At Tech Nation we’re creating a national network connecting ambitious digital tech entrepreneurs across the UK.

Whether you’re a founder looking for connections or support, a stakeholder embedded in a local community or are simply interested in what’s going on in a region, our Entrepreneur Engagement Managers (or ‘EEMs’ for short) are on the ground in towns and cities and ready to help.

In this series of articles we’re telling you more about our EEMs’ roles and views about tech in the country. Here we speak to Mo Aldalou, our North West Entrepreneur Engagement Manager based in Manchester.

Tell us a bit about yourself

I’m a former business and technology journalist with more than seven years of experience interviewing company founders and senior directors both in Dubai and the UK. I have been based in Manchester for over six years and have previously worked at B2B magazine Insider Media and tech news website BusinessCloud. I’m passionate about helping the profile of disruptive and ambitious scaleups across the North West region and empowering founders through support and meaningful connections. As a journalist, I appreciate that every founder has a story worth telling.

What wins have you had since starting?

My focus has always been to leverage my growing network of entrepreneurs, investors, stakeholders and influencers to help early-stage tech companies and scaleups in my region and beyond. I’m particularly passionate about supporting founders on a one-to-one basis whenever possible and providing them with meaningful connections, insights and introductions to investors. Without wanting to name names, I’m happy to say that a few introductions that I’d made between founders and investors have resulted in successful deals!

Have you met any exciting companies?

Too many to count – particularly in the fintech, healthtech and tech for good sectors! The creativity, passion and determination of entrepreneurs that I’ve met across the North West has been incredible. I’m privileged to have engaged with disruptive companies like student safeguarding app Tootoot, psychometric recruitment scaleup Arctic Shores and connected vehicle data pioneer Wejo. We’ve also had stronger North West representation across all our programmes including tickr and Goodbox on Fintech 2.0, Dream Agility and DigitalBridge on Applied AI 2.0, Arctic Shores and Pimberly on Upscale 5.0 and Matillion and Wejo on Future Fifty 8.0.

What challenges are founders facing in your region?

Access to funding is a major challenge for tech businesses across the UK, and the North West is no exception, but Manchester is lucky to have a growing network of tech savvy angel investors and VCs venturing out of London. The most common challenge brought up by every entrepreneur and stakeholder is recruiting and retaining talent, particularly when growing startups aren’t always able to compete with larger companies when it comes to salary packages.