George Berkowski
Venture Partner
George is a serial entrepreneur and led the product teams at Booking.com, GoCompare and HAILO

WHAT’S BEEN THE STEEPEST LEARNING CURVE ON YOUR CAREER JOURNEY SO FAR?

Every experience has been exciting, high pressure and high velocity. The steepest though was scaling HAILO from 1 city to 13, and from 3 people to 350 in 3 years. That was a wild ride and we received 3 Apple App of Year Awards; I am super proud of the work the company and team did focusing on an unparalleled customer, and driver, experience.

WHICH GLOBAL TECH TREND ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT AT THE MOMENT AND WHY?

I think the use of AI to increasingly generate insights from well-structured data is accelerating competitiveness for those companies that can master this domain. Lots of people and companies are talking about it; few are really generating actionable insights. The divide will keep going here.

WHAT’S THE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED?

The most humbling piece of advice which I received many times, but took many years to be truly absorbed; is be kind and empathetic. Entrepreneurship at its core is about building deep relationships with amazing people and building their trust to go an adventure with you; one that most consider foolish. Being harsh and demanding can only get you so far; being kind and relentless helps you build a loyal army.