From Aspiring Architect to Equity Pioneer

Ifty Nasir : 0:00

The notion of giving equity away should never exist. People should earn it. Firstly, the UK is still very underserved in this space. There's lots probably only about 5% of businesses that could actually do share equity. So everybody should have a stake, whether it's an employee, an advisor, an ad, even your investors. All of these are your team and they all should have a stake. They should have skin in the game.

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‍Amardeep Parmar: 0:31

This is Ifty Nazir's story, how his family came to this country with not very much and he was one of many children. He then got his big break and worked in the corporate world, having 25 years at BP, where he travelled all across the world, led major projects, before deciding it was time for a change, and you'll find out why. He's now founded Vested world, which is changing the whole dynamic around investment, and they worked hundreds of companies to really make a difference and to get employees to own part of their companies. I hope you enjoy this episode. I'm Amar from the BAE HQ and podcast is powered by HSBC Innovation Banking. It's amazing what you've done so far in your long career, but if you rewind back to the beginning, what did you want to be when you were growing up? What was your ambition?

Ifty Nasir : 1:14

I guess my ambition was to be an architect, and the reason for that was because I'd gone to see Towering Inferno, the movie. I don't know if you're even old enough to even remember what that uh is, but it was a big movie in the 70s and the hero was an architect. So for a long while I wanted to be a, an architect, then moved on to be wanting to be a lawyer, but then I think, um, the sciences caught hold of me and I just loved chemistry. So is that what you went on to study at university? Yeah, so I did chemistry with chemical engineering, and as part of that it was one of these sandwich courses. So as part of that, I ended up with a year out at BP, and I guess that was part of what created the next opportunity.

Amardeep Parmar: 2:06

And when you're studying chemistry. Did you know you wanted to be from that, or was it just like? This is what I enjoy. I'm just going to study it and then figure out if I can get else later on.

Ifty Nasir : 2:13

Well, firstly, I just loved the idea of putting things together and creating something different. I think in life thereafter chemistry I can almost relate just about everything back to chemistry yeah, about putting things that would others would not have usually added put together. So I guess that's the mindset. But I also had this old notion of wanting to work on some big plant in some nice hot, sunny place, and oil was where the the money was. So, uh, yeah, it just seemed like a an escape from the bad streets of Bradford, which is where I grew up.

Amardeep Parmar: 2:52

And growing up in Bradford.

Amardeep Parmar: 2:54

What were the emissions you set for yourself? Was there this idea that you could go and do whatever you wanted?

Ifty Nasir : 2:58

I don't know. Quite the opposite. I guess, yeah, we started off life as guess, yeah, we started off life as a family of immigrants. I was born here but, um, my dad had come over back in 1960 and their mum, the rest of the family, came over a couple of years later. Um, and yeah, they had been themselves um refugees. So at partition they were teenagers and they were on the wrong side of the, the dividing line. They were in a place called um for us, but which is today in um, india. So they had to move across. So they ended up as refugees on the other side, in in Lahore uh, still the Punjab, but and then after that moved over to the UK, um, as migrants. So, yeah, we started life right down at the bottom 0.1%, if not lower, of society two up, two down, mid-terrace house, two parents, nine kids.

Amardeep Parmar: 4:00

Wow, where are you in the nine kids? I'm uh, eight.

Ifty Nasir : 4:03

Eighth eighth oldest?

Amardeep Parmar: 4:03

Eighth youngest. So there's only my little sister who's younger than me.

Amardeep Parmar: 4:09

And then going to BP, because obviously BP is like a massive global organization. How is that considering? Like your upbringing and childhood, did it feel like you'd made it or what was that feeling inside?

Ifty Nasir : 4:20

I think yes side. I think yes, I guess you know early state, early doors, the whole idea was to just escape from, you know, not having much I guess was a starting point and I guess that was a big driver. But um, yeah, I guess I was just fortunate getting the opportunity to go into bp as a consequence of that sandwich year and then them giving me the opportunity to go into BP as a consequence of that sandwich year and then them giving me the opportunity to come back and during that time I guess managed to impress enough people to get that opportunity to return once I'd graduated.

