Biography
(for event organisers and press)
Martin has been recognised as one of the UK’s Top 100 Entrepreneurs in the Maserati Top 100, a Top 50 UK Innovator by Penrose, a Fast Growth Icon and described as a ‘Marketing Guru’ by the Sunday Times. He speaks internationally on innovation, artificial intelligence, media and marketing and corporate venturing, including recently at the Alan Turing Institute and the European Commission.
Martin is a Co-Founder of Codec.ai (acquired in 2023, and recognised as a ’Top 25 Artificial Intelligence Scaleup' by the UK Government), Metaphysic.ai (Time Magazine's Top 100 Most Influential Companies 2023), and the Digital Leadership Council (with a mission to connect future leaders to current leaders to get people from non-priviliged backgrounds into AI and technology). Martin also advises venture and Private Equity investors on trends, IP and deals.
He has used his knowledge of venture incubation, fundraising and product development to help incubate products and ventures for some of the world's biggest companies, including Estee Lauder, Nokia and L'Oreal.
Having used his most precious asset as a student- a university ‘.ac.uk’ email address- to get access to a then-unknown site called Facebook, he helped to start one of the world’s first social media consultancies more than 15 years ago which worked with the world’s leading companies and innovative figures like Madonna and Lady Gaga. This sparked a fascination with building innovative businesses and creating intellectual property which Martin took to the next level after he was offered a place at Harvard Law School.
While there he worked at the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society with the famous street-artist Shepard Fairey, advising on intellectual property and digital issues and defending him in a legal battle over the famous Obama ‘Hope’ poster- one of the most high profile intellectual property cases ever contested, receiving coverage in the New York Times, Guardian and BBC. After graduating from Harvard Law with a Dean’s Prize, Martin was recruited by the firm he had fought against in this suit, and given the brief of counselling the firm, and its top private equity clients, on the transformative aspect of social and digital media in their business portfolios.
He worked on the portfolios of some of the world’s most successful venture and private equity firms and with clients like Facebook and Samsung. Martin was lured back to East London from New York by Songkick.com (where he worked on business development and using audience data to change the way the music industry operated before Songick was acquired by Warner Music Group.) Coming from a family of teachers with no knowledge of business or technology, Martin is firmly committed to helping younger people understand both.
He founded the Social Media Unit @ UCL to promote wider discussion at the policy and political level around tech and digital in the UK and Europe, and to make these industries more understood and accessible for school leavers, students and budding entrepreneurs from all sections of society. He has been engaged as an Advisor & Strategic Consultant to the Royal Marines on Psychographic Terrain Mapping & the digital war against ISIS, and the Department for Communities & Local Government, and is an Advisor to The Inspire Movement, a movement for entrepreneurs and innovative thought leaders who have been through adversity and emerged transformed for the better.
Education
- Masters, Harvard Law School (Dean’s Prize)
- Bachelors, UCL (Dean’s Prize for Academic Excellence & Sweet and Maxwell Prize for Top Student in Year)
- Bachelors, University of New South Wales, Sydney (A. Limbury and R. Howell Prize for Strategic Negotiation)
