Super Seven #25 Lisa Matthews
In our 25th Super Seven Series we profile Lisa Matthews. Lisa joined us in June 22 with extensive experience ranging from ornithology to looking after a portfolio of early stage investment companies.
1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I am a mum of two kids and have recently left central Bristol to live in the countryside near Nailsea. I spend a lot of time gardening and growing veg with mixed success (at both parenting and gardening). I am coming around to liking flowers, although this is a slow burn. I make my own Kombucha; a type of sweet, healthy tea.
By training I am a Civil and Architectural engineer and for my PhD I wrote computational fluid dynamics code for four years. I spent my first ten working years in design/consulting engineering working in Dubai, Paris, London and Avonmouth (where I resurfaced the M5 Avonmouth bridge for anyone old enough to remember the tailbacks). I’ve designed offshore windfarms, humongous airports in the middle east, bits of crossrail and the pointy-mast-type thing on top of Heron Tower in the City of London (next door to the gherkin) where it was my job to make sure it didn’t shake itself off the building in the wind. It’s still there!
Most recently I worked at an early stage investment fund looking after a portfolio of over 50 companies – advising the founders, sitting on boards and doing investor-shareholder diligence.
Some things you won’t find out on LinkedIn:
I was young ornithologist of the year in 1990 and I met Chris Packham.
I am also a retired campanologist.
Four years ago I was very ill with a virus and when I woke up I was a vegan.
I once sold Sylvester Stallone a set of golf clubs.
2. What do you do in KETS?
In KETS I look after all the bits you need around amazing core technology in order to operate and grow as a business. That’s looking after finance, people, culture, facilities, recruitment, project management, and any legal and compliance requirements. I also sit on the board, and help the exec team to make good decisions for the company, its employees, and its shareholders.
3. What’s the most enjoyable part of your job?
I wanted to switch back into a role in a company to really feel part of a team working together on something amazing. My job is incredibly varied and involves moving between the most high level strategic stuff right into the day to day detail that really matters to people and how much they enjoy working for KETS. I really enjoy the fact that the team has collected together so many amazing technical minds and we’re going head to head with much larger global companies in this space, and we’re holding our own.
4. What inspires you?
Minimalism, Essentialism, the Stoics.
5. What advice would you give someone wanting to get into Operations?
Enjoy solving problems
6. What do you do when you’re not in work?
Cook, eat, spend time outside especially if outside is Devon. Watch Drive to Survive.
7. What’s the last book you read?
Happy Money by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton (which is about how do you maximise the amount of happiness you get from the money you earn)
To get in touch with Lisa, drop us an email at enquiry@kets-quantum.com