move into social care. I wanted to do something to improve the quality of daily life for residents and workers in care homes, having spent many years visiting my Grandma in a Battersea care home. When the Care Workers Charity approached me in November 2016 to take on a turnaround role, I felt that my skills from the start-up scene could be put to good use. Over the next two years we completely transformed a charity that was on the brink of closure, winning Change Project of the Year at the Charity Times Awards, and being named as a Finalist for Charity Chief Executive of the Year at the Third Sector Awards.
To any budding entrepreneurs reading this, I offer three practices that really helped me succeed as a leader: 1. Apply learning from the start-up scene to ingrain an entrepreneurial team culture, continuously testing assumptions and making iterative improvements to everything you do. 2. Recognise the abilities of the people around you in the wider sector, taking advantage of all that the network has to offer, and always ensuring that you add some value back to those individuals in return. 3. Hire super bright, invariably younger, people and invest in their skills and personal development, and then give them the autonomy and responsibility to own their role. Mistakes happen, I don’t encourage it, but I also don’t see it as a negative so long as you learn and improve. The ‘turnaround’ period at the Care Workers Charity came to an end and I moved on to pastures new. Social care is a market that many entrepreneurs and young people will find ‘unsexy’. However, having spent the last two
years witnessing the scale of the challenge facing our health and social care sector, I have also witnessed the size of opportunity. It is well documented that there is a shortage of beds in care homes, but there is no shortage of space. Shared space such as lounges, cafes and cinema rooms are incredibly underutilised, posing more as a ‘shop front’ for potential residents and their families, rather than a space for fun, social environments with interaction and stimulation for older adults. I believe that staying connected is vital at all stages of life. My new venture, Mirthy.co.uk, is being designed to enable people to stay connected and engaged in their local community, and through doing so improving quality of life whilst reducing loneliness. This is what I am launching in 2019. If you are interested in learning more or getting involved, feel free to reach out – Ramamurthy.alex @ gmail.com .
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