Vikas Shah MBE DL · Entrepreneur, investor and board director
Built businesses. Backing ambition. Shaping the conversation.
Vikas Shah MBE DL is a British entrepreneur with multiple business exits, an investor and a board director across business, government and regulation. Through Thought Economics, he has interviewed more than 600 of the world’s most influential people. He brings that combination of commercial experience and intellectual curiosity to the boardroom, the stage and the conversation.
TEDx, The Economist, NASDAQ, Meta, MIT Sloan, BBC, Sky News, Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, Cambridge Judge, TCS, Coutts
Multiple
exits, from building his own businesses and backing growth companies
25+
years building and leading businesses
25+
M&A transactions across his career
600+
in-depth interviews with the people shaping our century, for Thought Economics
Ways of working together
Speaking, advisory and board appointments.
Speaking & interviews
Keynotes, on-stage conversations and media interviews on entrepreneurship, leadership and the ideas changing business and society. Drawing on multiple exits, board experience and the conversations behind Thought Economics.
Explore speaking & interviews
Awarded MBE
Services to Business and the Economy, 2018
About
An entrepreneur's experience. A board director's judgement.
After more than 25 years building and leading businesses, Vikas now focuses on investment, board leadership and strategic advisory. His experience spans multiple business exits and multiple eight-figure portfolio exits, alongside current board roles at the Institute of Directors, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Certo Aerospace and the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero, where he chairs the Audit, Risk & Assurance Committee.
Awarded an MBE for services to business and the economy, he is also the founder of Thought Economics and a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester.
MBE
Services to Business and the Economy, 2018
Deputy Lieutenant
Greater Manchester Lieutenancy, 2021
Freedom of the City of London
2013
Speaking & interviews
Commercial experience. Ideas worth discussing.
Vikas speaks about what it takes to build a business, lead through uncertainty and make difficult decisions. He also brings insights from years of interviewing entrepreneurs, Nobel laureates, artists and public figures, connecting the realities of leadership with a much wider world of ideas.
Available for keynote speaking, live interviews, conference chairing and broadcast or podcast appearances.
- 01Building, scaling and exiting
- 02Leadership when the stakes are high
- 03What effective boards do differently
- 04AI, innovation and the decisions facing leaders
- 05What remarkable people teach us about success
TEDx Manchester · Coutts, with Nile Rodgers · The Economist
Thought Economics
What can we learn from the people who change the world?
Since 2007, Vikas has sat down with more than 600 of the people who actually shape the world: 20 Nobel laureates, presidents and prime ministers, astronauts, Olympic champions, Oscar winners and the founders of Virgin, Netflix, Slack, Blackstone and Bumble. Not to catalogue what they have achieved, but to find out how they think. Thought Economics is read in more than 120 countries, was a Webby Awards Official Honoree five years running, and its archive is held by the University of Salford.
Selected conversations
- Sir Richard BransonFounder of VirginRead the interview
- Melinda French GatesPhilanthropist and founder of Pivotal VenturesRead the interview
- Maya AngelouPoet, author and civil rights activistRead the interview
- Usain BoltOlympic sprint championRead the interview
- Daniel KahnemanPsychologist and Nobel laureate in economicsRead the interview
- Jane GoodallPrimatologist and founder of the Jane Goodall InstituteRead the interview
Interviewees, not endorsements. See the wider selection.
Latest conversations
New on Thought Economics.
7 September 2026
A Conversation with Jesper Kouthoofd, Founder of Teenage Engineering, on Design, Play and Why Every Product Is an Illusion
In this interview, I spoke to Jesper Kouthoofd, founder of Teenage Engineering, about why he still refuses the title of designer, why he thinks every product is an illusion and the honest move is to…
Read the interview
4 September 2026
We Are Not Alone: A Conversation with Jonathan Caplan KC on the Evidence for UAPs, Non-Human Intelligence and Why It Was Never Disclosed
In this interview, I spoke to Jonathan Caplan KC, one of Britain’s most senior barristers, who has spent 50 years applying the evidentiary standards of the criminal Bar to unidentified anomalous…
Read the interview
2 September 2026
Can Optimism Survive Bad News? Michelle Gielan on Resilient Optimism, Burnout and Becoming a Positive Deviant
In this interview, I spoke to Michelle Gielan, positive psychology researcher, former CBS Morning News anchor and author of Resilient Optimism, about why optimism is a set of behaviours rather than a…
Read the interview
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Books
In print.
Thought Economics, the book, distils the interviews into one volume: conversations with the remarkable people shaping our century.
On the book
“Stimulating, intelligent and enjoyable discussions of the most important issues of our day.”
“From entrepreneurs to athletes, and world leaders to entertainers, this is a fascinating collection of interviews with some of the world's most influential individuals.”
