Innov8rs London

12 months ago, we started on the (by no means finished!) journey of developing a corporate incubator that experiments with emerging technologies, customer trends and thorny problems, with the aim of creating disruptive products in new markets. It's not been straightforward, with many takeaways from a people, process and product perspective. In a nutshell: take (the right subset of) people on the journey... balance your deliberate and emergent strategy... and don't hesitate to learn from startups and other companies around you to avoid reinventing the wheel.

Gursh set up and now runs Virgin Media O2’s nascent Emerging Products team, spearheading the company’s move towards being a digital experience provider. Still in its infancy having only been created a year ago, the team designs, incubates and launches ambitious digital products in completely new markets. They take a concept through to scale, sometimes supercharged by startups to help them deliver as appropriate. Gursh graduated from Warwick University in 2016 with a BSc in Economics with Study Abroad. Inherently curious, she dipped her toes into various careers, gaining experience with renowned organisations such as the Bank of England and the Institute of Economic Affairs, before spending 4 years at Deloitte specialising in strategy and venturing. Along the way she held multiple leadership roles, ran the company’s first partnership with a deep tech start-up incubator, nurtured new propositions with R&D studios, and mentored start-ups to help spin emerging technologies into products. She is a keen advocate of thought diversity, continuous learning, exploration and most importantly, having fun!