Ep1: Global Scale: India London Corridor ft. Howard Dawber, OBE - Dty. Mayor London

I think London is the city that New York pretends it is. Okay. Well, accent you're banned from any of our future contracts. Mr. Howard Dawber, who is the deputy mayor of London for business and growth? What differentiates London a lot more in today's day and age? There are 670,000 Londoners of Indian origin. You can't get in there now. You know, if all the growth goes to the top end of society, that's a real problem. What does London mean to you? There is no other city on the planet. Imagine if there was seven first class cricket teams in Mumbai. India's got a stable political system emerging as a global economic superpower. Which are two sectors that you think have the fastest or steepest growth curve? Top designers like Gucci, they make leather from beer. 29% of FDI in 2023 was from India to London. And what we don't have that Silicon Valley has, you know, UK and India has have signed the free trade agreement. How's that going to shape up? [Music] This show is brought to you by CRUDS, your partner in digital transformation. From cloud innovation to intelligent automation, we redefine enterprise growth, empowering organizations to shape the future with technology that thinks ahead. Hello everyone, good morning. Uh welcome to the innovators and disruptors podcast. I'm Abay Tandan and I'm here in Bombay in Mumbai for a very interesting and exciting piece of conversation and

for that I have someone very renowned uh who I'm going to be very very shortly welcoming here as well. But before that let me give you a little bit of a context right uh the India London corridor has been growing over the years. We have recently signed the FDA as well the free trade free trade agreement as well between UK and India and the partnership is getting deeper and deeper and for this exciting conversation may I now welcome Mr. Howard Dober who is the deputy mayor of London for business and growth and also the chair of London partners to the show. Thank you so much Howard for thanks very much for having me. I'm glad to be here. No it's our pleasure. you know we're going to talk a lot about interesting stuff that's going on between the corridor between India and London between UK and India as well and for that there's no one better than you who can give us more perspective about how things are shaping up that's very kind to say but yeah I'll do my best thank you so much how uh let me start uh by asking a very very straightforward question I think a lot of people want to understand this better right we we've seen now that you know UK and India has have signed the free trade agreement how is that going to shape up uh the whole deepening of the partnership that that that's already shaping up so well. Well, well, the first thing I'd say to people is read the agreement because um this is uh not the normal superficial uh FTA that you know

the UK signed with a lot of countries really rolling over the arrangements that were there before Brexit on a lot of cases. Um it's also not the agreement that we signed with the USA, which is a good deal. I mean, it's the better deal than anybody else got, but it's still really just about reducing uh tariffs. This is a real partnership. This is a really serious deal. I think it's the deepest FDA that India has signed with anybody as well. And obviously um it predominantly covers physical goods. Um so it opens the UK market to uh Indian physical products, agriculture products, industrial products and so on. Um and the Indian market to UK uh products more widely, you know, cars, um whiskey, you know, all the great things that come out in the UK that we're very famous for, gin from London. Um but then it sets a framework uh for the expansion of services collaboration. The services bit is obviously the bit that we're really interested in. London 93% of London's exports are in the services sector. Um and it's the area where I think we can do the most collaboration together. So the framework for services and that's exchange of people as well as exchange of products and uh an opportunity for uh crossborder collaboration which I think will lead to some really good businesses with one foot in each country. Um I think there's a real opportunity here to grow. So have a look at it. If you if you're a business and you're

looking to trade internationally, have a look at the agreement because it opens a lot of doors that other agreements don't do. It's really quite exciting. No, that's fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing that perspective as well. In fact, London and India partnership has been growing significantly as well over the last three years. The FDI from India to London has also increased further because of the value creation that's happening on both the ends. Right. Uh I read a stat that you know it says that 29% of FDI in 2023 was from India to London. Right. 29% of the projects we work on. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Right. So that's that's showing how deep the partnership is developing. Right. It's getting deeper and deeper. And with now the London growth plan coming into place as well. There's going to be a lot of impact on that as well will further grow and you know build deeper connections between both the countries I and specifically London and India as well. Uh what are two or three key levers that you think is impacting this growth or it's helping uh you know increase yearon year as well? Well, I think there's a there's a few things. Obviously, trade between UK and India, trade between Mumbai in fact and Bangalore and London, it goes back obviously for centuries, decades. So, there's been a been a constant trade backwards and forwards of of people and ideas and products and and services. Um the uh what's

