She doesn't court the spotlight, but Sherry Coutu has quietly forged a reputation as one of the UK's leading performers in tech. The 53-year-old Canadian first made a splash with her financial-services platform Interactive Investor, which she founded in 1994 and sold in 2001. Since then, she has worked as an angel investor, backing more than 50 companies including LoveFilm and Zoopla. She's also served on the board of the London Stock Exchange, the advisory board of LinkedIn and the finance committee of the University of Cambridge. Her latest venture, Founders4Schools, is an online platform which aims to inspire students by connecting them with local entrepreneurs. Here, she discusses her working life.
"I live in Cambridge, so I try to be in London no more than three days a week. On Mondays I like to be in London to talk to chief executives face-to-face. Friday's a Cambridge day, but the rest are a hotchpotch. If it's a London day, I wake up at 6.00am and take my son to the station for 7.10am. He gets his train and I get mine. I work on the train; it's a good time for me to work, because it's just about an hour solid and I can get through stuff without any interruptions. I like dealing with emails and I often read something that I've been saving. I'm then at the office for 8.10am. That means I have spent a bit of time with my son and that I can have about an hour before other people come into the office."
"I've got a rule: 20 out of 30 nights I've got to be home by 6pm. I have three kids and a husband, and I want to be there with them. I introduced the rule about ten years ago. Life had been quite hectic - and if you don't decide that you'll be at home for a certain amount of time, you'll find yourself never there."
"My executive assistant Helena tells me I have 60 meetings a week. We schedule time in the day to prepare for those meetings and I like to let the person know beforehand what we're planning, or find out what they want. I don't just do coffee. I always make notes in my notebook - I've already written nine pages in it today - and I go through them afterwards. Friday is often a mop-up day: making sure that all of the actions from the meetings that I've had have either been delegated to someone else to follow up, or I've followed up myself. Otherwise you lose the plot. For probably 25 years, I have been on an 'I don't work at weekends' regime - until about 9pm on Sunday, when I map out the week ahead and familiarise myself with what I'm doing."
"When I'm on my Cambridge days, that's when I exercise. Swimming is my thing. It's when I have the opportunity to think through things - though I don't necessarily know what's on my mind until I get in the pool."
"My life changed a few years ago. When I found out I was pregnant with my third child, I was persuaded that the right course would be to consider being an angel investor, as being a CEO is not particularly compatible with having children. It is beautifully flexible - and intellectually, it's like being in a candy store."
"Founders4Schools came out of the desire to solve a problem: why don't more students think about careers in starting and growing businesses? In schools, we found that bringing together business leaders and kids could be really profound. It was as if they were given permission to dream and hope. For the project, I draw on the same principles that underpin my businesses. I'm a very data-driven person - I did degrees in political science, econometrics and then business - so as an entrepreneur and investor it's always about trends. With Founders4Schools, our algorithms look at labour-market adjustments and inform the teachers where the skills gaps are going to be. They also inform them which entrepreneur can talk about that in their class tomorrow."
"If I had any advice to my younger self, it would be that it is worse to stay with something you're not thriving at than to move on. Of course, it may be frightening to move on because you're jumping into the unknown, but for me the unknown has always been pretty good."
Describe your nightly wind-down routine: "I have an evening wind-down routine of stretching and strength, that sort of thing. I find that it's really good for me because it means my mind is calm."
Which apps help you to be more productive?: "I could not live without CalenGoo. Google Calendar is crap. But CalenGoo is an app someone else created to allow you to navigate Google Calendar. It is really amazing. I probably use it at least 20 times a day."
Do you have a regular email hack?: "No, I don't have a hack, but I do have a one-touch approach to my email - I rarely say, 'I'll think about that later'. I see it, and I either do it or I flip it off to somebody else and keep track of it from there."
What's your best habit?: "I like talking through things with other people. I really believe that a problem shared is a problem halved. People have helped me come to the most extraordinary solutions that I wouldn't have thought of myself, and I love that."
…and your worst?: "I'm pretty intense. That intensity can be exhausting for some people because I'm very straight and I don't necessarily realise how sensitive an audience might be. If I have a bad habit, it's making assumptions that haven't been validated."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
