Charles Sekwalor was born, raised and schooled in West London and has Ghanaian heritage. He is the middle child with two sisters.
Whilst studying for GCSEs and A-levels, Charles set up a combined consumer & corporate computer repair company which at its peak served various TV & media personalities and corporates in London.
Post A-level, Charles studied an Electronic Engineering with Management masters degree at Imperial College, London.
On graduating in 2005, Charles joined Accenture for 3 years as a management and technology consultant, working primarily on large scale Fortune 500 and public sector change programmes, also leading the Accenture Black ethnicity diversity programme during his tenure.
Upset by missing on out on the 2001 dotcom boom/bust era, Charles left Accenture in 2009 to experience the credit-crunch recession through the eyes of startups. In that period he worked to build various new startup projects from fashion e-commerce, wedding planning, ‘ebay for rentals’ and the 1st generation of a Hailo-type service, whilst developing a property portfolio.
After various attempted ventures, Charles ran out of cash and returned to the corporate world, joining Tesco in a supply chain management role – where he experienced the ‘other side’ of consulting.
Charles subsequently joined McKinsey & Company in 2010 as a strategy consultant where he worked on and led high profile engagements across virtually all industries, geographies and functions. In January 2013, Charles founded COS Ventures – a business startup, private equity and investment organisation, for which he also acts as CEO.
COS Ventures, headquartered in St James, London focuses on building startups and private equity investments that drive positive change. Operations are focused between Europe and Africa with an increasing focus on the African continent as of 2014.
Current in house projects include:
- Movemeback – a platform enabling diaspora and other interested parties to access and move to the most exciting opportunities on the African continent; including corporate, internships, social sector, startups and investment opportunities
- Agonyapp – a crowd sourced lifestyle advice social network, redefining the therapy industry for young people globally;
- Mindsmeet – an online recruitment platform for startup, tech and creative sectors in Africa
Charles is passionate about startups and creating things, but also loves Formula 1, music, travelling, partying-abroad and people in general. One of his ambitions is to own and build a Formula 1 team from the ground up and secure the first African Formula 1 race of current era.