Amardeep Parmar: 4:57

You mentioned to me, before we started recording as well, that you had an idea of your own at this point which you tried out too. Could you tell us more about that?

Ifty Nasir : 5:03

Yeah, the idea um what I called it was computer aided real estate or carry or whatever, and the notion was that you'd have, um, the ability to look at a property in another city, so the idea actually was being able to see a place in whole even even though you're in Huddersfield. This was well before the internet, so you'd need a big server and database and you'd have terminals in the estate agents that wanted to play and they'd pay you a small fee, subscription you could say. So I'd taken this to try and get some investment. Hull Enterprise Council as it was then, they didn't even have a clue as to what I was talking about. So I thought, okay, forget it, I don't need your money, bravado and all the rest of it. Well, I've got this offer from BP, so I'll go and work there for a few years and I'll come back and do it myself.

Amardeep Parmar: 6:01

And I guess at that time, right thinking back to my kind of background as well?

Amardeep Parmar: 6:09

Would it be like Bloomberg terminals was the kind of inspirational? Where did the idea?

Ifty Nasir : 6:12

Not even sure they existed, but you know, we had these big terminals that you, uh, we had the terminals and the computers at uni and the whole notion that a database can hold whatever you want in it. So it was from that. I there certainly wasn't a, I didn't don't think I even knew what Bloomberg was to be honest, and then at BP.

Amardeep Parmar: 6:28

So obviously you stayed a lot longer than two years. Yeah, what was it that, after that two years when maybe you could have then self-funded or maybe it'd been a few years later stopped you from going back to the idea or going back to another idea? What kept you there longer?

Ifty Nasir : 6:42

I guess the opportunity that BP provided. I started life as a chemist, joined BP Chemicals in Hull. They paid for me to go and do postgraduate degree marketing. That gave me the opportunity to move into a new part of the business, which was BP Gas Marketing. That was down in London. That was a great adventure as well. The BP Gas Marketing joint forces with Norsk Hydro and Statoil the two Norwegians and we created Alliance Gas, which was one of the big players in the new deregulated gas market. So it was just a massive adventure From that, having moved from chemicals from BP chemicals into BP gas chemicals from BP chemicals into bp gas uh, and then being able to take that um experience uh to a role that was being created out in um, Indonesia, which was uh in the upstream part of the business, which is where you know in BP's world, that's where they make most of their money in the exploration and production of oil.

Ifty Nasir : 7:44

So this was out in Jakarta. I thought I'll apply for it and it was really interesting. The other thing that we we talked about is the power of networks and connections. So a few years previous, on holiday and I think this is from dad notion of meeting, meeting up with people when you're even on holiday. Beverly and I, my wife we love traveling. That's what we earned money for, literally to travel, and one of the adventures was going to Egypt and traveling, backpacking around Egypt and we were in Cairo and I thought, you know, before I went, I thought I'd reach out to the head of BP in Cairo and just thought we'd pop in.

Amardeep Parmar: 8:27

Was Beverly happy about that?

Ifty Nasir : 8:28

She thought this was a bit of a bind. We're going around all these places and every time you want to go and meet somebody your dad has given you, you know, go meet this guy Anyway. So we popped in and the guy's name is Roger Cornish. Great guy. He was very hospitable. I mean, this little kid turns up, okay, fine, and yeah, all good. Um, it just turned out then, in due course, he he was the business manager for the business in Indonesia. These things turn around anyway.

