Durham visits USA for West Coast networking events

Image; Alumni in San Francisco, Esther Crawford fourth from right, Joshua March fifth from right, Matthew Perkins second from right

Networking opportunities 

The two events were supported by alumna Zoe Scheinman (Chinese, Trevelyan College, 1984-88), offering a professional networking opportunity aiming to engage alumni at different career stages, showcasing the journey of successful Durham alumni and highlighting ways for alumni to reconnect with the University and with each other. These events are well attended and cater specifically for our 5,000 strong US alumni community. 

Seattle; Monday 16 September 

The event in Seattle was hosted by Durham’s Director of Philanthropy and Campaign Operations, Katie Harland-Edminson, and Events Manager, Louise Strong.  

The welcome address was from Katie, who gave a strategic update and some recent highlights from Durham. She spoke about our enhanced wider student experience offer; particularly the opportunities for young entrepreneurs through Venture Lab and the addition of the dedicated E-Sports hub at Maiden Castle.  

She introduced the evening’s speaker as alumnus Dave Crawford, Principal Director of Product Design at Microsoft.  

Dave Crawford (Software Engineering, Collingwood College, 2001-04) 

Image; Alumni in Seattle, Dave Crawford fourth from right

In an inspiring speech, Dave told of his career in the experience design field with companies including Google, Apple and Facebook, a key thread being his commitment to an outstanding user experience. Dave shared some experiences from his professional journey, which has taken him from Durham to his current role at Microsoft in Seattle.  He stressed the importance of taking risks and going for opportunities that may seem out of reach, and described his own tenacity in securing contracts for his team. 

San Francisco; Wednesday 18 September 

Again, hosted by Katie and Louise along with alumna Zoe Scheinman, the event in San Francisco took a similar tried-and-tested format. The welcome was followed by introductions to three alumni speakers, Esther Crawford, Joshua March and Matthew Perkins.   

Esther Crawford (International Relations (Middle East), Ustinov College, 2006-07) 

Esther is currently Director of Product Management at Meta and an angel investor for Sequoia Capital. She began her career in content creation and her message was one of resilience: she failed several times to secure funding for her projects before selling her company, Squad, to Twitter.   

Esther told of her early years when money was tight. Financial success was unfamiliar and initially, raising funds was difficult. Having developed the skills to achieve success in raising funds, she now takes pleasure in sharing her expertise with new start-ups and advising on funding. She is adept at networking and at a recent University event she met someone who later invested in her business. 

Joshua March (Law, University College, 2004-07) 

A serial entrepreneur, Joshua was the co-founder of Conversocial, a digital care platform for messaging that integrates with many of the world's leading brands, and the co-founder and CEO of SCiFi Foods, a cultivated meat company. His message was to embrace risk and not be afraid of failing. Having started several businesses and gauged the right time to exit them, he has rebuilt his finances several times.  

Josh has never restricted his projects to one industry - if he identifies a good business idea, he learns what he can about it then hires experts to help him see it through. Joshua is also the author of Message Me, a book about the future of customer service in the era of social messaging and AI. 

Matthew Perkins (Politics and History, Van Mildert College, 1998-2001) 

Matthew is the founder and CEO of Macro Oceans, a startup transforming seaweed into low-carbon chemicals for use in materials, food, cosmetics and many other applications.  

Having started his career at the Department for International Development in the UK, Matthew soon realised that a career in a large organisation was not for him. A self-described anarchist, he took a risk and left for a career in agriculture. He built and sold his first company, Yield Pop, to The Climate Corporation. He was the first business hire at Inari, a gene editing technology company, where he helped raise more than $100m in venture capital, before setting up Macro Oceans after more than a decade of experience in agriculture. 

Join us for future events 

Both events left their audiences both inspired and connected – check out future events both in Durham and around the world. We look forward to seeing you soon! 

Read more: 

• About forthcoming University events 

• About our alumni community 

• About alumni news 

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