Brent Shawzin Hoberman is a British entrepreneur. Together with Martha Lane Fox, he founded Lastminute.com in 1998, an online travel and gift business. As CEO, Hoberman successively floated and later sold Lastminute.com Ltd to Sabre who purchased the company's equity and bond debt for £577 million. In 2006, Hoberman handed over the CEO position to Ian McCaig, although he remained as chairman and chief strategic officer until 2007.
Hoberman remained CEO of lastminute.com throughout 2005, until April 2006 when he handed over the CEO position to Ian McCaig and took the position of chairman and chief strategy officer. He stepped down as chief strategy officer and chairman in January 2007. Hoberman founded VC-backed internet startup, mydeco.com, an online furniture and interior design site providing 3D technology for consumers to design their own rooms online in 2007 and the website launched in February 2008. In 2007, Hoberman took on the role of non-executive chairman of Wayn, a travel and leisure social network, and in December 2009, stepped down from the company's board. In July 2009, Hoberman co-founded PROfounders Capital, a fund that invests in early stage internet projects, with Michael Birch, Peter Dubens, Jonnie Goodwin, Rogan Angelini-Hurll and Sean Seton-Rogers. Hoberman is the co-founder and was founding chairman of Made.com, an online furniture retailer that is a joint venture between mydeco.com and founder Ning Li. In December 2015, it was reported that Hoberman was leaving PROFounders Capital. Hoberman is a co-founder of Founders Forum, a private network for digital and technology entrepreneurs. Founders Forum has been hosting invite-only events in London since 2006 and has since 2011 expanded to events in other countries such as the US, Brazil, India, Turkey and China. In 2013, Hoberman launched Founders Intelligence, a digital consultancy that advises corporates and investors on digital innovation and strategy and Founders Forum for Good, the precursor to Founders Pledge, the charitable arm of Founders Forum through which founders can commit a percentage of their future exit proceeds to social causes. In 2014, Hoberman co-founded Founders Keepers, an executive search firm within the digital and technology space and Smartup, a peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and micro-learning platform. In 2015, Hoberman launched corporate-backed tech startup accelerator and studio with Henry Lane Fox in London. Corporate investors in Founders Factory include The Guardian, L’Oreal, easyJet, CSC Group, Holtzbrinck Macmillan and Aviva, Marks & Spencer and Reckitt Benckiser. In 2018, Founders Factory launched in Africa with corporate investors including Standard Bank and Netcare. In 2019, Founders Factory launched in Paris backed by Aviva France, and in New York backed by Johnson & Johnson Innovation. In 2015, Hoberman also launched Grip, an event networking business. In 2016, Hoberman launched Founders of the Future which provides programmes, events and tools for aspiring entrepreneurs, and accelerateHER which is a network to support women working in technology. In 2017, Hoberman was appointed chair of the advisory board for the Oxford Foundry. In 2018, Hoberman and Spencer Crawley launched firstminute capital, a $100m pan-European seed fund with Atomico as its cornerstone investor. Hoberman was a non-executive director of TalkTalk, Shazam Entertainment, The Guardian News & Media, The Economist and LetterOne Technology. Hoberman sits on the Royal Academy corporate advisory group and the UK Government digital advisory board.
Personal life
Brent is married with two daughters and one son.
Inspiration and motivation
Hoberman says his mentors have been his father and South African grandfather Leonard Shawzin, who built an empire of over 650 clothes shops from a single store. He credits his entrepreneurial drive to the business successes of his father and grandfather, and says the catalyst for him starting his own business was being fired from his first job in investment banking for being "a prima donna". Hoberman has stated that he believes what makes a business successful is passion; in an interview with BBC 'The Bottom Line', he states his belief that the most successful small businesses are those where the founders remain passionate about their business, and are themselves part of their target market. He believes that by building a business to offer a solution to a problem you have yourself – as he did with lastminute.com and mydeco.com – founders stand a greater chance of remaining passionate and being successful.
