1. Piers Linney
co-CEO, Outsourcery and
founder, workinsight.org
Piers is a technology and communications
entrepreneur, a qualified solicitor, former
corporate financier and fund manager
and a former investor on BBC2’s
Dragons’ Den. He is a member of the
Cabinet Office’s SME panel, on the board
of directors at Plotr and is a trustee of the
innovation charity Nesta.
www.workinsight.org
FUTURE TALENT PIERS LINNEY

2. ntil recently, Piers Linney was a familiar face
on BBC’s Dragons’ Den where he decided the
fate of would-be entrepreneurs convinced
their latest innovations will change the world
of business. But while success and fame is
synonymous with the tech entrepreneur,
it hasn’t always been like this.
“I’ve turned up to appointments before and been given boxes
to deliver,” he laughs. “Or I’d be sitting in meetings as the
CEO, waiting to start and people would ask me when Piers
was arriving. It’s the double-take effect. People didn’t take me
seriously – no one expected me to be me.”
As a self-made businessman of Caribbean heritage from
Lancashire, part of Linney’s mission is to break down barriers
for talented young people with similar backgrounds to him
and help them access work opportunities.
“I’ve been involved in many careers but the
system didn’t work for me. I didn’t take no
for an answer and managed to achieve, but
not everyone has that confidence and innate
ability. It’s so important that everyone has
equal access to opportunity – so they have the
potential to be all they can – and I want to do
something to help that happen.”
Forging a career path
Born to an English father and Barbadian
mother, Linney grew up in a small mill town
called Bacup in the east of Lancashire. He
credits much of his entrepreneurial spirit to his mother who
came to England in the 1960s to be a nurse. “My mum was
enterprising. Because of her colour she couldn’t work in a bank
so she came over here. She did all sorts in the community, like
setting up a health centre and local slimming club.”
His father, having grown up in working-class Manchester, was
a Cambridge graduate. “But in those days, you went and then
you came back home again,” says Linney.
“I was always quite bright, I just couldn’t be bothered learning
exam technique,” he confesses. So as a result of his laissez-faire
attitude to learning, Linney failed his 11+ and in later years,
would have to retake both his O-levels and A-levels.
But then things changed. “There came a point where I knew I
needed to step up and change the game for myself,” he says,
so he “knuckled down” and won a place at the University
of Manchester to read accountancy and law.
With stints in law, banking and technology under his belt, self-made
entrepreneur and former Dragon Piers Linney is no stranger to career
success, but it’s been a constant fight against the system, he tells
Mary Appleton. In this exclusive interview, the TV star explains why
he’s now turning his focus to help others from similar backgrounds
achieve their dreams.
“People would
see the name
Piers Linney and
expect a posh
white kid to walk
into the room.
They would
look past me”
While he admits he never had a career path, he’d always had a
desire to work in the professions. “My drive was always to be in
business. Everyone where I came from worked in manual labour.
So when I said I wanted to be in business, no one could help
me. They said ‘you should be an accountant’. I thought law was
interesting so I did a law degree. I ended up at law school with
no idea about what being a lawyer was about,” he recalls.
When it came to getting a training contract, Linney applied no
less than 68 times to law firms before he was offered a place. “I
always wonder what would have happened if I had only applied
67 times,” he says. “It was incredibly frustrating but I was
determined. It was so hard to get through the door. Looking
back, a mixed-race kid from a mill-town comprehensive
school who had failed O-levels and A-levels coming to the city
wanting to be a lawyer was a big ask. My CV wasn’t great.”
He was offered a job with SJ Berwin but it wasn’t long before
he got itchy feet. He asked a friend who
suggested he try investment banking as that
was what he was applying for. “I didn’t know
anything about it. I bought a book called
Investment Banking and started to get this
pink newspaper called the FT.”
Having decided on this new career, Linney’s
experience of the application process mirrored
what happened when he’d approached the
law firms several years earlier. “I applied to
Credit Suisse but didn’t even get a response.
My friend got an offer on their graduate
programme. I was rejected from all the banks.”
In a bizarre twist of irony, Linney was eventually offered a job
by Barclays de Zoete Wedd, shortly before its acquisition by
Credit Suisse. “So I ended up working for Credit Suisse in a
more senior role when they wouldn’t even consider me for
their graduate scheme. I performed, made money and did well.
But my innate ability was missed by the system,” he adds.
Tackling unconscious bias
It is as a result of these experiences that, in part, contributes
to Linney’s vehement belief that the recruitment and selection
process in the City is seriously flawed.
“Often talent isn’t recognised because the system and processes
are so archaic. People would see the name Piers Linney on my
application and expect a posh white kid to walk into the room.
They would look past me. It’s human nature – even a name
triggers images in your mind based on your pre-disposition
to unconscious bias.”
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FUTURE TALENT PIERS LINNEY
August – October 2015

3. One of his biggest bugbears is that he never meets himself.
“In technology, banking, finance and law, it’s typically male,
pale and stale. The only person I meet in the City like me is
working at 2am with a hoover.”
