Introducing Simon King-Cline (Founder of Aspect Communications): Future of Finance 2021 Preview

The 2021 Future of Finance (FoF) Conference will be taking place online on March 6th. Bringing together the brightest minds from all across Europe and top executives from leading industry disruptors, FoF is THE premier event for financial innovation and entrepreneurship.

Hosted by 6 of the LARGEST careers societies from leading global universities, this event is proudly brought to you by UCL FinTech Society, LSE SU FinTech Society, LSE PRIS, Imperial Finance Society, Warwick Entrepreneurs Society & King's Business Club.

We are delighted to introduce one of our speakers for the Business & Entrepreneurship

Panel, Simon King-Cline. To learn more about our speaker, check out UCL Finance & Technology Review's exclusive interview with Simon below:

Biography

Simon King-Cline is the Founder and Owner of Aspect Event & Communications, an award-winning events agency. He founded the website theupside.biz and works as a business mentor and inspiration speaker as well.

1. You have started your career in Merchant Banking which many students consider their dream career. If you could go back, would you still choose to start in Merchant Banking and did the skills you learnt help in your entrepreneurship journey?

I definitely would still go back and start my career journey in merchant banking. There’s nothing like a job you really don’t like to help you understand what it is you want from life! So I learnt so much about what I didn’t want, and that helped me clarify what I did want for my future career. Also in the two years I was there I learnt one crucial skill, and that was how to sell! While I was there just in my first six months I ended up turning over nearly 25% of the dealing desk volume. To do this, I had to cold call, do research and find clients. It’s a hard slog but I learned how to do it. I learned that selling was all about ferocious competitiveness, relationship building, relentless networking, giving best advice, building trust and having huge amounts of tenacity and organisation.

2. What were the biggest challenges you faced during your entrepreneurship journey in starting a business-performance mentorship company?

The biggest challenge was to find the time to actually get this off the ground. To do this, I had to ensure that my other two businesses were being controlled and managed by top-class leadership teams and partners. This then beautifully freed me up. Then, the challenge was all about finding exciting businesses and people to mentor, and I quickly realised this was going to be done through delivering and sharing knowledge with young people through business schools and universities. This was not hard to do as I found teaching to be a passion. The challenge therefore was to use my network to get me into the best universities & business schools in the world. Yet again my selling experience really helped here, and in a year I managed to develop relationships with over 20 of the top universities and business schools in the UK and around the world. The fact that I became an Honorary Visiting fellow at the Cass Business School was a huge help for knocking on doors and opening up opportunities.

To find out more about entrepreneurship and the changing faces of the business world, join the Business & Entrepreneurship Panel (12:30-13:15 GMT) during the Future of Finance Conference on 6th March. The virtual conference will be streamed via UCL FinTech Society's Facebook and Youtube page.

Follow the Facebook event for updates.

Interviewed by Mohammed Safayat (UCL), Paul Courtioux (KCL) and Sonia Chui (UCL)

The UCL Finance and Technology Review (UCL FTR) is the official publication of the UCL FinTech Society. We aim to publish opinions from the student body and industry experts with accuracy and journalistic integrity. While every care is taken to ensure that the information posted on this publication is correct, UCL FTR can accept no liability for any consequential loss or damage arising as a result of using the information printed.