Richard Cull Thomas

Richard is the Deputy CEO and COO of the Centre for Entrepreneurs. He joined its parent organisation (the New Entrepreneurs Foundation, (NEF)) in late-2016 and steered the charity through the merger with, and subsequent re-branding to the Centre for Entrepreneurs.
He has extensive and varied experience of senior-level roles in the telecoms and defence industries, covering: commercial, product, strategy and operations, gained at British Telecom and BAE Systems. His path to the non-profit sector began at BT, while running its online charity-giving platform - that first encounter with the third sector started an itch which led to NEF and then CFE.
Richard's passion is supporting new, aspiring entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses. CFE's flagship programme - NEF+ - has helped support almost 500 founders to start and grow businesses, in the UK and internationally. Under Richard's leadership, the programme grew in size and impact, reaching a more diverse group of participants and building a successful, supportive and engaged alumni network. The next chapter of CFE's development is to utilise AI technologies to transform the development experience for new founders, and Richard is central to the delivery of CFE's next set of programmes in this area.
Outside of work, Richard is the father of two teenage daughters, and spends a lot of his weekends supporting the younger's football ambitions. To relax, he is an enthusiastic, but extremely unsuccessful fly fisher - but the act of being immersed in nature more than compensates for missing 'the big one', or any other fish for that matter.