11 inspiring people from 11 years of Escape: Eileen Burbidge

When we first started Escape the City back in 2010, we had no idea how many incredibly inspiring people we'd meet along the way. We set out to help ambitious and talented people to do work that matters to them and the world, and through the years we've encountered thousands of people who demonstrate that it's possible to do something different with your career and make a difference in the process. While it was hard to choose just 11 stories, here we've outlined a few of the people who we come back to regularly when we're looking for a bit of inspiration ourselves.

We hope you enjoy reading their stories and that they can be an inspiration to you, too!

Eileen Burbidge - the Passion enabler

About Eileen:

Described by Fortune Magazine as “The Queen of British VC”, Eileen Burbidge is one of the UK’s biggest Tech personalities and one of London’s most influential venture capitalists. She is the UK Treasury’s Special Envoy for Fintech, appointed by the Chancellor as well as having served as the Chair of Tech Nation, the British government-funded organisation boosting the digital economy across the whole of the UK.

Eileen is an American who built her career by going against convention. A software engineer by training, she earned her stripes in Silicon Valley working for some of the world’s most prestigious tech companies, including Apple, Yahoo and Sun Microsystems. But then, she moved to London in 2004 to “push my comfort zone,” becoming one of Skype’s earliest employees. In 2011, she and two partners launched Passion Capital, a venture capital firm. It became one of London’s top VC firms — despite the fact that none of the cofounders has a traditional finance background. As a VC, Burbidge has taken a somewhat maverick approach, declaring she won’t invest in “jerks” and backing Lulu, a controversial dating app that allows women to rate men. 

At Passion, she serves as a board director for Digital Shadows, Focal Point Positioning, Prowler.IO, Butternut Box and other portfolio companies.

Burbidge was also formerly chair of financial technology start-up Tide, one of the first digital-only finance platforms in the UK to provide current accounts for businesses, and an early investor and director at consumer challenger bank Monzo; where she is now Board Director.

In addition to her role as Special Envoy for Fintech and Chair of Tech Nation, Eileen Burbidge is also a Tech Ambassador for the Mayor of London’s Office and served on former UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s Business Advisory Group. Eileen was awarded an MBE in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to Business. In November 2018, Burbidge was named to the Financial Times' list of the 'Top 100 minority ethnic leaders in technology and made a Non-Executive Director of Dixons Carphone. 

What we love about Eileen’s story:

Eileen is an incredibly talented, smart and passionate person. She’s made her career by bucking the trends, firstly as a female software engineer, before becoming one of the most successful women in tech & VCs.

She started a VC fund with little experience in finance and has gone on to back some of the UK’s most successful businesses and entrepreneurs, sticking to her principles by investing in good people with good ideas, all whilst somehow managing to raise 5 kids.

Eileen has been influential in our story at Escape as she was a trusted confidante when we were deciding on how we wanted to grow - VC or crowdfunding - back in 2011. We’ll forever be grateful for Eileen’s guidance and support and are always inspired by the work she does and how she shows up as a person in that work.