Charles Songhurst runs an investment portfolio. He is a founding partner of Katana Capital, a long-short equity hedge fund. He also runs the Songhurst Group, which holds assets in a variety of private companies.
Charles ran corporate strategy for Microsoft and focused on partnering and M&A. He was involved in the Yahoo acquisition and commercial deal, and the Skype acquisition. Before running corporate strategy, Charles was focused on the emergence of Google and the growth of the search industry.
Prior, Charles was an analyst at McKinsey & Company in London. Charles received a bachelor’s degree in politics, philosophy, and economics at Oxford University. While at university he was an entrepreneur, founding and running an auction trading company.
Power of Tech Platforms
Being a platform on which other businesses can thrive has long been a holy grail for Net companies. Companies that want to loom large in the future almost have to control some sort of platform, ideally the center of an entire ecosystem devoted to the company’s survival. How should platform thinking inform the strategy of every business? How does it apply to industries not traditionally considered “tech”? How many platforms can the world stand? Writer Katie Benner joins Pandora's Tom Conrad, Deep Nishar of LinkedIn, and Charles Songurst of Katana Capital to discuss. Watch video and read the complete transcript here.
Conferences
Techonomy 13
A new society is coming into being. People around the world are building it using the rapidly-evolving tools of technology.