Part of the problem, he says, is there’s a huge disconnect between
talent – particularly from certain backgrounds – understanding
opportunity and being inspired so they can aspire. “Anyone
should be able to do anything,” he declares. “FTSE 100 boards
and those in ‘top jobs’ all look the same. Until the top of
society looks like the bottom, you don’t live in a fair place.”
A lack of access to careers information and workplace
experience makes it hard for young people to learn about
careers. “How are you meant to make informed decisions
about what to do if you have no idea what it is?” he asks. “Three
years ago, 70% of jobs in my business didn’t exist. Teachers are
good at teaching – they haven’t been at the coal face learning
what the opportunities are, so this is where businesses need to
get involved and give something back. We’ll all be fighting
over the same talent pool in five years, so it makes sense.”
Workinsight.org – ‘the Uber of work experience’
“Many careers will be obsolete in 15 years,” he says, “so we have
got to look at what the economy needs and the talent we have got
– and connect the dots. We can’t keep pushing people through the
same sausage machine and expect to get the right outcomes.”
Linney’s solution? A digital platform he is developing –
workinsight.org – to offer opportunities to young people who
can experience the workplace in bite-sized chunks. “I want
to reduce barriers for people like me so they can fulfil their
ambitions. I’m a rare case – a lot of people would have given up
with the amount of rejection I faced. I want to give something
back to ease the path of people from my background.”
The idea is to connect young people and those seeking work –
from all backgrounds – with employers who can offer day or
half-day ‘insights’ so they can find out about the business.
“It’s the Uber taxis of work experience,” he laughs. “The software
and cloud technology interfaces with a phone app and website to
bring physical experiences to people looking for work.
to access talent beyond your own social network, so to speak.
And those who cast the net wider are more likely to find gems.
“[Workinsight.org] is about your community and your interest.
Employers open their doors and let anyone in. We’ll build in
dashboards so you can get real-time feedback on demographics,
compliance, quality and whether [young people] have turned up
so you can make appropriate interventions when necessary.”
He says the resource commitment on the employers’ part is low,
and the ‘fear factor’ for the young person is reduced as they are
short experiences rather than lengthy placements. Linney wants
the business to be scalable – and offering bite-sized insights
will help with this. He’s keen for the business to be profitable
by charging employers to partake in the scheme – and hopes to
use the cash generated to invest in ‘hard-to-reach’ communities
and tap into a wider talent pool. “We won’t get everyone but can
make a difference by designing something scalable,” he adds.
After leaving the City in 2000 to set up his internet company,
Linney has been involved in businesses across technology,
media and telecommunications sectors as a founder, investor
and adviser. In April 2007, with his business partner, he led
the buyout of a mobile voice and data reseller, which became a
sector leader. Via four acquisitions, a leading cloud computing
service provider business was created and the mobile business
sold in 2011 to focus on the cloud opportunity. Outsourcery
floated on the Alternative Investment Market in May 2013
valued at £35m.
So what is his approach when recruiting for his own business?
“We pick people who are tech experts. I don’t care if they have a
degree. If you understand what we are doing, you can add value
to our business and fit our culture then a degree doesn’t matter.”
Changing the nature of recruitment
Meanwhile, on a macro level, Linney agrees that recruitment
processes have to change. “Do you start with a CV or a FaceTime
chat? There’s no excuse for not looking someone in the eye now,”
he suggests. “You can’t expect to find gems by sifting CVs. If
someone got a 2:2 at university and you immediately discount
them, how do you know they weren’t acting as a carer during
their degree, showing incredible leadership skills?”
However, he is clear that not all of the onus lies with employers.
“It’s not just about reaching down into the talent pool, it’s
also about the pool wanting to be pulled up so they can get a
better understanding of industries and opportunities,” he says.
“We’re verging on a talent crisis. There’s going to be a shortage
of skilled labour, particularly in the creative industries – the
fastest-growing employment sector in the UK economy – so
we [business] need to man up and do something brave.”
And Linney is no stranger to bravery. Throughout his career,
he says he’s tackled whatever has come over the horizon but
it’s all been off his own back. “I managed to blag my way into
careers – once I got through the door I was very good. But the
problem is that the system looked at where I had messed up,
it wasn’t looking at me and what I could offer – it shouldn’t be
like that.
“Business is hard work, but I learned to never take no for an
answer and battle on. It’s the nature of an entrepreneur. Beating
your competition to death in a gutter with their own severed
arm – it’s bloody awful,” he jokes. “But I’ve always had a vision
and an end game and done whatever it takes to get there.”
Linney hopes his platform workinsight.org will ease the flow of talent
“Demand for work experience is going through the roof.
Research tells us if you have experience, you’re more likely to find
employment. But the issue is that, at best, supply is stagnant.”
Crucial for Linney is that there’s no selection criteria on
workinsight.org – one of his frustrations is his belief that the
current work experience system is largely built on nepotism.
“Most employers often tend to give work experience to people
they know, but you’ve got a narrow pool there and you need
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