Alex Cole

Alex Cole is a purpose-driven entrepreneur, venture builder and policy advocate working at the intersection of inclusive innovation, equitable entrepreneurship and place-based economic transformation. As CEO and founder of TIN Ventures Ltd, he leads a venture-building and micro-investment business built around one governing question: what does it take for equity commitments to survive contact with governance, capital and delivery? He answers it twice - once by building, once by studying.

His career began inside large, complex institutions rather than as an entrepreneur. From the Royal Air Force through roles at the BBC, Kent and Swindon Councils, Capita, Anglian Water and Transport for London, Alex built a track record in turnaround and governance under scrutiny. At Capgemini, that instinct became a method: asked to stand up an innovation practice for a new-business team of around 40–50 people, he found nobody could agree on what an idea even was. His response, Incubate, became a fail-fast, gated system for surfacing ideas and releasing investment only against evidence - the direct ancestor of everything he has built since.

In 2015, Alex moved that discipline into ventures of his own design, founding what became TIN Ventures. The firm has delivered a whole-house retrofit business case for the West Midlands Combined Authority, built Digisheds as a community innovation front door, and designed the Inclusive Innovation Catalyst: a three-engine model taking founders from aspiration through a milestone-gated venture studio to export readiness, underpinned by a 5-Dimension Readiness Scale and a non-dilutive, staged Venture Innovation Loan now cited by name in the Government-backed Maple Review.

Alex is currently Programme Director for the Thames Estuary Regional Innovation and Enterprise District, a co-anchored, triple-helix innovation district anchored at CEME Business Campus in East London, where the Catalyst serves as the delivery engine. Alongside this, he is a PhD candidate at Bath Spa University’s School of Education, where a supervised, narrative-enquiry doctorate turns two decades of practice into studied evidence, with progression due February 2027.

He chairs AskBEN (the Black Enterprise Network) and the GBCC Black Business Collective, is a Trustee at Brixton House Theatre & Cultural Arts Centre, and serves as Entrepreneur in Residence at The Open University and Bath Spa University. His work aligns closely with UK devolution and inclusive-growth policy, and he speaks frequently on innovation and social mobility.