David Cleevely

Catch David Cleevely on Do Radio: Where To Next? Dan Kieran 6th July - 12th July 2026.

David Cleevely CBE is one of Britain's most influential tech entrepreneurs and a driving force behind Cambridge's reputation as a world-class hub of innovation. A Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, he has built and shaped businesses across telecoms, biotech, and beyond, including co-founding Abcam, chairing Raspberry Pi, and helping establish the Cambridge Angels investor network.

But his latest book, Serendipity: It Doesn't Happen By Accident, reveals a different side to this hard-nosed engineer, one obsessed with the systems and behaviours that make lucky breaks more likely. Drawing on network theory, evolutionary biology, and decades of experience building communities, he argues serendipity is not something that happens to you; it is something you can engineer.

At the heart of his thinking is a deceptively practical idea: that the "weak ties" between acquaintances, the 20% of bees that ignore instructions and fly freely, and the small-world networks that bring unexpected people into contact are not inefficiencies to be optimised away, but the very things that allow organisations and cities to thrive and adapt.

In conversation with Dan, David explores how to engineer a life, and a community, where the right connections find you.