happening now is obviously we're in a we're in an interesting complicated geopolitical situation. you know what's happening in America is obviously uh destabilizing and changing things a lot um but also you've got big the emergence of new big players over the last 20 years obviously China um importance of China the role of the EU UK now sits outside of the EU but with a very good relationship with the EU outside of USA but with a very good relationship with USA and actually with quite a good relationship with China a pragmatic relationship based on you know mutual benefit rather then you know we go into that with our eyes open but that's put the UK in a unique global position we have um had elections last year uh which means we now have a government for 5 years a stable predictable government and that is can't be said for quite a lot of economies around the world in terms of political stability India's got a stable uh political system um and you know is emerging as a global economic superpower so I think two two stable countries have got a long history of trading together where there's a there's a real synergy between you know the huge market of India, the innovation in the Indian system, the um the tech sector in India which is flying um and then the UK uh sector particularly sort of financial technology um sustainable technology you know the the we're producing products that

are directly applicable to the Indian market. So there's a lot of exciting uh collaboration going on. I think it's only going to grow. I mean the other thing of course is that um you know we share I think we share a business culture. We certainly share a language. Um you know I I joked yesterday you know one of the great things about London is that like Mumbai everyone speaks English. No we speak the same language. Um uh but it goes much deeper than that. There are 670,000 Londoners of Indian origin or Indian background you know Indian family background. Six that's twothirds of a million people. We'd be one of the biggest Indian cities if we were a city just made up of that population. Um and that sense that you know when people come to London it feels immediately like home and like this you know I come to Mumbai it looks different the food's different the language is different but underlying that the business culture is very similar. In fact uh you know you've been working with a lot of scaleups as well right from our from you know mayor's office as well. Uh can you talk to us about one interesting success story of an Indian company who's now set up shop in London and how that's grown as well? Well, there's a there's a few to pick from actually and obviously some that have grown uh really big but I guess one that we worked on at London Partners would be Deep Sites which is a cyber security company. They work

particularly against um fraud against ransomware and products like that. Um and they came via London and partners into uh into London. London and partners is our inward investment agency and our business growth agency. So it does two things. Um and our attitude is once you arrive uh once you set up shop in London, we treat you like a London company, right? You know, and you know, we want you to grow in in London. So um take on staff in London, take on more premises, you know, get more business. So we will help you straight away to uh to find um uh customers and people to trade with. Um, and London Empire has been able to help these sites get into some of those markets and expand their operation in London. So, they're not a unicorn yet. Um, but they're on the way. I mean, they've got a they've got a very good product that people are finding really, really useful. And that's a good example of how an Indian company with Indian innovation comes into UK market and then develops their product using UK staff, UK working with UK clients, right, into something that's then you know rather more uh more firepower than they had with the original product coming directly from India. So I think the future for them is is very strong and and again they're now a company with you know strong office in the UK a strong office in in India and potential to grow globally. Exactly. Now it opens up a lot of market it opens up access to a lot of tech talent

uh market and so on and so forth and capital as well right so it becomes much easier for the company to then grow globally as well. Yeah we may talk about capital later because that's one of my big my big issues that I'm working on at the moment. Is it okay for sure? Uh I also wanted to get into this how uh a lot of fintech CEOs who are now thinking about I mean everyone knows that you know London is a very very strong fintech hub and so is New York right so there's always a bone of contention when people are choosing between London and New York what differentiates London a lot more in today's day and age as it is New York when when companies are CEOs are deciding fintech CEOs are deciding to set up shop in London um well I obviously I'm going to say come to London but but there's a good reason for that look we love New York I mean New York and London in a lot of ways sister cities. Uh we there are great rivals. Um if you ask what is the capital city of planet earth? Um up till 2016 it was London. No question. And in fact New York put out a whole uh survey and a statement about why is London beating us on everything? What do we need to do to try and catch up? Bloomberg did a whole load of work with McKenzie on why why is London winning? Um so we we were winning. I would say post 2016, New York's had the edge on a few things. Um the um the latest Zed Yen index of where is the capital city, planet Earth,

has us catching up quite a lot. I would argue we are already ahead that we are number one. Um New York would say we're number two, but but we both agree we're in we're in this competition together, right? Um and also collaborating as well. There's a lot of collaboration goes on. Um but in terms of this international uh where is the right place for an Indian business to come and and the Indian businesses look at also Dubai uh Singapore um Netherlands um sometimes Paris sometimes uh Dublin as you know where are we going to put our first office outside of uh outside of India um and the reason I'd say London is is this we already talked a little bit about the culture um but from India to London is not that big a jump um culturally it's very similar. It's very very easy to set up a a limited company in London to get premises to get support and advice. Um and this is the role that London and Partners plays um to help sherper people through that process. But it is it is relatively easy. Um and the regulation is predictable. It is um I wouldn't say light touch, but it's not um it's not reactive and it's not prescriptive. So the regulation is is conducive to innovation and conducive to people bringing new ideas. Um what you know not just the way London and Partners behaves but when you step off the planes uh in London then you know you're treated very much as an equal um and people are like okay how can we do business you know rather than you

