Jazz Shaper: Sam Tidswell-Norrish

Welcome to the Jazz Shapers podcast from Mishcon de Reya.  What you’re about to hear was originally broadcast on JazzFM however the music has been cut due to rights issues.

Elliot Moss

Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul, and blues.  My guest today is Sam Tidswell-Norrish, I'm very pleased to say, Founder and Chair of Opus, a global platform supporting early stage entrepreneurs by aiming to supercharge the founder journey, and a partner in Access Holdings, a private equity firm.  Having spent his early career in finance, Sam co-launched fintech focused private equity firm Motive Partners in 2015, building the platform internationally and helping raise close to $10 billion.  Understanding that successful communities need to be built with real intent, Sam launched Opus in 2020, as he says, a highly vetted founder network now running over 300 events a year from intimate meet ups to Davos and even apparently a private audience with the King of Jordan, we'll be finding out more about that.  And their venture fund Day Zero is built on the belief that VC, venture capital, should instead stand for value creation, with investors needing to offer far more to founders than supportive phone calls and a seat on their board.

It's very good to meet you.  I always read a fair amount about the fabulous people I'm going to meet, the overly, overly successful people I meet and there was a great quote, which I will tell you because I thought it was, um, absolutely spot on.  And the quote was, ‘every person I've admired in my life has done a good job ignoring that voice’.  And that voice is the voice that says, no, it can't be done, no, there's something in the market and all that.  Tell me about that voice when you left your job at Barclays?  What was the voice saying to you that made you move from being employed to doing your own thing?

Tidswell-Norrish

Yeah, firstly, you've got a face for TV, but you've definitely got a voice for radio.  You really know what you're doing and I feel like I need to talk a little bit like you.

Elliot Moss

Oh no, this is how I normally talk.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

We've walked into a spa and we have to talk in a relaxed fashion.  Um, so what was that voice saying?

Elliot Moss

A very mean man.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

But do it with a smile.

Elliot Moss

You do.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

The, um, the voice was saying, get out of the bank, you're losing us money and I was not a very good trader. And so, so I didn't last very long there, um, less than 5 years and I had a burning desire to build, to be creative. And it feels fitting sat here with JazzFM to say this, but Business builders are artists.  I really believe that, they are creators, they are no different to a painter or a poet or a writer, uh, but their medium is different.  They are building something that didn't exist before and I always had that itch to scratch, and it felt like a calling, and it took me a couple of steps to get there, um, but once I got there, it felt like home.

Elliot Moss

And where did that begin?  If you can trace back, um, I read a bit about you going to boarding school, not having a brilliant experience, but learning a bunch of stuff about character and about social awareness and those other things.  And those are things I do want to talk about but the, I really love your phrase about business builders are artists.  When did you realise that you wanted to create your own, that you wanted to create?  That wouldn't have started when you went, you know, even probably before Barclays, you were thinking about that, I imagine.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

You've read a creepy amount on me.  It's quite impressive.

Elliot Moss

I know, sorry.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

I do think I remember saying, but I don't know when or where.

Elliot Moss

Or even if it was actually you.  Maybe it was just a bot.

Tidswell-Norrish

Maybe it wasn't, If I ever have a political career, there's a lot of cleansing I need to do of that cupboard.

Elliot Moss

We’ll be alongside you.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

Um, I think it began at school.  I think a lot of things begin at school.  I was, um, very big on art, I still am very big on art, and I love the creative process.  I was never particularly academic.  I probably had some form of learning, um, ability.  I just, I wasn't academic, I couldn't focus.  But art was something that I really enjoyed pouring my time and energy into and studying and I've taken that through to today.  I collect art and it's probably my single greatest passion outside of business.  So I think it really, it comes from probably from that side, drawing that parallel back to artists and creativity.

