‘How We Innovate’ podcast – with James Kellett

This time, we’ll be talking with James Kellett, the CEO and co-founder at Spot Ship with financial and investment background. Get to know him better👇

About James

James describes himself as an ‘Entrepreneur on a mission to bring shipping into the 21st Century, using AI to drive climate benefits. Believer in the power of software to change the world, from a background in value investing.’

James is a holder of INSEAD MBA and Cambridge MA in Natural Sciences. He spent the first six years of his career as a deep value investor in hedge funds before moving across to run partnerships at a unicorn called Improbable – a British metaverse technology company.

Since 2019, he’s been working as the CEO and co-founder of Spot Ship. Spot Ship is the ship broker’s digital assistant. Utilizing powerful AI and machine learning tools, they enable leveraging data at incredible speed. Thanks to their AI platform, they also enable ship brokers to increase their speed of finding a ship from 6 man-days to just 2 man-hours, or even faster. Thanks to that, not only they enable better decision-making for the environment, but also they can save roughly 90 million tons of CO2 annually.

Few Questions to James:

1. What was your first job, and what was the most important thing you learned from it?  

Investment Analyst at the deep value hedge fund, Orbis. I learned how difficult it was to be right when forecasting the future. Usually, it was so difficult as to be impossible. Therefore you learn to focus your efforts on where you can be right and remain mentally ready to be wrong if data is not as expected.

2. Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you have a beer with? 

Elon Musk. I view him as an inspirational marketing genius with a real gift for putting businesses together. I’d like to have him as an investor.

3. How do you start your day / What does a typical day look like for you? 

I get up 30 minutes before our daily sales stand up. The first thing is to make a handmade espresso, which for me, tastes so much better than a Nespresso. Then I jump into meetings until lunchtime.

4. What are three apps you can’t live without? 

Am I allowed to say Spot Ship 😉

Otherwise: Gmail, Whatsapp (Spot Ship runs on it), Linkedin

5. Most influential book or movie? 

The Dhandho Investor – Ultimate book on asymmetric bets while living a kind and fulfilling life.

6. The first word that comes to your mind when you think of Poland 

Pierogi.

When can you expect the episode?

The episode will be published on the 27th of September 2022. Don’t miss it – follow us on Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts, or YouTube, where you can also check our previous episodes!

🎧 Listen to the episode here 🎧