Rekha Mehr MBE is an entrepreneurial catalyst for building innovation ecosystems.  Having founded Luxury food brand, Pistachio Rose London, and Innovation Services Consultancy, Moonrekha, she understands first hand the challenges for starting and growing a business.  Rekha was appointed as the first Startup Entrepreneur in Residence for the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (formerly the Department of Business, Innovation & Skills) where she worked with Ministers, Government officials and lobbyists to inform policy and better shape the business support landscape.  

She went on to launch the Small Business Charter, a Government initiative that recognises the Best British Business Schools supporting small businesses, local economies and student entrepreneurship. With Lord Young as its patron, the charter recognises those universities that are building ecosystems at a local level to support existing and future entrepreneurs.  

More recently, Rekha co-led the launch of MassChallenge UK as a founding director of the first international location in London.  As the leading Global accelerator focussed on high growth, high impact businesses, she built the team and created an ecosystem that support 100+ companies in it's first year and raised over £1m sponsorship.  While supporting the growth of these early stage companies, Rekha built a bridge to help large corporates and government organisations learn from these innovators in exchange for access to their expertise and resources. 

"When you exchange value in this way, you add value to the ecosystem at large".     

Rekha now helps large companies to understand all of the the tools available in the innovation landscape.  Her experience spans the spectrum having worked with Tech giants like Amazon and Just Eat, Government bodies like GCHQ Intelligence, and everything in between which allows her to select the best in techniques to design and implement the right strategy to delivery local and global goals. 

In 2016 her efforts were recognised by Her Majesty's Government, and she was awarded an MBE for services to enterprise & entrepreneurship in the new years honours list.