Elliot Moss

You talked about a couple of missteps after the Barclays thing, or like you didn't quite find your feet, but I jumped to Motive, which I think was probably the first, I would say, proper thing that you did from the outside.  Tell me a little bit about, for those people that don't know what a private equity firm does, because obviously now in 2026 it's far more common and I think people even outside the industry have a sense of it.  Back then it was probably, it was relatively well known in those circles, but I still think there was a lack of understanding.  Tell me how you describe it and what you knew about it as you set it up then.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

The simple way of thinking about the industry is every company is either public or private.  Public means you can buy it on a stock exchange, private means you cannot and the vast majority, 99.9% of companies are private.  And private equity is the business of raising money from third party investors and investing that money into private companies, improving them and exiting them to return that money to your investors.  Your product is performance.  They give you a dollar and you have to give them $3 back and how you build that performance is really unique to that private equity firm.

Elliot Moss

And how did you get into it?  And what were those first formative months, years like?

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

The industry is full of very smart people.  So I wasn't going to walk through the front door.  They weren't, they locked those doors to me, um, but I met an incredible person, an amazing entrepreneur and business builder called Rob Havert, who through the sale of a prior company kindly invited me to build it with him and a group of others and we…

Elliot Moss

And what did he see in you, Sam?  What do you think?

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

I think I made good espressos, if I'm honest, and took great notes.

Elliot Moss

And beyond the espressos and the notes, what do you think it was?

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

Um, maybe charm and charisma, but it certainly wasn't my knowledge of private equity because at that point I had none.  So we embarked upon building Motive Partners together with a group of very mission focused people to build the world's most impactful financial technology investment platform and over the next decade, we had a good degree of success.  We raised a significant amount of money, invested in venture growth and buyout opportunities, so different stages of company and we had some very successful exits along the way, selling companies to JPMorgan and S&P.  Um, we took Dun Bradstreet private, a very old 180 year old  year old data business, if you can imagine and I had a role going inside that company to help run it and transform it.  And we relisted that and IPO'd it, so it became a public company again.  But yeah, I had the most extraordinary near decade there, um, couldn't have asked for more.  I had some wonderful experiences very early on and to Rob and the team there, they continue to do a world-class job.  But yeah, I'm very grateful for that.

Elliot Moss

But you must have also been, I mean, looking at you, you're a very persuasive fellow.  You even persuaded me before that it was just espresso and notes and charisma and charm and of course there's substance, there's a lot of substance that must go into it.  If you can summarise in one sentence what you think you learnt in those 10 years that you've now ported into your life and we’ll come into Opus and we’ll come into Access and all the other things that you're doing.  What do you think was the, if there was one thing, the big thing that you really took away from that period?

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

It's a very easy thing for me to answer.  The single most important thing, I think, in business is relationships. Very early on, I realised through mentorship and learned experience that anything I'd ever achieved was really because of other people.  My career and my successes are not the product of myself, they are the product of those I've been surrounded by.  You get a contract under the belt, someone had to say yes, someone had to vouch for you on the other side, someone had to sign it.  You raised money, someone had to believe in you and what you were selling them.  Every, everything I've achieved is because of other people.  When you realise that and you work with the flow rather than against it, and you recognise that you're not a hero yourself, the whole thing becomes easier.  It also, frankly, becomes more enjoyable because you think through, um, how you can help other people so that in turn they might want to help you.  If you go about your career as a single player game, like I think most people probably do, it's very challenging and so being part of the formation and launch of a private equity firm was an MBA in that, a real-life experience of building together in a very complex, highly intellectual environment that I was out of place in.  I found it very hard, um, but other people helped me through it and we did very well because of that.

Elliot Moss

Stay with me for much more from my Business Shaper today, it’s Sam Tidswell-Norrish, he’ll be back in a couple of minutes with more humility because what he just said I'm sure is true, but I still want to get under the skin of what it is that people are buying because they're buying something more than that.  Right now though, we're going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Innovation Series, which can be found on all the major podcast platforms.  Lydia Kellett invites business founders to share their practical advice and industry insights for those of you thinking about starting your very own thing.  And in this clip, we hear from Amber Hill, Founder and CEO of Research Grid, the AI start up automating clinical trials for faster access to life-saving medicine.

