Trishna Nagrani is an Investment Banking Analyst at Lazard and the co-founder of a start-up called AGORA, a virtual start-up launcher that provides essential tools for entrepreneurs. She attended the University of Warwick, where she was the president of Warwick Incubator.
She expresses, “Warwick Incubator allowed me to see entrepreneurship from a different angle, early stage entrepreneurship and the UK start-up ecosystem and since then I have always been involved in entrepreneurship.” Whether she’s writing a thesis on women in venture capital or co-founding her own start-up, entrepreneurship has been a constant in Trishna’s life.
Her experience as Director of Warwick Incubator equipped her with many unique skills including, “the know-how of early stage ventures, which I will always be grateful for. It additionally taught me how to work with people with very different working styles and how to lead a cohesive team. Today, my knowledge helps AGORA in building their business model and strategy, as well as working with large-family owned enterprises at Lazard.”
She describes her experience with NACUE as
“ A solid support when the Warwick Incubator started. It helped the co-founders, Tim Maecker and Raphael Weninger, navigate the support available in the UK and guiding them on how to run a student-led start-up incubator. NACUE, to me, has always been welcoming, which guided me extensively in helping the cohort attend events and connect with peers from student organisations of other universities.”
She shares her personal highlight of her days with Warwick Incubator as
“The Mentor Day at The Shard in London. It was an initiative I had started with only 3 mentors and 5 Warwick Incubator start-ups, which grew to 25 mentors from Google, JustEat, McKinsey, SeedLegals, Downing Capital among others, as well as the entire University of Warwick start-up ecosystem. Being able to connect with student entrepreneurs who have recently started their businesses with seasoned individuals from the industry was a bridge that showed me the importance of mentorship and how individuals from one industry can help in solving a problem in another industry.”
Her advice for young ambitious entrepreneurs is, “Be fearless. Don’t be afraid to take the first step; approach people from who you want to learn and to make mistakes. Entrepreneurship is a never-ending process full of bumpy rides, so enjoy the ride.”
