Shalini Khemka CBE

Founder & Chief Executive Officer of E2E

Shalini began E2E in 2011 to help founders to ‘scale’ and to avoid many of the challenges she had faced during the establishment of her first business. There are other organisations supporting the growth of entrepreneurs, however, by connecting founders, investors, NED’s, mentors and corporates Shalini has developed a unique approach to serve the entrepreneurial community and the UK economy. 

She has attracted global audiences through building an ecosystem of world class entrepreneurial support services and by hosting hundreds of events over the last decade; many at The House of Lords.

In addition to business development this work has resulted in contributions to white papers on EIS schemes, business rates and the encouragement of youth employment in SMEs.

Through her development of this ecosystem, E2E has become an organisation which supports 23,000 founders who contribute £213bn to the UK economy and employ 1.15m people. The end goal as she regularly articulates is to drive the UK upwards from its current position of 13th in the world in its support of ‘scale-ups’ to a similar level that ‘start-up’ businesses achieve (3rd).

Perhaps more important than this has been the access to finance and mentoring that she has facilitated. This is done through her engagement with those who have achieved success and her encouragement of them to invest and provide pro-bono advice and support to those who are on their journeys.

Additionally, she has secured further government and private support for those SMEs that have been affected by COVID. Her response has been through involvement with an array of initiatives, working with founders on a one-to-one basis and capturing, in April last year, the feedback from hundreds of SMEs and translating that into a series of targeted recommendations that were presented to the Chancellor and directly influenced the nature of support packages developed by the Government.

Shalini was appointed CBE – Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, in the New Year’s Honours List 2022 by Her Majesty the Queen for Her Services to Entrepreneurship and the UK Economy.

Shalini is a Member of the Mayor of London’s Business Advisory Board and is on the Supervisory Committee of Market Finance, one of the UK’s leading Fintech firms.

She is a Fellow of Burton and South Derbyshire College and believes that turning knowledge into wisdom is the elixir of life.

In March 2021, both Shalini and E2E were commended in the Hansard at the House of Lords for their work on the Capital Gains Tax deliberations.

Recognition and Awards:

Appointed as CBE – Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, in the New Year’s Honours List 2022 by Her Majesty The Queen for Her Services to Entrepreneurship and the UK Economy.

• Most Influential Women in UK Tech, Computer Weekly 2017 – To Date

• Judge, Great British Entrepreneur Awards, 2017 – To Date

• Former Judge, National Business Awards, 2016 – 2018

• Book recognition: ‘Lessons from Life in Business’ from Facebook – 2018

• Former Judge, The Start-Up Awards – 2018

• Maserati 100 Index of Britain’s Most Successful entrepreneurs and investors – 2016

• Former Judge, IBM Smart Camp – 2016

• Former Advisory Board Director, Centre for Entrepreneurs 2015 -2018

• Harper’s Bazaar Meets Shalini Khemka: The Power of Networking – 2015

• Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech – 2015

• Former Director of The Development Board, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, 2013 – 2015