Ifty Nasir : 9:03

I got the opportunity to move out to um, to Jakarta, with BP um in the upstream business, which was great. We had the Asian crisis while I was there, had two of my oldest children, so they they were born in Singapore, both Sarah and Amber. We had the Asia crisis, did reasonably well in handling our relationships with Pertamino, the state oil company and some of the loans from Bank of Tokyo, Tokyo Mitsubishi that were getting very um, distressed, um, but did well there and the. The view then was okay. So we now need, you've done all right, we now need to test you amongst your peers in this commercial arena. So you've got a choice you can either go to Aberdeen or Anchorage. So I thought Aberdeen's a bit better, a bit closer to home. So I moved back from the, you know the tropics up to Aberdeen, landed in the snow, um, it was a an interesting uh transition. But again, another interesting arena where chemistry came back into play.

Ifty Nasir : 10:19

The role that I'd taken up was to look at this field. It's the most northeasterly field in the UK CS and the notion was you know, it's not really that strategic for us anymore, so let's see what we can do with it, sell it. Either sell it or get some gas to it for the enhanced soil recovery business that we were trying to do there. I guess, again, what we did there was pull things from rather than looking at fields nearby, because nobody had spare gas. They could all sell it directly into the uh, into the system I was, and this was after a chat that had no real relevance, of an understanding that somebody had a problem out here in the West of Shetlands, which if you know the north sea, it's the most westerly side of the UK continental shelf and the notion of taking gas from there, which was just 100 miles from the beach, from 400 miles to the most northeasterly point, and making this sensible or economic when it wasn't even economic to take it to the beach 100 miles, was an interesting little construct but that transformed the North Sea.

Ifty Nasir : 11:38

For BP it opened up a whole pile of opportunities, both in terms of effectively being able to build out Foynehaven and Shetland. These are all names of fields that will mean nothing to you.

Ifty Nasir : 11:53

I have a very good knowledge of uh oil foods in the north sea but yeah, it also just took out because these guys over in the west were to produce the oil. They were actually flaring so much methane, um, and the whole idea of looking for that uh route to the beach was to eliminate, um, the flaring. But what we were able to do is take that waste gas, rather than it being flared and creating all that damage to the environment, putting it into taking it through Sunvo, taking off some energy for power generation on the island as well, and then up to the Magnus field and then putting it through the reservoir, almost like rinsing it through and bringing out oil, additional oil, from the reservoir. So it extended the life of the field for a long time.

Amardeep Parmar: 12:40

But it's really interesting to see just like what you've done there has had like lots of different adventures while at a corporate job, right, which isn't a lot of people's experiences, and I can see why you'd then stay there, because if you're going to all these time of the

Ifty Nasir : 13:01

Yeah, yeah, after Aberdeen, then moved out to London. They're just taking place. There's loads of assets that we needed to tidy up. Interestingly in Pakistan was a couple of them, and the Arco Acquisition as well. So there's just lots and lots of stuff Going on there. Then, after that, out to the middle east.

Amardeep Parmar: 13:17

What eventually made you leave BP, then if you kept getting all these different adventures, what made you decide echo? What's the next chapter?

Ifty Nasir : 13:25

After the middle east came. I went to Stanford and back to London uh looking after the group. So previously I'd been in different parts of the business. Different businesses then moved back to London uh looking after the group. So previously I'd been in different parts of the business. Different businesses then moved back to London uh looking after the group. So looking after Russia, Caspian, middle eastern Africa as commercial director for that region. So everything that was not in technical that came into the uh regional uh businesses, uh regional uh structure. After that I went to Asia growth.

Ifty Nasir : 13:54

So I'd always wanted to see how I can contribute back to the subcontinent and the middle east. So the Pakistan thing, the first time I went to Pakistan in this context was when we'd acquired a bunch of assets from Arco and the notion was, if you go and check out, see what we can do with this stuff and you know whether we want to keep it or sell it, I really wanted to see how we could make a difference and having BP in country would have made a big difference. So we managed to keep that. It's funny how then, when I was in the middle east looking after the, the commercial uh manager for the middle east region, then after 9-11, the guy who was a business manager for Pakistan ended up having to try and run it from Abaddon, from Aberdeen. That wasn't going to work. So they said, if you can do, you want to run it from uh, from Abu Dhabi. So I did so. It was interesting, the asset that I'd managed to keep a few years earlier I ended up running after 9-11, uh. So I would pop back and forth into Pakistan after that from Abu Dhabi. So the whole notion of trying to help the subcontinent, the Middle East, just that cultural heritage, was just something that was deep inside me.

