THE E HICAL

ULTRAPRENEUR
FROM TEEN TRADER TO EDU-TECH ENTREPRENEUR
– VIA LIBEL BARRISTER, CULINARY MOGUL AND
GOVERNMENT ADVISER – THE STORY OF PRIYA
LAKHANI, OBE, TRANSCENDS THE USUAL TALES OF
ERUDITE MAGNANIMITY TO DELIVER A MASTERCLASS
IN TRULY MODERN CHANGE-MAKING

WORDS: KATIE BARON

PHOTOGRAPHY: REGGIE REFINED

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Tales of well-educated, vastly successful businesspeople turning
philanthropist tend to fall slightly flat; the commendable charitable
gestures dampened by the expectations assigned to the privileged,
the litanies of largesse perversely as alienating as they are impressive.
In the land of high-achiever, plenty doesn’t giving simply come with
the territory? But Priya Lakhani, OBE (since 2014), is a different
creature altogether: more enabler than benefactor and with enough
personal experience of doggedly bulldozing her way through
adversity to give her unique brand of positive social impact a punch
with added power, integrity and distinctly human flavours.
The desire to make a difference arrived early: Lakhani was raised
in ‘leafy Cheshire’ in an affluent, business-smart family but spent
many of her childhood summers and winters in East Africa (her
parents are East African Indian), which brought her face to face,
quite literally, with vast disparities in wealth and opportunity: ‘We’d
be in our white Mercedes, me in some white, Sunday-best style
dress with polka dots, picking up fresh food from a roadside stall
and there were children that had almost nothing. Even then, aged
maybe six, I understood that the difference between those children
and me was maybe just a few decisions made by our ancestors.’
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Priya Lakhani at her
Century Tech office in
Fitzrovia, central London
The sense of injustice weighed heavily, kickstarting a change-
making mindset that travelled back home to the UK. She recounts
selling tickets for a charity fundraiser for the family’s local football
team, Manchester United. She became the top seller, meeting United
legend Eric Cantona and unleashing a phenomenal talent for
persuasion. Shortly after, as a young teenager, she joined forces with
her entrepreneurial older brother, buying up deadstock at auctions
such as camcorders. They’d sell them on, sometimes tapping people
on the shoulder who were buying the same item at Costco, offering
them a cut-price deal.
Indeed, selling in the broadest possible sense fundamentally
underpins the Lakhani machine. It’s clear that she loves the
hustle, the connections spurred when sparring, whether it’s
in court, at Whitehall or in a press interview – a symptom of
her relentless appetite for learning, from the situation and the
people around her. ‘I learnt a lot from my brother, including the
skill of how to look for an opportunity, but I’d always give the
proceeds away. But giving isn’t how you change the world;
you have to create a shift. I feel an overwhelming responsibility
to change the world. I feel slightly sick when I say it because
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’ SELLING IN THE BROADEST POSSIBLE SENSE
FUNDAMENTALLY UNDERPINS THE LAKHANI
MACHINE. SHE LOVES THE HUSTLE, THE
CONNECTIONS SPURRED WHEN SPARRING,
WHETHER IT’S IN COURT, AT WHITEHALL OR
IN A PRESS INTERVIEW’
I know it’s such a cliché, but it’s always been my purpose.
Nutrition, healthcare, education – these are my focuses.’
Her next steps towards changing the world took a more traditional
but also challenging route as she pursued a career. Railing against
both advice from her school tutors and the statistics that suppose
a woman from an ethnic minority is highly unlikely to make it to
the upper echelons of a career in law, she became a libel barrister
‘to address media imbalances’. She was so successful that she
was offered ‘a dream opportunity’ of being part of one of the top
newspaper libel teams in the country, a pivotal moment she turned
down in favour of doing what then seemed unthinkable to almost
everyone else: launching her own fresh Indian sauce brand, Masala
Masala (the first product of its kind in the world) and entering a
world of which she had absolutely zero experience, backers or, at
that time, allies. Using £25,000 of her own money, the plan was that
for every pot of the sauce sold, the business would provide a meal
for a homeless person in India.
Far from being welcomed into the industry as an interesting
newcomer, she recalls being verbally threatened by competitors at
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trade fairs: ‘I was told that I’d ruffle feathers, but to have someone
approach me at an exhibition stand and say, “I will destroy you”?
Law is competitive but there’s a level of respect for one another.
I was cutting my business teeth in a sector that was in many ways
far more cut-throat.’ She succeeded by hitching her intellect
back to those powers of persuasion, deploying a novice’s bravado
and an enthusiast’s charm to call up industry insiders (read:
strangers) to understand how to navigate supply chain and
manufacturing processes. Within months she had orders from
supermarkets including Waitrose and department store Harvey
Nichols. For four years it was just Priya and a handful of interns
running the business.
When she was just 27 years old and Masala Masala was in year
two of trading (with approximately three million meals served
to the homeless) she was offered £2 million for the company but
declined because the buyer wasn’t prepared to continue the
ethical enterprise. As such, the company is currently on hiatus. It’s
testament to her integrity (‘I was talking about CSR – corporate
responsibility – when it was not a sexy term’) and a palpable aura
of world-beating perfectionism: ‘I have ADHD (Attention Deficit
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Hyperactivity Disorder) but it’s like a superpower because it means
I can focus extremely intensely. I’d learnt from my parents that you
must always be authentic, and I don’t like anything small-scale – I
think in terms of global or nothing.’ She describes the experience
of establishing the business as transformative. ‘It changed me as a
person because now I could give money at scale. It also made me
competitive regarding protecting what I wanted to do.’
Masala Masala also put her on the Government’s radar, specifically
into the orbit of Vince Cable, then Secretary of State for Business,
Innovation and Skills. She sat on the Business Advisory Board for
the entire Coalition government (2010-2015), a role that triggered
her newest and arguably most ground-breaking venture. On
learning that 20 per cent of schoolchildren were underperforming
in the UK she founded Century Tech: a real-time learning system
combining artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive neuroscience for
educational programmes of every variety. Primed to be compatible
with any existing course, it works by tracking behaviours – learning
how an individual’s brain understands and responds to information,
creating bespoke paths to learning. Helping teachers to analyse their
students with extra clarity, it’s also trimming considerable amounts
of time spent on administration. To date, it reports on average a 30
per cent improvement in learning.
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If it sounds easy it wasn’t and involved the same level of conviction
as the genesis of Masala Masala: ‘To establish funding I literally
Googled small-stakes early-stage investors, found a list of the top 10
then wrote a video-script investment manifesto. I also did two Nano
degrees in AI. Two of the investors laughed me out the door because
I wasn’t a Google technologist.’ Despite a cultural climate where the
consumer appetite for upskilling is sharply on the ascendant, others
suggested it was simply unwise to invest in education.
Such knock-backs are already fading into anecdotal territory.
Century Tech is currently on the cusp of leaping from 60 employees
to 100 – a mix of technologists and former teachers whose
hands-on understanding of the system constantly refines the
tool. It’s working globally, with schools but also state systems
ranging from the exclusive Harrow School in England to a centre
for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. ‘Accessibility is key,’ says Lakhani,
focusing on the vast implications of providing a tool grounded
in self-improvement, helping people to help themselves. ‘This
hasn’t been conceived as a technological revolution for the
elite. And it’s not about learning fast. This is about depth and
genuine, lasting change.’
www.century.tech +44 (0)800 612 6535
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