know the suspicion and the concern and so on. it's easier um despite recent you know um comments and some restrictions it's easier to get a visa um to work in London. So for for business people that are coming to work in London for periods of time that's an easier process. Um and then uh from London it's then easier to do New York. Um and um it's worth talking to and I always say to people talk to people who've done it. So talk to people who come to London and find out how how they found that process, but also talk to people who've gone straight to the States and find out how that was for them. And some people, yeah, if you've if you really run at it and you've got the resources and you've got particularly if you've got American partners and advisers, then you can do it. Um, I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm not saying it isn't right for some businesses, but it's much harder. it is harder to go straight Indian India US and whether that's New York or Silicon Valley it's it is more difficult and they are more likely to say well actually if you're going to be serious here we want you to move the whole business to US set up a Delaware company register for US tax and so on if you want to raise series BC funding in US then they'll start to ask you to be part of their their system whereas the UK were like no it don't matter where you know where your business is located you know we we we want to do what we can in in in London. So, uh I would say if you want to

hit the US, if you want to crack the US market, do London first. Uh because then you're much in a much better shape when you go to when you go off to America and that could be a very quick process as well. So, we're our springboard for global growth. We also obviously have really good links into EU which is a massive market in itself, right? and then the whole commonwealth from from uh London obviously India has that too but from London going to Canada going to Africa you know some of the really exciting global emerging markets that's that's an easy process so London is a springboard is what I'd say fantastic that's a very interesting perspective on uh you know calling the springboard in fact I realized that you know apart from ease of doing business the common business culture uh very interesting point that came out was also the inclusivity angle right because today in today's day and age uh that becomes a very important aspect ect uh because there are challenges globally that we're seeing around inclusivity as well and like you mentioned that becomes a much easier playground for people to come in and be a part of that environment. Yeah, let's be very clear on this. Um when uh uh and I don't want to uh don't want to be too critical of our friends on the other side of the Atlantic, but when they start saying oh dei rather de um DEA is something else that's the drug enforcement authority but also important. Um but

DEI, when they say DEI is a dirty word. We're not going to do it anymore. Um that businesses that support DEI initiatives uh will be um you know will find it more difficult to get contracts with the US government. You know, this is this is so anathema to UK because diversity, equity, and inclusion isn't about special favors or treatment. It's about a level playing field. Exactly. Um so this whole presentation of it as some sort of evil you know um uh anti-meritocracy uh agenda is is totally wrong and in fact we've taken a very strong stance on this when Accenture and I'll name them when Accenture said right we're abandoning DEI um our mayor um Sadique Khan who was is obviously you know comes from a Pakistani uh background his parents came to London as as immigrants when um and you know is is very much reflective of London himself, right? Um when when he heard that he said, "Okay, well accent you're banned from any of our future contracts if that's their attitude." Makes sense. Um, and so we're doubling down on it and and we think it's one of our huge strengths that you can come from anywhere in the world and you find a a community a supportive community in London of people particularly who doing business um and can support you um uh in your globally but also in that transition from uh if you're moving from say India to London uh we have like I said nearly 700,000 uh people of Indian extraction uh Indian DNA in

in London and you know British Indians um and uh you know in all walks of life from obviously few former prime minister Richishi Sunnak and we we totally celebrate that he wasn't our party but you know you got an Indian uh British Indian prime minister through to some of the uh the most important CEOs of some of the biggest businesses in the UK. Um the Indian community runs through everything like a stick of rock. Um and that's that's fantastic and it's part of our part of our strength. Um the the other thing I'd say is um when you look at things like life sciences um so at the moment a lot of uh the models people use for developing drugs are based on data sets from various countries around the world. Um, and the Swedish data set is one that people have used a lot of, and there's eight million people in that data set, and they use that to develop drugs based on people's medical history, but there's not very much diversity in that Swedish data set. Um, our data in London is the most diverse on planet Earth. London, London's health system has got the most diverse population. Um, over 99 different ethnicities, but at a statistically useful number. Yeah. So, if you want Nepalese grandmas, we've got those. Well, if you want um uh North American uh you know um uh teenagers, we've got those as well. Um everything you could possibly imagine. And that means that when you're developing products in London, no, you can find so for example,

