Octavius Black is a highly successful British entrepreneur, philanthropist and author.
He founded the world’s first and leading behavioural science business, MindGym, which:
- successfully listed on AIM in 2018 and is currently valued at c.£150m.
- has been at the frontier of modernisation in business, advising 62% of FTSE 100 and 55% of S&P100 on areas from productivity and digital transformation to inclusion and ethics.
- has trained over 3 million professionals, delivering up to 300 live workouts each week across 40 different countries.
- is a significant exporter with over 70% of revenue is generated overseas and offices in New York and Singapore.
- is on track to be one of the great British business success stories; unlike many founders Black has retained the majority stake and has recently embarked on a major digital transformation strategy
- influenced the formation of the original Downing Street Behavioural Insights Team.
Black is also:
- Generous philanthropist, with his wife, co-founding and funding social mobility programme, Parent Gym in 2009, delivering value of £3.6m pa. (Once described by the Prime Minister as “the most hopeful thing I have seen”.)
- ParentGym is entirely philanthropic and funded by MindGym – it provides free parenting classes in socially deprived parts of UK including London, Brighton, Leeds, Manchester and Bristol. Pre-COVID, c. 1,500 parents took part in a six-week, live programme each term.
- Co-author of four bestselling books, Sunday Telegraph business columnist and author of numerous newspaper and magazine articles in UK and US.
- Respected voice on business and organisational issues; regular media appearances including TED talks
Prior to founding MindGym, Octavius was a director of the organisational communications consultancy Smythe Dorward Lambert and prior to that he was an analyst at Booz Allen Hamilton. Octavius read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and The Queen’s College, Oxford University.