You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast, and you can hear this very programme again if you fancy, just pop Jazz Shapers into your favourite podcast platform.  My guest today, I'm sure you know this already, is Sam Tidswell-Norrish, Founder and Chair of Opus, a global platform supporting early-stage entrepreneurs and a partner in Access Holdings, which is a private equity firm.  We have established very clearly, Sam, what a private equity firm is, and it isn't a big deal really, it's just in the, as you said, private companies with investment.  You wear lots of hats, and I think by design, and you are a busy man who likes being engaged intellectually and creatively.  So whether it's, um, as a founder, as a partner, there's some board roles you play, you're an investor, you're doing a multiplicity of things.  Which hat fits most comfortably for you when you're wearing it?

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

That's a great question.  Um, I think, um, I love what I do day to day.  If I didn't love it, I wouldn't do it.  Put simply, if I stopped loving any part of my professional life, I would speak to whoever I needed to and thank them for their time.  I love what I do at Access.  It's creative, it's intellectually stimulating, the team are exceptional, and we're investing in North American essential services companies, you know, those are companies that are essential to the core economy.  So it's really…

Elliot Moss

Give me a couple of examples.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

Uh, like a fire and life safety business, like a towing business, like a heavy equipment rental business that builds homes, like a car wash business.

Elliot Moss

Real physical things, big stuff.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

Exactly.

Elliot Moss

And is that intentional?  Because obviously the other side of you has been into, and indeed we'll talk about the Opus business as well, and this, what's it, Operator?  Is it called Operator?  That product, which is far more, it's fintech, it's community stuff, but it's technology.  It's not visible, you don't touch it in the same way.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

It's a great point, you know, all these businesses, they're called, Goldman Sachs calls them halo assets.  That stands for heavy asset, low obsolescence.  You know, you look at a car wash business.  We invested in a business that was doing $17 million of earnings, um, it's now far greater than 10 times that.  It does 40 million car washes a year.  It has a million subscribers that pay a monthly membership.  That business is a halo asset because it has a lot of real estate, a lot of physical car washes, um, but it's technology.  Technology generally is not going to dislocate it, cars are going to still go on the roads and need to be cleaned.

Elliot Moss

And I like having my car cleaned.  Just a quick aside, Sam, I know this isn't completely relevant.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

Yeah, it's a pride thing.

Elliot Moss

But A, I'd left it for too long and it was disgusting and I'm like, I'm disowning my car.  But B, those machines when I was a kid that used to go in, in the air.  I don't know what this is, hand or this is a machine.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

No, no, no.  Flexi Press.

Elliot Moss

Right, so the flexi thing.  I went in there the other day and I remembered being a 9 year old when my dad used to say to me and my sister, let's go out, should we get the car washed?  I'm not kidding. I got this massive buzz from that thing.  There is something, it's a bit like washing your clothes.  There's something joyful, but it's also the experience.  So I'd be one of those subscribers.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

I was, I'm the same as you, uh, growing up, we owned a car wash, my family.

Elliot Moss

Oh wow.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

And so yeah, it was like such a treat at the end of a day at school or a weekend to go through.

Elliot Moss

It's fun.  Those little machines, you think you're going to die. You think it's going to take off or something, you go into another world.  But anyway, sorry, so these big physical assets that you're in.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

But technology can improve them.

Elliot Moss

Of course.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

You know, when you think about humanoids, people think that's a long way away.  Well humanoids are not a long way away.  Your coffee will not be served at Starbucks in 3, 4, 5 years by a person.  It will be a machine that serves you and the same will be said for car washes.  The actual infrastructure is not people with sponges, it's a machine.  Even the interior cleans will be done by humanoids.  We're doing a study at the moment with the University of Pennsylvania to build the software for humanoids to clean the interior of your car.  So every business can be catalysed, improved by technology, but a lot of them won't be displaced anytime soon by technology.

Elliot Moss

But that intrigue and the interrogation of what could be still propels you, whether it is as an investor or as a founder or whatever else, because it feels like that's the juice that gives you energy.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

Yeah, I can extract quite a lot of energy from quite mundane things.  You should hear me talk about paving businesses or towing businesses.

Elliot Moss

And why?  Why is it giving you so much energy, Sam?

