Meet Olivia - our Comms and Events Associate

Hi everyone, I’m Liv and I’ve just joined BGV as the new Communications and Events Associate! I wanted to share with you a little bit about my journey to the wonderful BGV.

Before I start, I think it’s fair to say that this is quite the career change - stay with me and all will become clear. I moved to London in 2014 to study Politics, Philosophy and Law, a course chosen in no small part because of its variety and my reluctance to settle on one subject for the remainder of my education. I was also interested in how these areas work in our everyday lives. Who decides when something goes from being morally objectionable and restricted in law to being an acceptable part of society?

Coming from Northern Ireland, a place which only legalised same-sex marriage and decriminalised abortion in 2019, this idea of how to fight for social change felt particularly close to home. In my last year of university I became particularly interested in Human Rights Law, Anti-Dsicrimination Law and the inequalities in access to healthcare. For the first time, I started to seriously consider Law as a possible career path, knowing that if I were to go down that route I would want to be directly helping people.

As part of this journey I worked in the Legal Department’s of three different hospitals. Whilst the work was rewarding and interesting, I knew that this wasn’t the right path for me long-term. I needed something with a more direct focus on creating positive societal impact and the opportunity for creativity to be more central in my role.

In 2019, my best friend and I co-founded a company called Visible Platform. Our goal was to stop sexual harassment on public transport by creating a web-based reporting platform. It was this venture that introduced us to the tech for good movement and specifically BGV. (Told you we would get here!) The tech for good movement is naturally compelling and it is inspiring to see all the novel ways technology can be used to combat some of the most pressing issues we face today. I am particularly interested in how technology is levelling the playing field when it comes to accessing education, healthcare, justice and culture.

The range of founders in the BGV portfolio focusing on a sustainable planet also gives me hope that Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough will not have to save the planet by themselves. Starting this role has been one of the most exciting moves in my professional career, and to an extent, it is an important personal step as well. It has always been important to me to work for a company with values that align with my own, and BGV’s dedication to being a positive force in the world resonates with me. Values such as diverse teams and better, more accessible products and services are not only enshrined in their investment thesis but are also clear in the teams they invest in, and in their internal practices. At no point in the application process did I feel positively or negatively affected by where I went to school or who I knew.

The Communications and Events Associate role is fantastically varied (reluctance to settle on one area strikes again.) Whilst the events side is currently limited to my little rectangle on Zoom, I am looking forward to organising in person meetups once it’s safe to do so! In the meantime, I hope to find creative ways to tell the BGV story, attract potential founders and investors, and raise the company's profile as an early stage impact investor. This will involve creating lots of content for the BGV website and keeping the socials up to date.

I am currently working on how we can build our tech for good network and create a thriving place for organisations and individuals to meet, bounce off each other, and share jobs or events. If you want to join our  tech for good community you can sign up here or get in touch with me! I am famously always up for a chat (communications seems like a good fit) so if you’re interested in BGV’s work or the wider tech for good community please do reach out. If you’re curious about my role at BGV or want to connect, you can get in touch here!