Entrepreneur profile: David Peinturier, UCL alumnus and Director of Sustainability at Cambio

UCL alumnus David Peinturier shares the benefits of accessing UCL’s entrepreneurship events and support as a way to secure career opportunities.

David Peinturier (MSc Prosperity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2023) took part in a hackathon in 2023, at UCL’s entrepreneurship hub BaseKX. The event was organised by UCL Innovation & Enterprise and facilitated by Cambio, House of Social Change.

Cambio were so impressed by David that they offered him a job in 2024.

David says the entrepreneurship opportunities available to him at UCL were fundamental in helping him make the connections he needed to get his career moving.

Getting involved in the hackathon

“I’d studied entrepreneurship at undergraduate level and then came to UCL to do my Master’s in Prosperity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

The focus of the course was all about reflecting on what prosperity means for humanity and how we can use that concept to help organisations better achieve their sustainability goals.

Peter Ptashko, Cambio’s CEO, had already been in to give us a lecture as part of the curriculum, looking at innovation and sustainability through a more human lens.

Those ideas really spoke to me, so when I found out about the hackathon he was going to be involved in at BaseKX, I decided to sign up.

During the event, we were put into teams to develop a business and pitch it to a panel of judges. My team developed a sustainable transportation business, and I was able to bring in ideas from my master’s around growing a business focused not solely on profit but on impact, too.

Making a good impression

Peter really liked what our team came up with, and we chatted afterwards about what he was trying to build with Cambio.

We realised that we were both interested in helping organisations build more meaningful and sustainable businesses, drawing on new ideas and ways of working from innovation, coaching and entrepreneurship.

We hit it off basically, and the more we talked, the more we could see a synergy in us working together.

He offered me a position in the business shortly afterwards, to help develop a new branch to Cambio’s work: an suite of online courses to teach Cambio’s purposeful approach to a much wider audience.

I’m now working as Cambio’s Director of Sustainability, working on the academy and supporting clients to harness some of the latest ideas around innovation in their sustainability strategies.

Not just for startup founders

I think it’s important to remember that all the entrepreneurial events and resources available to you at UCL are not targeted solely to students who want to start a venture.

I ran my own business at the age of 16, and another six-figure business a few years later. Before I start anything of my own again, I want to keep learning and dive further into how organisations succeed through sustainability.

The diversity of the UCL Innovation & Enterprise offering means there’s something there for everyone. For me, the hackathon in particular linked into my passion for sustainability and helped me meet people who share my entrepreneurial mindset. Some of them were founders, but not all of them.

Entrepreneurship as a mindset

I think it’s important to remember that being an entrepreneur doesn’t have to mean ‘I’m building a business’.

Being an entrepreneur is a mindset. It’s about the way you lead your day to day. And it’s all about your ability to learn and welcome challenges. That’s what the UCL events and programmes can nurture in all of us.

For now, I am excited about the opportunities available to me through Cambio. In the next five years, we plan to grow Cambio’s impact internationally. I’m also relishing being able to take what I learnt in my master’s to help our clients harness sustainability and social innovation for successful business strategy.

As for other students thinking of accessing UCL’s extracurricular entrepreneurship support, I would say that you don’t need to try and do it all. There are a lot of opportunities on offer, but the key is to find the ones that are most applicable to your skills and strengths.

See the events as a way to build your skills and your network. A network that could lead to all kinds of positive things, whatever direction you want your career to go in next.”