Alex Depledge

Keynote Speaker

Alex Depledge's Biography

Alex Depledge is a serial tech Entrepreneur and the current CEO of Resi.co.uk - the UK’s largest residential architectural practice designed to help UK homeowners renovate and extend their homes and a leading company in the Prop tech market. Prior to Resi.co.uk, Alex set up Hassle.com, Europe’s largest domestic cleaning marketplace, which she sold for €32 million.

Envisioned to modernise the architectural sector, Resi has helped over 4000 homeowners in the UK, providing everything from design and contractor connections to home finance. In digitising the entire home build and renovation journey, Resi has doubled productivity and halved lead times to site.

As CEO of Hassle.com, Alex was responsible for taking the business from inception to over £8m in turnover in under 2 years. She also conceived and executed the expansion of Hassle.com from one city to seven, in four European countries. Across all geographies, Hassle.com’s unique model broke new ground by allowing cleaners to bid for jobs and have a direct relationship with the customer.

In addition to her entrepreneurial success, Alex spent four years on the board of London LEAP, chaired by the Mayor of London, which is responsible for £100m+ investment into London culture & communities. In this role Alex advised, scrutinised, and gave strategic input into key programmes including the London C-19 Recovery Programme. She has also acted as a non-executive director of Edited, a fashion analytics software used by leading retailers in US & Europe including Inditex & Arcadia.

In addition to her entrepreneurial success, Alex is a TV & radio commentator, sits on the board of Persimmon Homes. She has also won a string of awards including Emerging Technology Scale-up 2022 at the Enterprise Awards, The Barclay’s Entrepreneur Award for Start Up of the Year 2020 and was made an MBE for services to the Sharing Economy in 2016.

Keynote Titles in Detail

Start-ups shouldn’t win but they often do. What can big businesses learn?

 An established business has customers, brand, data, a knowledgeable workforce, and in most cases money. Yet in every sector we see them being challenged by start-ups which have only two things going for them - investment, and speed. They shouldn’t win, but everywhere you look they are. In this keynote, Alex looks at what, and how, you can learn from start-ups and ways to beat them at their own game.

The future of work: How innovation can disrupt standard business models.

Many established businesses are ripe for disruption, to enhance their longevity and ensure their survival, but become fearful and stop dead when it comes to actioning changes. However, by failing to move forward, businesses often see their long-term prospects hit hard and growth stymied. In this keynote, Alex looks at the key triggers in recognising the need, and timing, to innovate and disrupt standard business models along with the key markers to help determine successful innovation.   

We have a women-problem, but is the problem maybe us?

The stats don’t lie - female founded businesses receive less than 2% of investors capital, and there are only 7 female CEOs in the FTSE 100. The spotlight has been on this issue for over twenty years, so why haven’t things improved? Have we ever considered that women ourselves might be part of the problem? In this keynote Alex discusses what we can each do to make sure that women are heard, get that pay rise, and most importantly ensure workplace equality. Alex’s journey shows that being a woman in the workforce can be a superpower, and how to use this power to your own, and others advantage.