if you want, okay, we want to uh we want to create a product and we want we won't have to have to translate it into Italian, Spanish, Farsy, um uh Ukrainian, um uh Cantonese. Fine. That's easy. We've got people who will do that. Native speakers will come and do that translation for you because they're there and they'll, you know, be able to talk you through the cultural differences. So, it becomes a really good sort of global test bed for products and that is part of our strength that our diversity allows us to act like a microcosm of planet earth. Um, that's fantastic and one of the great things about our city. No, that that's amazing to hear. Right. Right. because uh in India as well we talk about the diversity in India as well and to hear about the diversity in London specifically for the kind of use case that you've spoken about right it's fantastic right because a lot of development in the metic space now relies on those data sets so it's so fantastic to hear that in farmer and the metric world uh how I'm just going to move on to another very interesting aspect which is about the London growth plan you co-authored that and uh some of the initial targets are going to be start we're going to start seeing them materialize by 2028 so what do co-founders of startup startups think about how is it this this the you know by 2028 when some of these targets are going to be met how is that going to change you know their on ground

experiences in London well I'm I'm very proud of the of the growth plan that we put together and was published in February this year uh and we worked with some of the most important founders organizations um the tech organizations people like um uh London tech advocates tech advocates global who you probably know um who uh understand how this will play out with an international um uh group of founders as well as the founders in London. Um so very proud of what we put together. Um it's got a it's got a 10-year time scale. So we're aiming at 2035 to achieve the main outcomes of the plan which are to grow the economy by 20%. That's an extra 107 billion pounds. So um we're currently at $630 million. That takes up to $750 million as a city. Um still not quite as big as New York. Um but getting there. um to improve productivity growth back to 2% yearon year. Um we're actually a very productive place um so more productive than other parts of the UK but uh compared to some of our international competitors compared to India actually our productivity growth hasn't been what we would have liked over the last 20 years so um that's actually a real challenge to get productivity higher um and that's about taking people up the value chain of of jobs really um so more more better paid jobs and you know more productive industries um uh for the number of people we've got in the Um and and we're also looking to um reduce poverty. So it's growth but

with a purpose because you know if all the growth goes to the top end of society then you've not really achieved anything for the city you make a more divided city. So we're looking to improve the living standards and the income of the bottom 20% of Londoners by 20%. Over 10 years. Um so that's the that's the long-term goal. It's an ambitious economic goal because a lot of these things are, you know, dependent on global the global economy, the UK economy, and we don't have all the levers in our hands. So, we know where we can go. Um the uh the short-term objectives by we've got some one-year objectives that need to be done by next summer. Uh and we're working very hard on those. And then we've got some objectives by 2028. So, one of the 2028 objectives is to create 150,000 new good quality jobs in in London. And we define those as, you know, paying paying a good salary, having good prospects, you know, being in in the growth sectors. Um, and we're well on our way to achieving that. Actually, we're going to put out some numbers later this year to show how we're on track for that. Um and then the first year objectives we are just about at the end of uh October to publish our talent strategy which is um and obviously you you you are an innovator and disruptor yourself. Um so we're doing a new thing. We're looking at the uh at the talent pool of London as if we were the HR department of the city. Fantastic. So right what do we need what do

our people need to uh to get better jobs? How do we improve the the jobs that people have currently got? But where are the gaps where we need to bring in new talent to fill those gaps and how can we grow those talented people internally? Um and in some cases bring them in from outside, you know, yes, immigration. Some some skills, you know, don't exist in our city. We bring them in and then we use those skilled people to train up our people as well. Um, so that's talent strategy will be out at the end of October and that's going to be really quite innovative and and really turning around the the whole skills development system which is partly under our control uh at the mayor's office. We have a£350 million pounds a year skills budget that's under the mayor. Uh it was really about adult skills. Uh we've got co-ownership of the 16 to 19 uh skills system in terms of the the uh the content and the direction of travel of the uh of skills for younger people. Um and then we're working closely with the higher education sector on on higher education skills. So that's going to be one big it's not an outcome, it's an output. So it's a or an input really it's a strategy for sorting the skills out. Um the second thing we're looking at is a new plan of infrastructure. Mhm. Um so we've got three or four big transport projects we want to get underway and we're hoping for some positive news from central government to

allow us to go ahead with one of those projects in in November uh this year which is the DLR extension to Tempsme which is connecting a whole part of um East London into the network uh and uh building a new town there as well. So that's housing which is crucial part of how the city is going to accommodate uh growth is by building new housing for people. Um and then looking at the uh the physical infrastructure like power. So uh we need to double the power uh capacity of London over the next 10 years and that's a massively tall order. Um we need to improve the transmission and uh and distribution of energy. Uh we need to look at um actually what we can do to generate stuff ourselves. So um some uh some renewable generation within the city um uh but also buying in new uh new capacity from from outside. So there's a big big uh nobody's ever looked at it in this way before. Nobody's ever planned ahead in this way before. Um so big big infrastructure plan um uh to start and looking for international investment into that as well to help deliver that. And the great thing about power is you can make money out of it. Of course I mean uh electricity costs in London are very high at the moment. So power is expensive. If we can get those numbers down a little bit and you know that will that will easily help people pay for the infrastructure over time. It's a big investment up front but there's lots of opportunity there to to invest. Um and

