Eleanor Ford
About Eleanor Ford
Impact. Innovation. Networks. Systems. Entrepreneurship. Coaching. Human Capital. As part of the leadership team at Zinc VC, I am focussed on making ideas happen, building networks and bringing people together around commercial opportunities and impact-led change. I take companies from embryonic ideas to early stage capital and support talented and diverse Founders as they grow. I started my own company in 2006, which exited in 2011 and have strong experience in the fields of digital, media and social innovation. I am a skilled communicator, negotiator, strategist and Coach. Prior to Zinc: I ran the Good Lab, a collaboration of 12 of the UK's largest charities, industry experts and experienced innovators working together to find new ways for charities to run their life-changing work. Read the report on Good Lab's work, over at Good Innovation. Prior to the Good Lab: I began my career as an anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, before founding my start-up LikeCube Ltd in 2006. Based on my frustration at the lack of sources for personalised recommendations for travellers, I won support and initial finance from NESTA, as part of their ‘Creative Pioneer Programme’ and went on to build an award-winning team (including a world leader in Computer Science and experts in Semantics and Scalability) and cutting-edge technology. As the originator of the LikeCube concept, I won Silver Award at the 2007 British Female Inventor and Innovator of the Year Awards, was a Finalist in the Blackberry Women & Technology Awards 2008 and was profiled in Wired. LikeCube was acquired by the Time Out Group/Oakley Capital in July 2011 and in my role as Innovation Director I led the Time Out Labs division. I enjoy speaking on innovation, entrepreneurship and networks, Coaching, and am a Founding Member of the Point People. When not doing the above I am the proud mum to three kids.