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

Because it's interesting and I think if you, if you seek to be interested by things you do not understand, you can find a lot of interest in anything.  And yeah, you know, I guess it's a fortunate thing because maybe businesses like that wouldn't mean so much to people.  I find those businesses much more interesting generally than technology businesses, I think, because I understand them better.

Elliot Moss

I mentioned at the beginning, you said venture capital in this neat, lovely phrase, it's not about capital, it's about value creation.  Really?

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

It sounded poetic.

Elliot Moss

It sounded brilliant, but let's get into that a little bit.  I mean, you would say that, wouldn't you?

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

Yeah, yeah, I would say that. It sounded good.

Elliot Moss

Yeah, sounded excellent.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

Um, but I do believe it, I do believe it.  Um, you know, early stage business investing is in many ways about laying bets but it's business building, it's hands-on, it's roll your sleeves up and in capital is but one part of the equation.  It buys you time.  It doesn't buy you success.  You then have to build the thing once you can pay your people and you can invest in that growth.  So yeah, I believe the more you can do as a venture capital platform to support the growth of a business and the building fundamentals, the better.  Um, and many of them historically have not done that.  But many of the VC firms of today do, do a better job of that and in many different shapes and forms.  Some have venture partner models of previous entrepreneurs and business builders who can support and are on hand.  Some have media businesses like Harry Stebbings' Twenty VC that can help build your profile.  Some have large networks that are there to support and give you access whatever you need.

Elliot Moss

And for you, what do you bring to that?

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

Uh, with Opus and the Day Zero investment platform, it's access.  It's access to people and knowledge and rooms that you might not be in when you need them.  And we do that through the communities that we built at Opus and at Day Zero.  And we have a technology layer called Operator, which is an agentic AI tool that lives in WhatsApp that connects people based on what they need.  So Elliot would say, I need to raise money for my fintech business, and you would ask that in WhatsApp to Operator and Operator would say, you should speak to these 15 members, speak to Jimmy, Sarah, Claire.  These people all did what you're seeking to do just recently, and they can provide you counsel and support.

Elliot Moss

And for you personally, though, I meet lots of founders, I'm very lucky in my day job that I meet all sorts of people with brilliant ideas.  At the end of the day, when you leave that meeting, one leaves a meeting, with potential, with founder, a lot is on their shoulders regardless of how much help you give them.  They've got to go and do it themselves.  Do you get frustrated by not being able to do it for them, or have you come to terms with the natural gap between, if only you, John or Jane, did A, B, and C, you would be at the races?  Do you know, because I look at people who invest in lots of companies, I go, how can they not get really stressed by all these opportunities that aren't quite happening because Sam isn't in the room.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

Uh, yeah, no, I don't feel that at all because I tend to invest in people that are a lot smarter and building things that I couldn't build. In today's day and age, anything you can conceive, you can build, and it's a lot cheaper. If you and I were to build a business today, pick a topic.  Dating, a dating platform.  10 years ago, it would have cost us $10 million.  It would take us 2 years to put a product in someone's hands.  Today we could build it by the weekend and we could have a prototype in someone's hands connecting them to the potential love of their life and it would cost us nothing.  The ability to create is now, the barrier is so low and that's really exciting.  But the complexity of the environment you're building in is much higher and so, yeah, I love investing in people who are reimagining industries.  We just invested in an AI for real estate platform.  The founder is extraordinary.  The platform, I believe, will disrupt real estate, the world's largest asset class.  We're investing as we speak in an insurtech company, reimagining insurance, a satellite business that provides the software to satellites that turns satellites into data centres in space.  Hot on the heels of SpaceX, a very timely investment.  The guy who built it is former SpaceX.  The first customer is NASA.  It's stuff I couldn't ever anticipate.  I can barely wrap my head around the memo we wrote, let alone what he's doing day to day that may well change the world we live in and so I love investing behind people that have that kind of imagination, energy, and drive to change the planet.

