Priya Guha MBE

Priya Guha joined the Foreign Office in 1996.

Her diplomatic career took her from London to Spain and India before, in 2011, she became the UK’s first female Consul General in San Francisco.

The posting put her inside Silicon Valley at a defining moment. Her job was to represent British interests, build relationships and connect UK businesses with one of the world’s most influential technology ecosystems.

It also changed the direction of her own career.

After five years in San Francisco, Guha left diplomacy and moved into technology and investment, first launching RocketSpace’s UK operation and later becoming a Venture Partner at Merian Ventures, where she invests in women-led innovation.

Her work now stretches across the institutions that decide which ideas get backed and which technologies make it into the world. Alongside investing, she holds board roles at UKRI and Digital Catapult, sits on Future Planet Capital’s Investment Governance Board and advises technology businesses.

Across those roles, Guha has made the case that inclusion is not separate from innovation.

If capital, networks and decision-making repeatedly draw from the same narrow pool, the problem is not simply who misses out. It is which ideas never get funded, which problems remain unsolved and how much talent the system never gets to use.

Guha spent two decades representing Britain around the world. Her second career is about widening who gets to help build what comes next.