Cassandra Jayne Harris

Biography

Harris was born in South Africa but holds a UK passport; her mother is from Wincanton, in Somerset. She moved to London after attaining a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) in Computers and Marketing from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Her first start-up was the unsuccessful Atelier-To-Go. In 2012 she sold her shareholding and went on to co-found the tech education initiative, Freeformers.

Harris’s angel investments continued, first with Taylor Morris Eyewear, the British eyewear fashion brand created by her friend, Made In Chelsea celebrity Hugo Taylor, and subsequently with the world’s first ‘social petwork’, Petbu.

Harris went on to found Venturespring, an international venture development studio. Venturespring specialises in bringing global brands, investors and talented entrepreneurs together, in order to develop innovative start-ups into independent businesses. The company’s first big success came when it won the contract to become Vodafone’s first ‘co-creation partner’, a deal that enabled it to begin working with the telecommunications giant, to create new products and services, such as apps and wearable technologies. When Venturespring and Harris incubated and launched Wileyfox in 2015, it had gone from concept to launch in less than twelve months.

In 2015 Harris’s Venturespring launched a campaign backed by Mayor of London Boris Johnson and IBM. The campaign Smart City Challenge 2015 joined the increasing calls for solutions to smart city living and working. Boris Johnson said of the campaign: "I have no doubt that this competition will encourage our tech whizz-kids to use their creative nous and come forward with the solutions, to help us address these challenges and make London an even better city to live in."

Career

Early in her early career, Harris successfully built from scratch, the SEO department at Mindshare Worldwide. Subsequently, she worked on several high-profile blue-chip client accounts, including Unilever Unilever, before turning her full attention to start-up ventures.

Her first start-up was fashion e-commerce platform Atelier-To-Go, which she built for two years before selling her shareholding when seeing that it was not going to be a success.

Harris has since backed a number of tech start-ups, including Taylor Morris Eyewear, the fashion label launched by her celebrity friend, Hugo Taylor.

In her career, Harris has cultivated a large network of venture capitalists and built relationships with some of the biggest brands in the world.

Personal life

In 2013, Harris became engaged to Formula One events entrepreneur Jonny Dodge. She also counts famous entrepreneur and Dragon’s Den veteran Duncan Bannatyne and business tycoon John Caudwell and wife Claire Caudwell, among her friends.

Charity work

In 2011, prior to launching Venturespring, Harris co-founded the ‘digital transformation’ company, Freeformers, a social enterprise that combines digital skills training with business acceleration support. The initiative drew interest from the press and garnered celebrity support.

The venture’s 1-for-1 training model (for every SME undertaking training, Freeformers trains one young person for free) has attracted several high-profile corporate clients, including Vodafone and Unilever.

In 2013, Harris launched a programme, in partnership with the Knowle West Media Centre (KWMC) in Bristol to help young women, whom had been victim to domestic violent relationships, to boost their employment prospects, raise self-confidence and develop a better awareness of digital technology.

In 2014, Venturespring launched a pilot to help ex-prisoners from HM Prison East Sutton Park into tech roles.