Speaker
David Selves – Career Summary
Entrepreneur – Award Winning Businessman - Company Advisor – Non-Executive Director – Risk and Equity Fund Raiser -Angel Investor - Broadcaster – Interviewer – Discussion and Event Chairman – After Lunch and Dinner Speaker – Charity Fund Raiser, having raised over £1m as a charity auctioneer – Event organiser – Serial Networker -Author.
Former Chamber of Commerce President – Founding Director Small Business Bureau, set up by David Trippier, Minster for Small Business under Margaret Thatcher - Former Regional Chairman Small Business Bureau – Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Entrepreneurs – Former Councillor and Parliamentary Candidate – Deputy Chairman London Press Club – International Chairman London Press Club- Chairman www.imabi.com – founder Selves Group
David Selves has been an entrepreneur for over 70 years and shows no sign of slowing up. He says “R” is for reinvention not retirement! His first organised business was climbing on a friend’s shoulders to get cigarettes out of a machine on the outside wall of a London greasy spoon cafe, breaking the packets up and selling the cigarettes one by one, for a profit, making his friend his first employee, who he paid in cigarettes! He was just short of his 5th birthday! He learnt a valuable lesson as they became taller and he lost customers!
When he left school at 15, he simply knew he wasn’t able to read and write properly, no-one had heard of dyslexia. He was constantly accused of being lazy and stupid; he knew he wasn’t lazy and by the time he talked his way through the 11 plus, interviewed because he got the lowest mark every recorded and the Headmaster of the all-boys school was curious to meet him, he knew he wasn’t stupid. Teaching himself to read using children’s rag books while locked in the loo on his daily 45-minute commute to work, he has subsequently enjoyed a career and life of excitement and fun while overcoming challenge after challenge, always with his cheeky young London smile! His commercial experiences are vast and broad, a lending banker, FTSE 100 Corporate Planner, start-up businessman, business Angel, equity raiser, company adviser and NED.
Equally at home in a London greasy spoon cafe under the arches, the hustle and bustle of his native London or the peace and quiet of his adopted Dorset, the corridors of power, a London boozer, business settings large and small, sophisticated social events, TV and Radio studios, public platforms and even royal palaces. Once at a small reception at Clarence House for people who had done charitable work, to the astonishment of those around, he casually asked the then Duchess of Cornwall out to lunch! She went.
He has written four factional thrillers, one making the top forty, and is currently working with a friend from a successful sixties rock group, on a musical.
He has always been sector agnostic, successfully working in many during his career, and having stepped back from front line business management and ownership, he spends his time helping and advising young companies across the board, raising corporate finance, speaking, chairing, running events and raising money for good causes as a charity auctioneer.
The most exciting thing in his life is tomorrow, the next, but not last, and unknown challenge!
Entrepreneur – Award Winning Businessman - Company Advisor – Non-Executive Director – Risk and Equity Fund Raiser -Angel Investor - Broadcaster – Interviewer – Discussion and Event Chairman – After Lunch and Dinner Speaker – Charity Fund Raiser, having raised over £1m as a charity auctioneer – Event organiser – Serial Networker -Author.
Former Chamber of Commerce President – Founding Director Small Business Bureau, set up by David Trippier, Minster for Small Business under Margaret Thatcher - Former Regional Chairman Small Business Bureau – Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Entrepreneurs – Former Councillor and Parliamentary Candidate – Deputy Chairman London Press Club – International Chairman London Press Club- Chairman www.imabi.com – founder Selves Group
David Selves has been an entrepreneur for over 70 years and shows no sign of slowing up. He says “R” is for reinvention not retirement! His first organised business was climbing on a friend’s shoulders to get cigarettes out of a machine on the outside wall of a London greasy spoon cafe, breaking the packets up and selling the cigarettes one by one, for a profit, making his friend his first employee, who he paid in cigarettes! He was just short of his 5th birthday! He learnt a valuable lesson as they became taller and he lost customers!
When he left school at 15, he simply knew he wasn’t able to read and write properly, no-one had heard of dyslexia. He was constantly accused of being lazy and stupid; he knew he wasn’t lazy and by the time he talked his way through the 11 plus, interviewed because he got the lowest mark every recorded and the Headmaster of the all-boys school was curious to meet him, he knew he wasn’t stupid. Teaching himself to read using children’s rag books while locked in the loo on his daily 45-minute commute to work, he has subsequently enjoyed a career and life of excitement and fun while overcoming challenge after challenge, always with his cheeky young London smile! His commercial experiences are vast and broad, a lending banker, FTSE 100 Corporate Planner, start-up businessman, business Angel, equity raiser, company adviser and NED.
Equally at home in a London greasy spoon cafe under the arches, the hustle and bustle of his native London or the peace and quiet of his adopted Dorset, the corridors of power, a London boozer, business settings large and small, sophisticated social events, TV and Radio studios, public platforms and even royal palaces. Once at a small reception at Clarence House for people who had done charitable work, to the astonishment of those around, he casually asked the then Duchess of Cornwall out to lunch! She went.
He has written four factional thrillers, one making the top forty, and is currently working with a friend from a successful sixties rock group, on a musical.
He has always been sector agnostic, successfully working in many during his career, and having stepped back from front line business management and ownership, he spends his time helping and advising young companies across the board, raising corporate finance, speaking, chairing, running events and raising money for good causes as a charity auctioneer.
The most exciting thing in his life is tomorrow, the next, but not last, and unknown challenge!
