Professor Stefan Allesch-Taylor CBE FKC FRSA is a financier, educator, broadcaster, keynote speaker and serial entrepreneur with over 32 years’ experience in business start-ups, turnarounds and public companies. A decorated philanthropist, award- winning charity chair, and King’s College London’s first Professor of the Practice of Entrepreneurship, Allesch-Taylor is internationally recognised as a leading advocate of using entrepreneurship as a force for positive social change and social mobility.

Stefan was appointed a Commander of the Order of The British Empire (CBE) in 2014 for philanthropic and charitable services in the UK and Africa. In September 2019, he was announced as one of the four Directors of Sussex Royal, the charitable foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. He has been named as one of London’s Most Influential People in the London Evening Standard Progress 1000 List for his work in Charity, Philanthropy and Social Impact for the past two years.

Business leader & educator:  

First serving as an Executive Chair of a UK public company at aged 27, Stefan has since invested in and/or co-founded in and/or served as Chair or CEO of more than 100+ new companies operating in more than 15 countries. Over a 30-year career, Stefan has built and led teams to create businesses with $19 billion+ of assets and thousands of employees in sectors including property, banking, financial services, retail,
asset management, technology, hospitality and health. In 2016 Stefan was appointed the first Professor of Practice at King’s College London. As Professor of the Practice of Entrepreneurship, Stefan plays a prominent role in the public conversation around entrepreneurship through keynote speeches, lectures at the King’s Business School and media engagement.

In January 2020 Stefan was awarded a Fellowship of King’s College London by the Council of King’s College for outstanding service.

Philanthropist & social impact advocate:

An internationally recognised philanthropist, Stefan Chairs and has co-founded charities providing life changing support to over 1.35m of the world’s most vulnerable people. He is one of the leading voices in encouraging an entrepreneurial mindset to effect positive social change in the UK and Africa, culminating in water charity Pump Aid, a charity he Chairs, being awarded UK Charity of the Year 2017
(aid & development) for using entrepreneurship as a proven powerful humanitarian tool. He has also established 50 nurseries in impoverished townships in South Africa as co-founder and Chair of the Afri-CAN Children’s Charity, which he founded in 2008. In the United Kingdom, he founded (and serves as Deputy Chair of) the Central London Rough Sleepers Committee which has offered support, for 12 years, to Central London’s homeless.

Broadcaster & media personality: 

Stefan is a regular media contributor, a columnist for The Times and writes a monthly business column for Gentlemen’s Journal. He has been profiled and featured in The Evening Standard, City AM, The Independent, The Telegraph, Forbes, the FT, Brummell Magazine, Business Leader, MailOnline and Real Business amongst many other media appearances and features as a guest on radio and podcasts including Times Radio, Monocle and Gentleman’s Journal.