Disley and Coutu scoop entrepreneur prize double

Cambridge scooped a unique one-two as Darrin Disley and Sherry Coutu were named by Barclays as the UK’s male and female Iconic Entrepreneurs of the Year at the bank’s Entrepreneur Awards last evening.

Dr Disley (pictured above), CEO of gene editing world leader Horizon Discovery, is up for another honour tonight – AIM’s Deal of the Year accolade.

Horizon is close to a market cap of half a billion dollars and on course to become a billion dollar bio business.

As well as being an inspirational leader in the life science field, Dr Disley is also a serial entrepreneur in his own right and invests and supports a number of leading science & technology startups in Cambridge and London.

Sherry Coutu, a former Cambridge angel, heads up the Founders4Schools initiative in the UK which brings successful business leaders face to face with students to encourage them into entrepreneurship.

Founded by Coutu in 2011, Founders4Schools has been supremely successful.

Research shows that students who have four encounters with employers are five times more likely to find suitable employment and three times more likely to choose a STEM subject. Coutu says: “To date we’ve facilitated 199,724 student-employer encounters and 96 per cent of students say they have felt inspired by the entrepreneurial speakers who have engaged with the programme.”