Christian Tooley
Founder & CEO, Impact Investor, C-Suite & Startup Advisor, i³ investing
Your Story:
"Christian is a multi-award-winning queer investor & innovator, c-suite & startup advisor, and global speaker… rethinking systems.
Currently, he consults & coaches for c-suite clients, both senior executives and startup founders; utilising over a decade of experience in innovation, strategy, & venture, from London to Hong Kong. Christian is also an active angel investor & advisor, focused on scalable impact, varying from HealthTech (inc. Sex) and DeepTech, to Climate & FinTech.
As Founder & CEO of i³ investing, the U.K. and Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ startup and syndicate community, he incubates & invests in under-estimated founders - coined as “intersectional incredibles”.
Christian is the former Venture Expert at Bain & Company, where he led an EMEA team advising on Venture Capital & Impact Investing, Growth & Innovation Strategy, as well as Venture Building (from seed to scale).
He is a global speaker with published work across innovation, intersectionality, & investment. Christian is a Global Shaper at the World Economic Forum, and cat daddy to Charlie & Kimchi."
Your Impact:
"I feel very grateful to have created a space for queer entrepreneurship and ambitious LGBTQ+ startup founders. We are the U.K. and Europe's fastest growing, and largest, queer founder community and investment syndicate for our "intersectional incredibles". Our flagship (un)conference iiF was the world's first to unpack intersectionality as a criteria for investment. Fostering LGBTQ+ innovation in the startup ecosystem is critical to pave the way towards systemic change."
Your Advice:
"There is no single approach to FinTech and your entrepreneurial endeavours. Think about your end game and how that can evolve. How do you want to use your role, initiative, or own company to support your own ambition & can that support our community? For me, I need to be investing and advising fintechs who are driven by impact. My current end game is rethinking systems, and how "queering" as a concept is a pathway towards this."
