Multiverse, the EdTech scale-up that helps businesses close critical skill gaps, today announced that Baroness Martha Lane-Fox, the entrepreneur and pioneer of Britain's technology sector, has joined its board of directors.
Baroness Lane Fox is a serial entrepreneur and tech leader with three decades of experience - guiding multiple companies to public markets. She now serves as President of the British Chambers of Commerce, Chancellor at The Open University, and co-chair of a new government panel tasked with driving improved adoption of technology in the public sector. In addition, she currently serves on the board at Chanel and previously served on Twitter’s board (now X) for almost 7 years until 2022.
The company has also appointed Jillian Gillespie as Chief Financial Officer. Jillian joins from MongoDB, the developer data platform with a market capitalization of $20 billion, where she was Senior Vice President of Finance and Operations. She led the company through major milestones and international expansion over ten years, from its Series F funding round in 2013 through to IPO in 2017, followed by success as a public company.
Multiverse is a tech company that identifies, closes and prevents skills gaps, through on-the-job learning, apprenticeships programmes, and a personalised AI platform. The appointments come off the back of two consecutive record breaking quarters for the company. In October, the company launched an ‘AI-Powered Productivity’ apprenticeship, the first apprenticeship in the country to fully embed training on Microsoft 365 Copilot. AI training programs now make up 22% of Multiverse’s revenue.
Multiverse's research shows 64% of businesses lack confidence in deploying AI and associated technologies – a skills gap that has become more acute with rapid technological advancement. They also support Multiverse's continued expansion in the United States, where 87% of business leaders believe they have skill gaps. The company already partners with more than 1,500 companies across the US and UK.
Euan Blair, founder and CEO of Multiverse: "Multiverse has the capacity to be a generational British tech success story - ensuring people globally can embrace tech with confidence by embedding learning in tech, data, and AI into their daily work. In Martha and Jillian, we're adding two exceptional leaders who understand both the scale of the global skills crisis and how to build and scale transformative solutions. As we expand our footprint with new products and partnerships, their experience in scaling high-growth tech companies will help us seize this moment and reshape how organisations develop talent in the AI era."
Baroness Martha Lane Fox: “The promised gains from technology will never be delivered unless people have the skills to take advantage of them. This is becoming urgent in the boardrooms of every organisation, and Multiverse is perfectly positioned with its model of continuous, applied learning. Across the UK we won’t unlock growth without giving employers access to the skills they need to thrive. The debate about skills reform sorely needs the voice of employers, and I’ll be working to deliver it, alongside companies themselves and learners’’.
Jillian Gillespie, Chief Financial Officer of Multiverse: "I am thrilled to join Multiverse at such a pivotal moment in its journey. What really attracted me is the opportunity to collaborate with such a talented, genuine, and ambitious team in a fast-growing, dynamic, and rewarding business. I firmly believe that applied, on-the-job learning represents the future of workforce development and I look forward to applying my experience to an exciting new challenge.”
