Linda Nguyenova.
What changes when you become the person taking the risk.
We sat down with Linda Nguyenova, Founder of KONEKTT. Some careers look linear from the outside: finance, private equity, boardrooms, investment strategy, the kind of paths people associate with structure, certainty and long-term planning. But talking to Linda, it quickly becomes clear that her approach to ambition has never been about playing it safe.
Before private equity, investment committees and growth strategies, Linda was a horse-loving teenager in the Czech Republic, working in stables to fund riding lessons. At sixteen, she moved to the UK alone on a scholarship, bringing only her ambition, instincts and determination to create a new life. ‘That journey shaped how I think about opportunity and backing yourself,’ she tells us.
Linda’s view on risk stands out because, unlike many founders, she spent years analysing it professionally first. She started her career at PwC, then moved into private equity roles at Endless and later BGF, working closely with high-growth founders scaling ambitious businesses. At Endless, she saw business transformation up close and found herself in boardrooms at an age when many people are just starting their first jobs. Garry Wilson, Founder of Endless, has been a hugely important male ally in her career. He is someone Linda admires for his leadership, vision and the way he backed people around him. His advocacy and belief in her potential left a lasting impression, and he remains someone she continues to look up to. ‘Endless gave me the daunting but fantastic experience of joining my first board meeting aged twenty-five,’ she says.
By the time she joined BGF, Linda had gained a clear sense of what makes businesses successful, not just commercially, but also operationally and emotionally. ‘Success rarely comes down to the model or the market alone,’ she says. ‘It comes down to people, adaptiveness and execution.’
But even after years of supporting founders, there was still one thing investing couldn’t fully teach her: what it feels like when the uncertainty is your own. ‘One of the biggest differences is distance,’ she explains. ‘When you’re investing, even in a hands-on role, there’s still some separation. You assess the market, the numbers, the strategy and the people, but you’re not living every operational consequence personally. As a founder, there is no distance.’
That shift is now central to Linda’s story. She didn’t leave corporate life for entrepreneurship out of dissatisfaction, but because something deeper drew her towards building. One of the things she speaks most passionately about from her time at BGF was helping drive its £300 million commitment towards female-powered businesses. ‘That work mattered deeply to me,’ she says. ‘It has never been just about capital. It is about visibility, access and helping to level the playing field.’ Through that work, many female founders became more than just professional contacts; they became real friends. These women encouraged her to stop staying only on the investment side and to take the leap herself. ‘It reinforced something I’ve seen throughout my career,’ she says. ‘There’s real power in women backing each other.’
‘A long corporate career does not limit your ability to build. If anything, it sharpens it.’
Linda’s story is refreshing because it challenges the idea that entrepreneurship is only for people who start businesses at twenty-two from their bedrooms. ‘A long corporate career does not limit your ability to build,’ she says. ‘If anything, it sharpens it.’ This perspective is especially important for women who may feel they’ve spent years building careers in one direction and wonder if it’s too late to start something of their own.
For Linda, the move didn’t come from a dramatic career epiphany. It came after a health scare, a period of self-reflection and, unexpectedly, a horse named Coolio.
Coolio, a seventeen-hand gentle giant, quickly became far more than a hobby or a break from work. ‘He became a pillar of comfort, perspective and steadiness during a period of huge change both in my career and life,’ she says. She talks about him with a softness that contrasts with the structured investment world she came from. Coolio became the bridge between the two parts of her life. ‘In many ways, he gave me the courage to build what came next.’
As Linda spent more time in racing and equestrian circles, she began to notice something else. Even though the industry focuses on elite performance and care, many horse welfare operations still rely on scattered systems, whiteboards, paper diaries and WhatsApp groups. The disconnect surprised her. ‘Horses are at the centre of the sport, yet so much of the day-to-day care around them is still managed in manual ways,’ she explains.
That growing frustration led to KONEKTT, a platform created to modernise equine care, training and yard management with better systems, data and visibility. Linda co-founded KONEKTT with Amardeep, a technology and data specialist who is passionate about turning cluttered, manually stored data into actionable insight.
Linda is open about the realities of building something from scratch, especially after years of evaluating businesses professionally. ‘What surprised me most is not just that building is hard, but how all-consuming it is,’ she says. She explains that the emotional shift is hard to fully understand until you go through it yourself. ‘You move constantly between strategy and detail. One minute you’re thinking about long-term direction and the next you’re solving product issues, making hiring decisions or trying to figure out social media.’
Linda’s self-awareness about entrepreneurship stands out from the usual startup culture found online. She focuses on the importance of resilience, intuition and her support network in both personal and professional life. ‘Building something from scratch is intense and full of ambiguity,’ she says. ‘Choosing the right people to do it with matters enormously.’
Having a strong support system has become a key theme in Linda’s career. She talks openly about how important it is to have guidance, strong advisers and people who boost your confidence when you’re building something uncertain.
From backing founders, to becoming one.
Nevin Truesdale, former CEO of The Jockey Club, and Steve Birch, former CEO of Sky Bet, both became early supporters of KONEKTT and helped reinforce Linda’s confidence in the scale of the opportunity ahead. ‘When you’re building something new, backing from people you respect carries real weight,’ she says. She also credits her confidence to mentors she’s had throughout her career, as well as support from her coach, Danielle Bateman, and groups such as Women in Racing, which showed her the value of women supporting one another professionally.
While Linda is now fully part of the founder world, she hasn’t left investing behind. As a Venture Partner at HUKM Group, she still works closely with ambitious early-stage founders, helping them with strategy, mentoring, technology and access to capital. ‘What appealed to me about HUKM was that it reflected how I’ve come to think about backing businesses,’ she says. ‘Capital matters, but practical support matters just as much.’ Her perspective comes not just from years in investment, but also from now knowing firsthand what founders deal with emotionally behind the scenes.
‘There are some lessons you can only really learn once the responsibility is fully yours,’ she says thoughtfully.
‘One of the less visible parts of building as a female founder is how much the right person beside you can impact your ability to keep going. Sometimes you only really understand that through contrast: by learning what it feels like to carry more than you should, and then discovering what real support looks like. By the time you are in your thirties, financially stable and experienced enough to have built a life you are proud of, the person beside you needs to add real value to it. Founder life is an emotional rollercoaster, and when so much of your day is spent carrying responsibility, making decisions and holding everything together, having someone who gives you a place to rest, helps carry the weight and creates calm around you matters more than people often realise. It is not about grand gestures, but about consistent, unconditional support from someone who believes in you, celebrates the small wins and is there to help pick up the pieces when you are down. It also means being with someone who understands that your schedule will often be unpredictable, who can absorb last-minute changes that come with your world with patience and ease.’
Linda Nguyenova
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Maybe that’s the real change Linda describes throughout our conversation. Not moving from investor to founder. It’s about moving from assessing risk to carrying it yourself.