the other things we're doing in the first year we've got an innovation plan that we're putting together to look at how we foster innovation as a as a city. Uh we'll be the first city to have a chief technology officer and chief innovation officer Theo Blackwell. Uh he's currently on loan to central government. Uh so he's been with central government since the new government came in and he's uh he's coming back to us now with lots of um uh lots of new ideas and having played a big role in the how the government sees innovation and the the national government's own um industrial strategy which they've put out which uh mirrors our uh our growth plan very nicely. Um and um uh yeah so there's a there's a lot of things underway that we want to see some tangible uh outcomes by by the end of uh the first year which takes us to yeah spring summer next year. Fantastic that that's that's amazing right uh this kind of clarity on the KPIs and targets that you have in place for now for the first year as well as now by 2028 as well. In fact, you spoke about some of the challenges as well, right? Uh I wanted to also touch upon that, right? You spoke about skills which I I'm assuming by your conversation, of course, I've read some of these things as well. The skill development is one of the areas that's closer to your heart. There's infrastructure, there's capital inflows, uh and there are few other areas like uh you know commercial space,

planning cycles and so on and so forth. Are there any areas which are a big challenge at this point in time? Um well I'm I'm going to be glass half full because obviously what one of the things we did in the plan was what are the things we need to change. Um so we concentrated on things where we thought there was a problem. Um and you know we've got some some challenges there. Uh some gaps to fill but let's start with so for example on on money. Um we are probably the third best place in the world to raise money for for a scaleup and a startup. Um, but we're quite a long way behind New York and quite a long way behind Silicon Valley. Uh, and one of the things we found is that some of our businesses when they get to Siri, well, actually series A, but series B and C, particularly funding rounds, uh, a lot of the money is going to come from US rather than from UK because our pool's just not big enough. Um, and what we don't have that Silicon Valley has is that big pool of founders who've made their billion, uh, and then become a, you know, a very entrepreneurial and in innovative investor looking for the next big thing. Um, so we have some of that. Um, you know, we have 124 unicorns out of London. So we've got we've got some people with money, but we are tiny compared to where Silicon Valley is. Um, now what that means, it's great that American money comes in. That's fantastic. But it comes sometimes with strings

attached. They say, "Oh, come over to Palo Alto, hang out with us, set up your company in the US, and you know, we'd like you to, you know, be part of the US tax system because that helps us corp, sorry, the Delaware COP. Yeah, exactly. The Delaware Corp. We want we want you to be in the system because it helps us." And then uh and then before you know it, they've gone, well actually, you know, we're going to now shift some of our primary operations to to USA. Um and that I mean, you know, fine, great for them, but that's not good for London because we want to be growing those companies in London. Sure. You know, the next Meta, the next uh Google, the next uh X, we want that to come out of of London. Now, we've got a few really big businesses like Revolute, you know, one of the biggest uh challenger banks uh globally. uh like um Deliveroo um you know we've got some really really good su transfer wise some really good successes out of London um but we want more of those um so plugging that gap is one of the things that's very high on my list um we've actually got a lot of space um there is there's a very low vacancy rate in the city of London right now uh partly because there's a lot of buildings being demolished and then rebuilt as green so there's a sustainability challenge where um if you don't meet certain sustainability criteria, no. In terms of the operation of your building, you won't be allowed to lease it out uh by 2030.

So, that's really concentrated people's minds. There's a lot of things being knocked down or completely refurbished, taken back to Shell & Core, and completely rebuilt. And that means there's there's a low vacancy rate, but across the the rest of London, there is space. Sure. Um but there's also a lot of people looking for space and and somehow that's not quite marrying up in the way it should. Uh and again this is um this is not to say that London isn't a great place to find space because it is. Um and you know it's a it's a biased market at the moment for space. uh but we want to make sure that all the space is in use for the next generation of startups and scaleups and that people can easily find a space to move into and crucially then a place to grow without having to keep you know ending leases and paying paying to get out of leases and moving you know to a new lease. So, so one lease allows them to grow, you know, from two people to 200 people, right? Um, so we're working with um developers and land owners on that talent. Um, we are the number one place in the world for talent. Um, according to surveys um you know um objective surveys by people from outside London than you know us saying it um you know we have 68% of our working population 68% are graduates. 68% of the workforce. There's nowhere like that on planet earth. Um it is extraordinary. Um we have got some of the most talented people and compared