Ifty Nasir : 15:09

So after the Russia, Caspian, middle East and Africa gig, I was asked to look after Asia growth and look after the India side of that in particular. So in that you end up meeting a lot of interesting people from Reliance, lots of the state entities, Hpcl in India, IOC, and we even looked at PSO in Pakistan in terms of acquisition. But it was one of those folk who ended up then reaching out to me. So Ravi Ria, who's one of the founding brothers of SR, invited me to. We were looking at his refinery as part of a participation into the Indian market and he invited me to his daughter's wedding and it was great.

Ifty Nasir : 16:10

I don't know if you know Mumbai very well, but the Darj Hotel is pretty well known. So the first night was they'd taken out the whole Darj. Second night was over at the race course. You know several thousand, you know good few thousand people invited, and then there was an after party up on the roof where they'd converted the helipad into a dance floor and a bar on the top, and then it was just brilliant.

Ifty Nasir : 16:35

So I, I'd been tired of having come back from having flown in from London the day before. I thought you know, I, Prashant, who's uh, asked me to come and join them for the after party. Okay, I'll stay for one or two drinks turned out a lot longer than that and I just remember having um, having a little breather at about, you know, three o'clock in the morning, looking out over the sea in front of us and coming across and asking me if I wanted to. You know the family had been thinking about this for a while would I like to join? And I I was in very much two minds on why would I join.

Ifty Nasir : 17:17

We were thinking about buying half the business but uh, it was actually on reflection and with having, you know, discussed with some of my Norwegian friends I'd got from that Statoil, Norsk Hydro joint venture. That their view was. You know, you've always been wanting to help the subcontinent. You're on the wrong side of the table at the moment. If you really want to help, you need to be on the other side. So that's the thing that that flipped me. So then I joined SR and then since then ended up buying the Mombasa refinery from shell, the Stanlow refinery here in the UK from Shell, and a number of other things. But yes, I was on the other side. I understood how the big oil companies worked and how you could actually get the right outcomes from their strategic objectives.

Amardeep Parmar: 18:08

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Amardeep Parmar: 18:39

So if you want to learn more, check out hsbcinnovationbanking.com. So it's interesting of this journey so far and other than the part where you were trying to build the business right when you're at university, it's not obvious that you'd go into what you're doing today. So could you connect the dots of how you go from long career in oil and both on the BP side and then going to other side of SR and helping build out that business, which is it's not going to be small, but it's significantly smaller than BP was to then deciding. Okay, now this is my new mission.

Ifty Nasir : 19:12

Yeah, It's not a straight line as you suggest, I guess. Um, it was triggered really by mum and dad passing away. So at that stage I was spending so much time flying around the planet, the kids had moved around with us all the way through, wherever we'd been. So we'd moved out to Mumbai with four children Sophia, who was born in Abu Dhabi, and then Adam, from London, and then we listed the SR business, SR Energy, in London. So we ended up moving the base back to London. So I moved back to London and yet, after having launched that and having done the acquisition of the Stanley Refinery, I ended up running their upstream business, which meant a lot of time in India and elsewhere.

Ifty Nasir : 20:01

And in 2012, with mum and dad passing away, I just thought what am I doing? It took me about a year to really decide what to do and then a year to actually move away from you. When you join an Indian family business, although it's a multinational conglomerate, you you don't just walk away. So it took a while to, you know, make that departure. But the idea there was you know, why don't I just start investing in those? You know at what stage do I have enough money to do that entrepreneurial journey, and maybe I shouldn't go quite into entrepreneurialism myself. Do you do? I have the energy, do I have the capability? Um, but you have the money. So the idea was put a few million to one side and invest in those little ifties as we put it earlier that that couldn't get them the resources.

