Call me one of Thatcher's children any day

Yesterday was the 30 year anniversary of Thatcher's arrival as Prime Minister. She is a great part of why I came to Britain in early 1998 "to make my fortune" as I would joke. I first came to the UK in 1986 for a "junior year abroad" (my third year of university). I was mesmerised by Cambridge and could tell something was changing in the country under her leadership. 

The buzz about what London was becoming brought me back in 1998. Thatcher's children were building internet businesses  and hedge funds, and entrepreneurship was cool. At  the core of Thatcherism is "accountability" - that the decisions one makes in life should be borne by that individual. She  wanted the children of Britain to be strong and grow tall, and some would grow taller than others depending on their merit and talent.

"This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise... This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England" - Richard II Act 2, but I'm sure Thatcher had her version of it because she clearly loved her country.

Thatcher obviously couldn't make life perfect for every single British citizen. But she raised the bar very high indeed in terms of executing a vision of "Great" Britain. That still attracts me to this day.

Fast forward to the launch of the NACUE this past weekend  at Microsoft's Headquarters. NACUE was founded in December 2008 during a meeting of fourteen presidents of the leading student enterprise societies in the country with the objective to stimulate university enterprise by providing national support and representation of university enterprise societies and entrepreneurs through a single, clear entity.

The Founder of NACUE is a young Oxford Business School graduate by the name of Victoria Lennox. She has the contagious spirit of an evangelist mixed with a vision for the youth of the UK leading economic growth through their entrepreneurship. She also has pretty extraordinary leadership abilities for a 27 year old. Put it this way - if the Labour Party had her on their side, I'd say they could raise their chances of winning the next election. She has grown the Oxford Entrepreneurs Society where she is President to close to 6000 members since she took over.

People like Victoria continue the trajectory of Thatcherism. Her groundswell of young entrepreneurs will take back this country, and make it a hotbed of hundreds of thousands of new businesses run by passionate young leaders.

That is worth watching. Tip of the hat to Victoria Lennox.

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites