William Mercer

Will is a venture strategist. He is a serial founder, an investor and an adviser to early-stage businesses. He specialises in combining commercial strategy with narrative-based storytelling to help founders land investment, close their first customers and create sustainable businesses. He is a Venture Partner at Zag, the venture arm of global creative agency BBH, where he manages an early-stage investment fund that has seen an 8x return in its first 3 years.

Will is an Investor & Mentor Director at eō Business Incubators, Ukraine’s Premier Seed-Stage Mentor-Driven Incubator Program, which helps to make Ukraine’s startups the strongest in the world.

In 2018 Will founded Mission Led, a startup ecosystem consultancy which advised USAID on it’s $50m entrepreneur strategy project in Ukraine, tabled recommendations for a 64k sqkm newly built district of Shanghai and supported the UK’s National Advisory Board on Impact Investing in making the UK the global leader in the field. Prior to this he founded a residential work and event space in a fairy tale chateau in Burgundy.

Will cut his commercial teeth turning around underperforming businesses during the financial crisis whilst at Lloyds Bank and has had a varied career that has included everything from running an adoption charity through to running the world’s leading startup incubator for travel. He has investments in 12 startups which he advises regularly.

Will holds a Masters degree in Physics from the University of Reading and a diploma in Finance and Organisational Management from the London Institute of Banking and Finance. He is a guest lecturer on the creative MBA course at ESCP Europe, the world’s oldest business school. Outside of work he is a DJ, has a show on Soho radio and enjoys climbing anything made of rock.