Ifty Nasir : 20:54

But then the rude awakening, but bloody obvious, as if you think about it now. It's like what do you know about startups, right? Yeah, so I, you know, I'd watch the apprentice, I knew you. You only need a quarter of a million dollars or pounds, uh, and it'll take you a few years and you'll set up a business, a startup. It's easy. So that's what I did I put some of that money that I'd put aside for investment into trying to set up a business myself. So myself being me, and my co-founder, Naveed, who happens to be my nephew as well and the idea was we'll learn what we need to learn and then we'll use that wisdom, that yarn, along with the money that we're going to invest in these early stage businesses I guess, a lot of things happen, then.

Ifty Nasir : 21:44

The firstly, it was a lot of learning, and the thing that we started, the, the business as which was a marketplace.

Amardeep Parmar: 21:52

I'd love to just go back to the origins, because I mentioned before so with your story there as well about the passing of your mum and your dad. The passing of my dad is a big reason why the BAE HQ is what it is today, and I guess some of you people listening as well, who are going through a moment of reflection themselves, that something has happened that has caused them to rethink things. Could you just tell us about that moment itself? Obviously, you saw that you're going to do that early in your career. What was it about that moment that made you decide like this is?

Ifty Nasir : 22:24

I think there were a few things. I think, on the one hand and I'm sure a lot of your listeners and viewers will relate to this there's a big piece of wanting to make my parents proud, so working for a big company, doing all this stuff that was in that category and I guess when they passed away it was almost like a little bit of a release of that pressure. The the other piece was, you know I and this is not a boast, you know I, I had a gold card with BA. I had gold platinum with Emirates and Jet, who don't exist anymore, but you know I was just spending so much time, probably three weeks a month away.

Ifty Nasir : 23:11

And what is the point? You know I've got this little family who are growing up. You know, Sarah, my oldest was going to be heading off to university in a year or so. Whatever relationship I have with them is going to be what we build now, or it's going to be, you know, anchored on this thing now. So they were the main drivers. The main drivers, I guess the release of the psych, you know self-imposed psychological pressure for myself about, uh, mom, dad, but also just realizing their life is finite. And at what stage do you do, firstly, the things that you wanted to do I'll come back to why that particular thing that we, we, we end up doing, but also, you know, kids are important.

Amardeep Parmar: 23:58

Yeah, and I think what's interesting for me is that obviously I had the corporate career first as well and then my dad encouraged me to quit to do originally what the writing was, and I've always wondered if it's interesting how sometimes we think what our parents want us to do, actually they would be happy if I do something else. We just never ask because we think we know what they want and I guess for people listening sometimes it's worth just having that conversation because you never know they might actually really support you to go and build something.

Ifty Nasir : 24:25

I'm sure they would have, I'm sure they would have, but I think there would have been that interregnum, that period of uh uncertainty and risk, and you know, the role that I I guess I'd um taken on within the family was that, you know, support me, or being able to facilitate and support everybody else to the extent that I could from a economic perspective. Everybody else in the family obviously supported we were, you know, again, uh, some of your listeners will be able to relate to this you come to uh another country. You have no, you don't have that depth of relationships around your uncles, aunties, etc. You're this little cluster of people and you rely on one another. They are the bedrock. We had a few other. I mean this is quite amazing when you think about Bradford.

Ifty Nasir : 25:16

Now, there were a handful of other people of colour and all my aunties, every single one of them that I can remember, apart from one, were Sikhs mindro depo. You know these were my aunties, this was my. You know my growing up and you know, when you have limited roots, these are the people who support you and that that little family that we have, you know it's still there just very, very supportive. We all had different roles, different supporting structures. That was that was one of them for me. Um, and so you know taking a risk and going off and doing something else, even though you know you have the economic resources. At what stage do you have enough? I think is the one that you're always questioning yourself about.