Elliot Moss

Stay with me for a final chat with my guest there, Sam Tidswell-Norrish, and we've got some Jacob Collier in the mix too.  That's in just a moment, don't go anywhere.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish is my Business Shaper, my innovator here today.  The future, um, it's pretty extraordinary what's going on right now.  The confluence, and again, I will quote you back at yourself, but it's, you're not the only one saying it, AI technology going north very fast across everything, impacting whether it's the asset heavy businesses or it's pure tech plays.  And at the same time, a whole bunch of young people coming out of University and there aren't any jobs.  And you said, and other people said, go create your own job.  What does that look like for you over the next few years if you are going to be ensuring that this group of people, the sways of people, will be creating their own jobs?  What role are you going to be playing doing to help them do that?

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

Yeah, it's not meant to sound Margaret, Margaret Thatcher-y.

Elliot Moss

No, no.

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

Um, but I, I do believe that we will get to an environment where people take it upon themselves to create their futures and, you know, graduate recruitment at the moment is, uh, at a, I think, a 10 year low.  Um, unemployment in the UK, 5 year high.  These aren't good trends for employment and so rather than being employed, employ yourself.  That's an easy thing to say, harder to do.  What you have to give people is knowledge and confidence, um, and if we can help educate and provide that confidence, the support, the safety net to our next generation, we could unlock the most innovative generation the UK has ever seen.  And that's not just the UK, I hope it happens globally but as I said earlier, the cost of building has never been so low.  You and I come up with an idea, Elliot, we go on to Lovable, and we vibe code and create it, uh, over, overnight.  My assistant built a website over a weekend, um, not something she thought she would ever be able to do.  She did it on Lovable.  So there are so many opportunities that, that I think can open up this, this new creative age of entrepreneurship.  But it does require confidence and knowledge, and that stuff doesn't happen by accident and that's what we want to do with Opus.  You know, if people want to understand more about what it takes to be a founder, I would even suggest subscribing to our newsletter, it's free, it comes out once a week. The sole purpose of it is to inspire people around entrepreneurship.  Wow, that person is doing something cool, I could do that.  And if you go on the website, joinopus.org, you can click and subscribe, it hits your inbox every week.  It's my favourite moment of the week.  I have a coffee on a Saturday morning, I read it and I feel pumped because I believe that anything is possible because there are amazing entrepreneurs out there, young people building companies that will change the country we live in.  It'll change the way people lead their lives.  You've had some of them on this show.  Most people in the UK have got bold beans in their cupboard, some of the best beans out there.  I didn't know a bean could change the world, but Amelia's doing a really good job of it.

Elliot Moss

She is and there have been hundreds and hundreds of people who are just doing amazing things.  I was going to ask you, but you've answered the question.  The energy, is it going up or down as you move into more and more, you know, you're surrounded by creative people, people making things the way you described that you love to make.  But I think, I think it's a rhetorical question because it's pretty effervescent, your energy, Mr Tidswell-Norrish.  Um, thank you so much for spending some time with me.  Just before I let you disappear, probably to a call with someone important in America, no doubt, what's your song choice and why have you chosen it?

Sam Tidswell-Norrish

My song choice today, Elliot, is Lean on Me by Bill Withers.  Um, he wrote this song when he moved to a new environment.  He moved to Los Angeles from West Virginia.  He felt out of place, he didn't have community around him.  He wrote a song that gave him comfort.  It's about friendship, it's about mutual support, and it's about human resilience and all those things are things I believe Opus embodies, and building a business kind of embodies and requires.  And so as people listen to that, yeah, think about perhaps what you could build. Everything's possible in today's world.  And thank you for having me, Elliot, this has been a true privilege.

Elliot Moss

Bill Withers with the iconic Lean on Me, the song choice of my Business Shaper today, Sam Tidswell-Norrish. Business builders are artists, I love how he felt that was true, and I do believe it is true and I've met so many, had the privilege of meeting so many over the years.  The single most important thing in business is relationships, that is Sam's belief, and I'm pretty sure he's right.  Be interested.  A number of my guests have said this over the years.  If you're interested, extraordinary things will reveal themselves, insights and new ideas and better ways of doing things.  And finally, as we talked about the future and what it's going to take to make it work for young people who want to be entrepreneurs, give those people knowledge and confidence, and the rest I hope will follow.  Great stuff.  That's it from me and Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.

We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers.  You’ll find hundreds more guests available for you to listen to in our archive, to find out more just search Jazz Shapers in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.