to New York or Silicon Valley for example if you're looking for an AI PhD um developer uh you're paying half the salary in London for what you pay in New York which is a huge advantage to us. But where we need to do more work is in the technical skills that support that. So the people who've got the technical skills to for example um lab technicians um and businesses in London have told us repeatedly that you know some some areas of the of the workforce they can get exactly who they want. um you know the spoil for choice other areas really hard to find people right um I was talking to a a scaleup um that's actually a a sustainability scaleup they make leather out of um the leftover product from beer manufacturing so the husks of the grain that where they've taken all the sugar out of it the husks which are very very high in fiber they originally thought there was a medical application for this. But when they started spinning this stuff out and seeing what they can make out of the out of the fibers of the husks, um they got a leathery substance and they were like, "Wow, this is it's actually pretty good." So they now make they're working with top designers like Gucci on a completely vegan, completely animal free, cruelty-free, carbonositive leather alternative. And it's not a plastic, it is it is an organic material made out of plants. Um, now they were like, "Right, we we're ready to go into production on this. We we

need to put together the machinery that will then roll this stuff out in in big quantities." Um, so they were looking for a a systems engine, a manufacturing systems integrator. So a person that had experience of setting up manufacturing processes took two years to find. Now in India instantly would not take you two years to find that person because there are lots and lots of people doing that job right now. But in London actually we haven't had people do that job for a little while because a lot of the factories and manufacturing you know move to other parts of the UK or out of London. So it's areas like that where um as we get into the advanced manufacturing particularly of sort of small batches, prototypes, pharmaceuticals, the you know the the personalized drugs and stuff where actually it does make sense to manufacture those in London. We need to sort of rebuild our talent base in the industrial processes that deliver that because you know we've we've got a gap. So meeting those gaps and being responsive to what employers want is one of the key challenges that we're working on. Now so yeah, money, space, and uh skills are are not that we don't have them, but those are the areas we want to concentrate on. The one area that I have absolutely no worries about at all is IP. We are generating phenomenal ideas. We are a huge ideas factory. We are churning out brilliant, you know, concepts. um a at an astonishing rate. Um

capturing those and turning them into businesses is is the challenge for me because I've got you know we do not have an ideas problem. In fact, possibly the opposite. We've got too many ideas. So the incubators models will now step in a lot more I'm assuming in the Exactly. Exactly. So um and we've actually got um that is that's growing very rapidly as well. So um Imperial uh college have got a fantastic um accelerator taking products out of their uh out of the uh out of the university but also other universities as well and providing a uh a scale up um space for them. Uh we've just launched a quantum uh accelerator around the uh what we call the London quantum cluster which partly funded by the mayor. Um so the mayor putting you know his money uh our money uh directly into supporting development of of quantum technology in London. I'm aware of this because I've also invested in a quantum computing startup. Ah so so they are scaling up fairly well. They have some global clients now. So that yeah that's very exciting. Um I I opened um uh actually is another quantum accelerator that's linked to Northeastern University US who've got a campus in London. Um I opened one of those um two weeks ago and they're focusing on quantum tech as well. So in sustainability in fintech uh you know my old shop uh Canary Wolf Group has level 39 which is now venerable 12 years old which is a long long time very old now in in

in fintech terms you know that's uh what's that 84 years in in tech years. Um uh but we've got that that sector is one that we really want to nurture because the the ideas to business is is one of the crucial steps that we want to support. So on this if I may ask you this right in the near term what are two sectors and I know that you know in London there's so many different areas and sectors which are going so well right you spoke about climate tech you spoke about quantum you spoke about cyber security fintech of course and health tech which are two sectors that you think have the fastest or steepest growth curve that you can see from in the next one year um so steepest curve um so there are there are a whole load of sectors in the growth plan um you know there is tech including including deep tech. Uh there is health and life sciences. Um there is sustainable tech and uh sustainable um technology. Um there is uh the creative sector. Um actually international education as a sector is quite a big sector for us as well growing rapidly. Uh and then what we call the experience economy which is sport, music, events, all the things you can't download, you have to physically be there for. So tourism's in there and that's growing really rapidly as well. But if I had to pick two, I'd say um in London, the ones I would have a close look at are um the sustainable side. Uh because uh we really reached a tipping point a couple of years ago.