Amardeep Parmar: 26:04

And you mentioned about investing in other people. So then, setting up your own business. What was the major set of the business you did in terms of Vestd?

Ifty Nasir : 26:11

Yeah, I'd had 20-odd years of commercial activity at BP and SR. So working with equity whether you're buying assets or leadership teams, setting up them, them for success, equity is a key part of it. And the other reason for this was, you know, one of the things I'd learned while I was at Stanford, which BP sent me off to, which was this whole notion of the ownership effect, the fact that if you have a stake in an enterprise I mean this was a tiny bit of the the program, but it was one that, like you know you will, your relationship with it changes emotionally, psychologically, what you bring to the table. So the idea was you know, in the UK, you know, although share schemes are there and I had the benefit of having shares in BP from one, but lots of businesses in the UK don't I mean, it's a tiny, tiny fraction of businesses that actually share equity. Part of it is because they don't understand. So part of what I want to do is see if I could help people understand the benefit of having equity participation for themselves and the success of the business as well as the success of their teams.

Ifty Nasir : 27:23

Then, secondly, when we started to learn about this, it was evident that people weren't doing this because they didn't understand. Sorry, they didn't want to. So there were a big number of people who think equity is for me, I'm the founder, I'm the one who's making all the value. But for those who realize, actually it comes from the team.

Ifty Nasir : 27:46

Ultimately, there was a big issue of the cost and complexity of setting these schemes up. So what we spent all our time doing and we've carried on is just taking away the cost and complexity of sharing equity, giving everybody who helps you build your business some stake, however small. You know it's not gonna be the same as the founders, it's not gonna be the same as the there's taking those early risks with you, but everybody should have a stake, whether it's an employee, an advisor, an ed, um, even your investors. All of these are your team and they all should have a stake, they should have skin in the game, because it changes their relationship with you. And I just thought it was a great idea and I guess more and more we've worked on it more self-evident.

Amardeep Parmar: 28:31

It is so obviously you've grown quite significantly at that time could you just share, like where you are today and like some of the big highlights, before we go into some of the lessons you've learned.

Ifty Nasir : 28:38

Yeah, I guess up until last year, you know since. So some big changes. So firstly, as I mentioned, we started off as a marketplace equity for expertise, I guess what we realized, and it took us nearly two years, and there's a whole reason for that. But yeah, it was going to take a lot more money and a lot more time than I had to do this, and so the idea was to switch from, you know, two sides of the marketplace into one as a SaaS. We're going to have shares or offer opportunities for equity parties version2, and we would just make that happen, whereas previously we were looking at bringing that network together as well. So it took a couple of years to get to that place of understanding that that first model was going to need to switch. So the Christmas of 2016, new Year's, 2017, we switched to that SaaS and had to rebuild the whole platform based on what we'd built before. I guess we got our first customers in the summer of 2017 and we start our recording of our journey from that September onwards and I guess we've grown month on month, every single month, since then and we keep track of it. On things like ProfitWell, product market fit, which was about a year later was a key milestone hundred and some uh customers. Now we have a few thousand. So it's a big, big change.

Ifty Nasir : 30:31

I guess we went into economic break even 2019. Yeah, it's just wonderful. I get to talk to so many founders and business owners a good few thousand personal conversations. They open up so much and, yes, we have to build a business that's economically sustainable and self-sustaining, because it can't be that it just survives because you put money into it. So that was the first objective and it has to sustain beyond you. But above and beyond that, it's about how many businesses, how many great ideas, how many, how many folk can we help, you know, thrive through participation.

Amardeep Parmar: 31:13

And then, what's the dream going forwards?

Amardeep Parmar: 31:15

What's the what? What do you hope Vestd can continue to grow towards?

Ifty Nasir : 31:19

There's lots of opportunities. Firstly, the UK is still very underserved in this space. There's lots probably only about 5% of businesses that could actually do share equity. So there's a big journey there. We've already set up in India. So I think there's a big opportunity there and certainly a lot of the learnings that I'd had from actually just doing business.

