Case Study Dr Sawsan Khuri

As Dr Sawsan Khuri discovered, the YES competition provides an opportunity for early career researchers to develop and refine their approach to management and collaboration, by enabling them to put their leadership skills into practice.

Sawsan Khuri took part in the first ever YES competition almost 30 years ago, as part of a team of five postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers from the University of Reading. “My academic supervisor at the time pulled me aside and said, ‘if you can get a good team together for this, you can win it,’” says Sawsan. “I’ve always enjoyed a challenge, so when exciting opportunities like this arise, I tend to grab them with both hands.”

Sawsan quickly identified four other early career researchers with whom she could team up, and together they developed a novel business idea based on her own research. While it was Sawsan who was the primary driver behind the effort to take part in the competition, she chose not to put herself in the role of CEO, instead picking up the position of R&D director.

“I was quite a lot bossier back then, and I knew the other team members wouldn’t want to do it if I was completely in charge!” she says. Her decision turned out to be a good one, as her team went on to win the entire competition, including taking home four of the five top prizes.

“I’ve always been confident, but how that confidence has been portrayed has changed over the years. Taking part in YES was a defining moment in my leadership journey, because it taught me the difference between being bossy and being a good leader,” she explains.

By providing researchers like Sawsan a unique opportunity to put their leadership skills into practice, the YES competition can transform how they see their own career progressing. “As an academic I’d always had to keep a lid on my tendency to lead,” she says. “YES made me realise I was good at it, and that totally changed my view of what I could do with my life.”

For Sawsan, the benefits of participating in YES extended well beyond professional horizons – they also influenced her approach to parenting and to managing family life in general. “YES helped me to recognise that there’s always more than one way of doing something,” she says. “That proved to be very useful when travelling abroad and raising my children.”

Today, Sawsan uses her experience to support the next generation of ambitious young people to develop their leadership skills, in her role as CEO of Volt Entrepreneurs. She also runs Collaborative Capacities, a consultancy firm comprising professional facilitators and innovation specialists talented in facilitating complex, cross-sector conversations.

“The way I describe what I do now is that I create synergies and empower the young,” she explains. “I’m very passionate about helping young people to develop entrepreneurial skills, because they need these to succeed in life. We tell kids in primary school that they can be anything, then in secondary school we start to tell them they can only be good at one thing. Learning how to think like an entrepreneur is about so much more than just business. That’s why taking part in things like YES can influence your life in ways that you cannot predict.”