Ofei Sakyi is the creator of the BAFTA-nominated music-game franchise DJ Hero. After selling his start-up to a consortium of Freestyle Games, and S&P 500 titan Activision Blizzard, he dedicated his life to Africa, music, and start-ups, all with social change at their heart.
Three years after the sale of his company, he found himself performing in front of 40,000 people on Glastonbury's sonic stage, all whilst on duty as CTO of a medium-sized enterprise. “I have always maintained that the balance between creative and commercial is one of the ingredients of happiness. Although DJ Hero was a hugely creative product, my role as a Founder Director was 95% commercial and so I vehemently held on to my love for music creation, it's my martial art. I would spend many evenings sitting behind my piano, unwinding, this kept me balanced through some tough commercial times. I guess this acted as some sort of therapy and with no intention of ever sharing these moments, I opened my heart. This would later catch the ear of an individual who took it upon themselves to bring musical opportunities to me that would change my life and make my art the forefront of my business endeavors for 5 magical years. This led to me signing a record deal with Bjork's label (One Little Indian) and a lucrative publishing deal with BMG. However, after an outer-worldly trip to Africa, I returned to the UK and began to aggressively invest in start-ups with social change. Today I am the CEO of a growing A.I driven healthcare business about to launch into the third-largest domiciliary care provider in the UK, and, a Pharmaceutical company dedicated to the research of medicinal flora in equatorial regions".
"I pride myself on my extensive professional network which allows me to access a wide range of resources and intelligence. I found immense enjoyment and satisfaction in all my accomplishments and feel fortunate to have gained invaluable experiences across multiple disciplines”. Ofei believes all aspects of a business needs a constant flow of inspired, fresh thinking - especially the little things which are easily overlooked, “management accounts are not merely soulless documents for accountants to garner information, they are periodic insights into a companies energy and in many cases the much-needed fuel to motivate. A title isn't a cookie-cutter job role, it can be the key to driving an individual to become the best version of themselves, thus, giving more! I have spent the last 10 years dedicated to turning my varied and unique insights into principles that provide a unique and fresh perspective to drive any team to success. My expertise lies in early start-up growth - creating positive social impact - gamification - scaling technology products and bootstrapping to point-of-sale and I am subsequently highly seasoned in executive leadership, fundraising, acquisitions, and mergers.
I have a detailed analytical approach to decision making and a demand to be the best, whilst maintaining a sense of enjoyment and team spirit making me a natural fit for any business. As an experienced Non-Executive Director for both start-ups and mature companies, I am hoping to develop my portfolio and network with NED roles that have a positive social impact.