Um it had been seen by a lot of people as you know, a necessary evil um a cost on business, all the sustainability stuff, the transition to net zero. Um and you know, we've got to do it, but we're not necessarily very enthusiastic about it. And we reached a tipping point where people started to see, oh, actually this is starting to make us money. Uh, and starting to open up opportunities around the world, right, to be a pioneer of whatever part of the sustainable journey we're on, whether that's new materials or recycling or, you know, energy generation or energy use. Um, or, uh, or indeed, you know, the, uh, the the the financing behind making it pay. um carbon capture storage for example. Um suddenly it's become a a a big growth area and you know um that's that's very exciting. So it's it's 25% of our FDI last year was into that sector. Okay. Um so that's growing very rapidly and some amazing businesses. Um uh another one uh I might mention not plaque. Um and they use uh seaweed uh which uh has a really positive carbon footprint when it grows in the sea. Uh so it sequesters a lot of carbon as it grows. So it's already carbon positive by the time you get it. Uh, and they turned that into a plastic like material like a cling film which can be used either as a as a manufacturing as a as a containment product in its own right as a sort of bubble or you can use it to line cardboard to make a completely 100%

biodegradable uh container for food. So if you were at Wimbledon this year, all the strawberries and cream were in those containers. Uh the London Marathon, the water was in their containers. Um and they are getting people very excited around the world because it's the only one there. So there lots of people who say oh we're using recycled plastic or you know our uh our product is recyclable but this is completely biod biodegradable uh food safe packaging and it it's not significantly more expensive than the than the current paper and plastic alternative. So they are poised for growth. So that sector 100% very exciting. Um the other one I'd talk about is health and life sciences. So um we have historically been a real center of innovation research in health and life sciences. Um but we weren't really developing that into a uh into the the business sector that we should have done. Uh so you know historically people look at Boston um uh actually burn a bit sw around Switzerland uh but in the USA also Texas obviously Silicon Valley uh and so on around the big hospitals around the the Cleveland around the u the Mayo Clinic etc. Um we are rapidly going up that list. Um so from a position of being about 20th in the world we're now we think about sixth as a cluster just London. We're also obviously very close to Oxford and Cambridge which are effectively suburbs of London. I mean in Indian terms they'd be regarded

as suburbs. They are an hour's travel right uh out you know it's an hour's drive to uh uh to Oxford on a good day I should say. Um we've got we got a train that gets there in an hour. We got a train out to Cambridge 45 minutes. Um so that golden triangle is now the p well certainly European the predominant cluster and London is emerging as the biggest part of that 6 million square ft of lab space under construction in London right now. Um and we're the only city in the world that has five worldclass teaching hospitals and universities combined right two of those in the top 10 universities in the world. Um so again back to IP that IP is coming out but we're building clusters around it of space for the businesses to scale up into. So um and back to the data and we haven't even codified all that data yet. So once and there's a program underway to do that. Once we've codified that data uh into a readable format that we can then start licensing out to uh to people to base their models on um I think London is going to light up um even more than it already is. So it's a very very fast growing sector. Fantastic. So people who are listening to us right now specifically Indian entrepreneurs who who want to be based out of London they should look at uh climate sustainability tech and health and medtech as well. Right. Yeah. Well they should I mean no look at all the sectors in the growth plan. um the experience economy which really

uh very interesting really genuinely came out of consultation because it wasn't on our list of the sectors we thought we were going to concentrate on. We did consultation on the plan and more and more people said you really need to look at what's happening on the uh on the entertainment and sport side. We are right now we are short of uh another 25,000 seat stadium. So, we've got we've got uh we've got four worldass uh stadium that host major events as well as football. Um not that football isn't a major event, but you know what I mean. Big big uh music events. So, you know, we had Taylor Swiftly last year last year did 10 nights in London, more than any other city in the world because London's a great place to do it. Uh we've got the O2 Arena which is 25,000 seats. Um you can't get in there now. It's booked up for three years in advance. If you want to do a tour, you go there and say, "Well, yeah, we can book you in for 2029." That's a real problem. You know, it's it's actually meaning people can't start or end their tours in London if they're in the 25,000 seat space. So, we need another We need another one of those, right? There's demand for it right now. So, we're looking at where we can put one cuz Isn't London also one of those cities where you have the maximum number of football teams? We do. We have seven Premier League teams right now. um Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, West Ham, Crystal Palace, Brenford and Fulham. Um

