Entrepreneurs-in-Training

Each programme, our startups are offered the opportunity to work with a number of our ‘Entrepreneurs in Training’. Our EiTs are people who want to get involved in the startup world, or already have their own startups and want to soak up the lessons from people a few steps ahead of them. This dynamic set of interns embed themselves into a few of the startups and provide valuable support, input and specialist knowledge.

Laurie Williams

Laurie has experience working in different startup companies at various stages of growth and has worked in a range of industries. He’s recently been working with leveraging analytics to track a startup’s progress and the effectiveness of experimental product features. He is also currently learning web development.

Harry Coburn

After returning from travelling, Harry is full of ideas and keen to offer his enthusiasm and insight to the table. Harry has previously worked at a series of multinational and medium sized businesses, including IBM, Google, Credit Suisse and Lloyds Banking Group and has experience in Marketing, Sales, Operations, Finance, Customer Service and Events.

Bianca Dragan

Bianca spent several years working in advertising and tech startups helping them create events, rebrand and manage clients.She has expertise in events, all things advertising, research and social media. In her free time she is an avid console gamer and loves cooking and electronic music.

Emile Paffard-Wray

Emile is a 4th year MSci student in Physical Chemistry and Mathematics and Statistics at UCL. He’s been interested in start-ups from afar for a few years but it’s only over the last few months that he’s begun to get stuck in, working on his own edtech idea that he’s validating, and teaching himself to programme (HTML, CSS and JavaScript).


Who are the Previous EiTs?

Chris graduated from the University of Exeter in 2012 with a degree in Business and Management, and since then started his own company BrandAds, which connects people with brands through online advertising. Chris’s areas of interest were digital marketing and strategy, as well as student-focused startups. Upon leaving Oxygen, he took up a role with a mentor of Oxygen Accelerator, handling digital marketing at Chalkhill Partners.

With a degree in Geography with Chinese Studies, Umesh has travelled the world and co-founded a charity working in post civil war Sri Lanka, helping entrepreneurs set up their own businesses. Umesh came to Oxygen with the aim of using his experience in both the corporate and start-up world to help accelerate the portfolio of start-ups at Oxygen, and left to be an Associate at another accelerator to continue his learning (TechStars). He is now co-founder of a brand new accelerator programme specifically for property startups.

With a BSc Economics degree from Queen Mary, University of London, Alex had been actively involved in start-up weekend events, mainly focusing on strategic validation and product development, and joined Oxygen to build his network, learn from mentors and help other start-ups grow. He gained a consulting role at Microsoft that started just after the accelerator ended.

A graduate of UEA in Norwich, Olly’s passionate about social media, brand marketing, strategy and design. Olly joined Oxygen to build his experience in a range of media-based areas, and is especially skilled in Photoshop CS6, video production and typography. After finishing with Oxygen, he became Social Media Co-ordinator for Vice Media.