Simon Gifford speaking at the Digital Catapult Centre
Educator · Entrepreneur · Marathoner

Building Entrepreneurs.
Going the Distance.

After two decades as a strategy partner at Deloitte and Braxton Associates, Simon Gifford reinvented himself as one of Madrid's foremost entrepreneurial educators — co-founding Mashauri, teaching at IE Business School, and drawing on the discipline of 58 marathons to shape the founders of tomorrow.

15+ Years in Education
58 Marathons Completed
Global Reach via Mashauri
IE Business School, Madrid
Simon Gifford in discussion
58
Marathons
The Story

Two Careers.
One Relentless
Curiosity.

I've had the privilege of two very different professional lives. The first was in the world of global strategy consulting — as an accountant, a product manager at Kimberly-Clark, and eventually as a partner at Deloitte Consulting and Braxton Associates, with my own firm, Genesis Management Consulting, running in parallel throughout.

Then, fifteen years ago, I made a deliberate pivot. I joined IE Business School in Madrid as an adjunct professor, and something shifted. I found myself captivated not just by teaching strategy, but by the deeper question of how you actually build entrepreneurs — not just teach them theory, but equip them with the mindset, the tools, and the resilience to go out and create something real.

That passion led me to co-found Mashauri alongside Victor de la Torre, a PhD in bioinformatics I met at IE. What began as a side project to help students launch businesses has grown into a serious global venture — one I now dedicate most of my professional life to.

Entrepreneur Educator
Strategy Consultant
Incubator Designer
Adjunct Professor, IE
Ultra-marathoner
The Journey

A Career Built on
Transformation

From global boardrooms to university incubators — every chapter has shaped how I think about building people and businesses.

Corporate Career
1980s · Early Career
Accountant & Financial Professional
Foundation in finance and commercial thinking
Late 1980s
Product Manager
Kimberly-Clark
1990s
Strategy Consultant → Partner
Braxton Associates & Deloitte Consulting
Throughout
Founder & Principal
Genesis Management Consulting
Education Career
2010s · A Deliberate Pivot
Adjunct Professor
IE Business School, Madrid
Founded
Co-Founder
Mashauri — with Victor de la Torre (PhD)
Ongoing · Global Reach
Entrepreneurial Education & Incubator Design
University programmes worldwide
Present
Thought Leader in AI & Entrepreneurial Education
Speaker · Advisor · Author
Featured Venture

Mashauri

Mashauri began as a hobby project — an experiment in whether I could help students at universities actually build businesses, not just study them. It worked.

What started with a small cohort of student founders has evolved into a serious global operation. Today, Mashauri works with universities and institutions around the world to design and run incubator and accelerator programmes that genuinely move the needle for founders.

The secret? We've been founders ourselves. We design systems that reflect the real lived experience of building a startup — the visibility, the accountability, the decision-making under uncertainty, and increasingly, the intelligent use of AI to do all of it better.

Visit Mashauri.org →
🏛️
Incubator Design
End-to-end design of university incubator and accelerator programmes that actually produce founders.
🎓
Entrepreneurial Education
Curriculum and pedagogy built around how entrepreneurs actually learn — by doing, failing, and iterating.
🤝
Founder Mentoring
Cohort management and one-on-one mentoring frameworks that keep founders accountable and progressing.
🤖
AI in Education
Pioneering the intelligent application of AI tools to entrepreneurial education and incubator management.
Simon Gifford running with Cape Town coastline in the background
The Distance

What Ultra-Marathons
Taught Me About
Building Businesses

58 Marathons
14× Two Oceans
(56km)
2× Comrades
(88km)

Running 58 marathons — including fourteen Two Oceans and two Comrades ultramarathons — was never really about running. It was about learning what you're made of when everything tells you to stop.

The lessons are identical. The entrepreneur who can't raise the round, the founder who loses a co-founder at kilometre forty — they face the same fundamental question every ultramarathoner faces: do I have what it takes to keep going? Strategy only gets you to the start line. Resilience gets you to the finish.

I bring both into the classroom, the incubator, and the boardroom.

"Running mirrors the deep challenges faced by the business consultant and entrepreneur. Both require strategy, endurance, and the willingness to keep moving when the path gets hard."

Speaking & Workshops

Invite Simon to Speak

Drawing on 35 years of strategy, entrepreneurship, and education, Simon delivers keynotes and workshops that challenge audiences to think differently about how innovation really happens.

🎤
Keynote
Innovation in Entrepreneurial Education
How universities and institutions can move beyond theory to build programmes that produce real founders — and why most incubators are getting it wrong. A candid, evidence-driven perspective shaped by fifteen years at the frontier of entrepreneurial education.
🏗️
Keynote / Workshop
Building Entrepreneurs, Not Just Businesses
The entrepreneur is the product, not the company. Simon explores the frameworks, pedagogy, and mindset shifts that help founders develop the resilience, judgment, and self-awareness to build lasting ventures — whatever the idea.
🤖
Workshop
AI and the Future of Entrepreneurial Education
A practical and thought-provoking session on how AI is reshaping the way we teach entrepreneurship, run incubators, and support founders — and the urgent questions it raises for educators, institutions, and programme designers.

Ready to book Simon for your event?

Available for conferences, university programmes, corporate innovation sessions, and leadership forums. Simon speaks in English and Spanish.

Get in Touch

Let's Talk

Whether you're exploring a speaking engagement, looking to redesign your incubator programme, or simply want to connect — I'd love to hear from you. I respond within 24 hours.

I respond within 24 hours · All enquiries treated in confidence