uh and then we've got more in the Championship in League One, League 2. There is no other city on the planet that has seven teams at the top level of its national sport. Exactly. It's like imagine if there was seven first class cricket teams in Mumbai. Exactly. And Mumbai Mumbai could probably cope with that. Um but then then on top of that we've got you know um uh we've got Twickenham the home of rugby. Uh and obviously our our women just won the World Cup which is fantastic uh because our men aren't winning very much at the moment. Uh we've got um the Oval and then Lords the home of cricket. We've got Wimbledon the home of tennis and that's on top of all the other things that happen in London on a on a weekly basis. any one night. There's about 30 sporting events that you can go and pay for in London. Any night of the week. Um there's nowhere else like that. So that's huge. We sell more tickets than anywhere else. We've got American football in London this week. Um so they're playing NFL league games in London. So um two teams come over and play. We've had the Jacksonville Jaguars a few times now, almost a second for them. Um those games sell out in like 30 minutes. People fly in from all over Europe to come watch those games. So that's a hu that's a huge sector. Um and it's not just the the bums on seats, the ticket sales, it's all of the planning, the screens, the technology, the ticketing, the uh the hospitality, um all the sports

science that goes along that this is a big big industry employing tens of thousands of people and generating real innovation that then is being used around the world. you know a lot of the Paris Olympics was actually delivered by London Londonbased companies who cut their teeth on the London Olympics and then have gone on to you know for example the all the temporary stadium design was done by and and delivery was done by London London business a lot of the hospitality and ticketing was done by London businesses so we've developed this real niche of being able to organize and and manage big sporting events and there's a lot of technology goes into that um that's then applicable to other sectors too so um look at the growth plan because it may you may find that there's areas in there that um some of your your uh um uh subscribers and and and fans uh will will find um uh attractive but for me yeah the two with perhaps the the steepest curves are health and life sciences and sustainable fantastic thank you so much for these amazing responses in fact I know you are running late so we're going to get into rapid fire few very interesting questions that we wanted rapid answers on you know on top of your mind. Whatever you think, do give us that. Okay. You know, you have you have, you know, developed Canary W, right? There's no I mean it's it's on the global map. Everyone talks about it. Everyone so many people,

millions of people have benefited from that, right? If you had to change a reverse one decision of building out any specific aspect of Canary Wolf, what would that be? Uh gosh. Um if I had to change one decision, then I would have probably diversified earlier. So, um, Canary Warf spent, uh, the first half of its life, uh, just doing office space, um, and then ancillary, uh, retail, um, and food and beverage and, uh, other products to support the office space. Um, with hindsight, I think we probably could have gone into residential a little bit earlier and we should have gone and done Canary Wolf in other in other cities. In one word, what does London mean to you? Oh gosh. Um, London opportunity. I mean, I I'm not a London Londoner by birth. I'm a Londoner by uh by osmosis and by uh uh and by choice like a lot of Londoners actually originally came from somewhere else or parents came from somewhere else or grandparents came from somewhere else. Um so I chose London and you know it's been it's been everything. It's given me everything in my my life. uh massive opportunity, but I'd say it's also uh a city where anything's possible. Um I shouldn't say this, but I'm gonna say it. I think London is the city that New York pretends it is. Nice. Very interesting. Very cool. It is a city where anyone anyone can make it and anything is possible. Very cool. A book or podcast you'd recommend to founders? Gosh. Well, podcast obviously this podcast I'd recommend

to founders. Thank you. So, I'd recommend to founders who aren't in India to to watch this. Um I guess I'd also um do you know who's very good um and you know a lot of people watch him in the UK is um Steven Bartlet the diary of a CEO. Uh so he does a podcast like this interviewing people with quite often quite a contrarian take on things. So looking at things from a different angle and looking at uh recently quite a lot sort of future future facing big ideas that's quite good. um book um I would probably say um you know for a founder uh probably from zero to one Peter Theel's book with um uh with masters the um you know the uh again um and the central message of that book you should still read the book but the central message is don't worry about the numbers worry about the ideas concentrate on the ideas and the numbers will come if you concentrate on the numbers you'll forget what the point of the business is um but yeah that's a good book for founders one Last one. Complete the sentence. In 5 years, the London India corridor will be rocking. Fantastic. Rocking. It'll be rocking with activity. Thank you so much. I hope you like the masala chai. If you had to choose, I think the Indian masala chai or the tea. No, no, no. Masala chai every time. Preferably with condensed milk. So, like you get at a roadside cafe where you can stand the spoon up in it. That's what I That's what I want. Awesome.

Thank you so much Howard for sharing such amazing perspectives, giving us so much of context around how the growth plan is going to work out. Also for a lot of entrepreneurs to now set up shop in London a lot more than they're already doing. So it was fantastic for us to understand a lot more deeper, you know, get a lot more deeper context and understand a lot more opportunities. Thank you. And next time you're in London, come and see us. Um there's some amazing people in London that you you really ought to meet. Definitely. We look forward to that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Wow. [Music]