Founders’ Day 2023

Staff and pupils attended the Founders’ Day service at Glasgow Cathedral yesterday and welcomed guest speaker and former pupil Anjan Luthra.

Anjan, (C2009), gave this year’s address and spoke passionately about his career to date and the importance of resilience – one of the school’s six values.

Anjan, who is the chairman of Cricket Scotland, engaged his audience with his career which has taken him from Glasgow University, where he studied Accounting and Finance, to becoming a private equity investor at Partners Group in London – one of the most successful funds in the world. Now he is embracing the challenges of entrepreneurship.

He spoke passionately about the value of challenge and continual learning and warned the pupils about getting too comfortable in a job.

Anjan said: “I knew that if I stayed at Partners Group, I would never have to worry about money, I started to get comfortable. Comfort is a dangerous territory. I have always believed that once you get comfortable, you stop learning. Things become repetitive and you move into autopilot. This is when you stop asking questions and taking on new challenges. I knew it was time for a change.“

So, he left the company and embarked on one of the most difficult and challenging times of his life – thanks to a global pandemic.

He explained: “I was inspired by the Founders and CEOs that we were investing in. I wanted to be like them. I had always loved technology and had invested in a few tech firms whilst at Partners Group. I decided to start my own technology company. After 1 year of building the technology with a tech team, much to the dismay of my parents, I decided to leave my job. As soon as I left, I was able to raise funding for my new business. Unfortunately, shortly after, I got hit by a sledgehammer.

“I had to pivot and change course of the company immediately as I had just taken on £500,000 worth of investment from leading investors. This was when Thrillz was born.“

Thrillz is the largest celebrity video messaging platform in the UK. It has over 1 million users and 2,500 celebrities. He told the audience that building this business was one of the most challenging times of his life. Building a company for the first time is hard enough but doing so during a pandemic made it even more challenging.

He said: “I faced a lot of challenges and I can categorically say that it was not plain sailing. Being a Founder requires an insane amount of resilience. Rejection is normal, problems happen every day, and you ultimately have to deal with it all yourself. It can be a super lonely place. I thought about going back to work in Private Equity many times as my life would have been a lot simpler. But the one thing that kept me going was my resilience.”

Anjan, who has since gone on to launch another successful digital company RAMP, which produces TikTok content for companies, encouraged pupils not to let age hold them back and to dream big.

He said: “Age is a funny thing. I once thought that you can only achieve great things as you get older and more experienced. But I did not want to wait until then. I wanted to achieve it earlier. Whilst I have not reached my end goals, I think I have made good progress so far. How have I done it? Abnormal resilience, curiosity, and an obsession with learning. And most importantly, big dreams.”

During the service the school choir sang ‘Greater Love Hath no Man and ‘Drop, Drop Slow Tears’. Head Jamie and Head Girl Jessica gave readings. Thanks also to the organist Malcolm Sim, C1992.