UKTN | The Podcast

This week’s guest is Asha Haji, co-founder of Framework, the world’s first on demand business school due to launch this year. Haji shifts the focus from founders to start-up employees and how the HR elements of growth and expansion are often overlooked and placed secondary to areas like sales and marketing. She shares her knowledge on how scale-ups can work smarter when it comes to expansion and the emphasis on employee growth and training to achieve the desired scale up without over hiring. Haji talks funding and closing a seed round of £2m which brought in some pretty impressive angel investors as well as her experience as a woman in the tech space looking for likeminded investors.

Show Notes

As many start-ups grow at a rapid pace so do their teams - Asha Haji highlights the vast differences of a company of ten to a company of 30 and the missing parts that usually end up in a disconnect in relationships. She puts importance on implementing learning and development elements, and providing support and training for employees growing with the business. Giving insight into the advice and learnings from mentors of Framework, she explains how they help shape the curriculum and why it is important for users to have founders from different size companies as well as from all around the world.  

Talking funding, Haji explains why crowdfunding is not for them and after closing a seed round of £2m, she shares on her experience on the way investors view women versus their counterparts.  

Haji is a WashU computer scientist turned Harvard MBA who has spent her career developing transformative experiences at the intersection of people, technology and education. After her first chapter as a developer, she spent nearly seven years in a variety of leadership roles at EF Education First, the world's leading international education company, before joining start-ups in 2017. Haji loves fostering cultures that are inclusive and highly collaborative, where everyone is empowered to do their very best work. In her spare time, you can find her sneaking in early morning HIIT workouts and listening to NPR podcasts.  

What is UKTN | The Podcast?

Each week, Jane Wakefield sits down with some of the key movers and shakers from the UK tech ecosystem for the UKTN Podcast. Learn growth strategies from both seasoned and up-and-coming founders, hear market sentiments from investors, and understand the tech policy affecting businesses across the country.

The UKTN Podcast provides insight into the most influential people in the UK’s innovation economy, exploring their personal and professional journeys and hearing their views on the hottest tech topics of the day.