Last week I had the pleasure of pitching ‘an ask’ to a wonderful community of fellow Scots and diaspora in London.

Brought together by the Scottish Business Network, Christine Esson, one of the co-founders, had been kind enough to ask me to attend one of their network events. It wasn’t all whisky and tartan. It’s a great group of varying business, from investors to accountancy firms, online sock retailers, to new health startups.

It felt nice to say hello to some new faces, and some surprisingly familiar ones that I hadn’t seen in a while. Some of which are doing the hard work by travelling up and down from Scotland to develop new business in London.

As someone who set up a business in Scotland, and who is now located London it was a little bit like coming home. It was lovely to be in the company of a group of people genuinely interested in finding out more about you.

The format is to make an ‘ask’, but first explain your business. In a one to one with Russell Dalgleish, I explained that Snook are a bit like design doctors, helping organisations with the problems they need to solve, and that we find the right way to solve them and develop that solution.

Ultimately, my ask was around meeting business that is going through the ‘digital transformation’ processes. I’m interested in helping institutions to really think about meeting user needs, through the services they design, rather than being stuck on the implementation of tech and ‘being more digital’

The Scottish Business Network is a really great network. Whether you’re interested in exporting to Scotland or want to get a helping hand in the big smoke, get in touch.