Ifty Nasir : 31:41

The number of equity um uh promises are made and not fulfilled is is legend. You know founders or promoters, as they're known, out there will will promise people all sorts of equity if they do xyz and then xyz is delivered and, for whatever reason, liquid pro quo isn't uh provided. But similarly, you'll get a lot of naive founders or promoters who will be promised things by other people but you, you know you have to give me 10 or 5. They give them the 5 or they issue the equity up front and then that thing is never delivered and then it's really difficult to pull that equity back. So you know it certainly informed some of my um, some of the the reasoning for building vested, but it's just fascinating. I think you know one thing that we're always very clear on nobody should you know the notion of giving equity away should never exist. People should earn it, or they get it because they've provided something worthy of getting it, not just because they made a promise.

Ifty Nasir : 32:50

Promises aren't worth anything, so everything, all equity, should be conditional on delivery.

Amardeep Parmar: 32:56

So we've run out of time, but I know there's so much more we could say, so one final question before it gets a quick fire round hopefully you don't get kicked out is what's like one of the greatest learnings you've had from this journey of going from that long corporate career to now working on your own startup, which is doing well and growing each year, as you said. What's something that you think you've really learned or grown the most in compared to your corporate career or central corporate career?

Ifty Nasir : 33:21

I mean this just such a um, a cliche. There is so much you don't know how, whatever education opportunities you've had, whatever you know travels or journeys you've had, there is just so much more. I think it's that humbling. More than anything, it's just realizing that there's so much sun and it's wondrous, and just open yourself up to to learning, be humble and open your ears, keep your mouth closed as much as you can.

Amardeep Parmar: 33:56

So thank you so much for sharing your story.

Amardeep Parmar: 33:58

We're gonna forget so quick five questions now. So first question is who are three British Asians you think are doing incredible work and you'll have to share them today?

Ifty Nasir : 34:07

So there's Jetin, who's doing property development. I met him while I was on a trip to Dubai as part of the London Partners Grow London initiative. Absolutely brilliant idea where you've got developers not being able to get the money um to to build, but actually essentially crowdfunding. So it's again it's an opportunity to share and participate in a business very early days. The next one would be Sonya Barlow with her uh Lmf Like Me female network that she's building up. She used to be a podcaster herself on the BBC Asian network. So another great initiative there. And I guess the standout Asian leader that I can think of is Sadiq Khan. He's doing a phenomenal job of displaying both the courage of his conviction and his principles. He's walking a very tight rope at the moment, but amazing chap.

Amardeep Parmar: 35:20

Thank you for for that. And if people want to find out more about you, find out more about Vestd, where should they go to?

Ifty Nasir : 35:25

Very simple it's ifty, that's uh 50 without the f. @ vestd v e s t d dot com (ifty@vestd. com).

Amardeep Parmar: 35:34

And is there anything that you need help with right now or Vestd needs help with.

Ifty Nasir : 35:37

I think the main thing and I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity to talk to you. But it's it's about. You know we want to help and you know we we started life in the startup world. It was evident that it wasn't going to be economically viable to serve that market, so we moved into the sme space. What we are doing now is going back to that early stage space because we've built out the tools and the capabilities to serve them without it costing them an arm and leg. So I'd just like, as many founders, to look us up, see how we may be able to help, either through the tools that we provide or the stories and the experiences that we've had.

Ifty Nasir : 36:20

I would love to help more little ifties.

Amardeep Parmar: 36:24

Awesome, so thank you again so much for coming on today. Have you got any final words?

Ifty Nasir : 36:30

I think the BAE HQ concept and the thing that you guys are trying to do, I think, is phenomenal. I think the point that you made about being able to see other people with similar backgrounds, similar journeys being able to make a mark, whatever that mark is, however large or small, and being able to create those exemplars for others to walk alongside and follow. So thank you.

Amardeep Parmar: 37:01

Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time.

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