Beyond profit: GeNNex 42
A man of many parts Engineer, innovator, musician, martial artist, pilot, social entrepreneur – Nathaniel Peat has many different areas of expertise, but he manages to switch between them seamlessly. words Rob Clark_portraits Charlie Surbey Despite initially failing math at school, Nathaniel Peat was determined to go to university and to become a pilot, which he did after taking a first degree in Mechanical Engineering, followed by a Masters in Advanced Manufacturing Systems at Brunel University in Northwest London. Today he divides his time between GeNNex, a solar and renewable energy technology company that he cofounded, and The Safety Box, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping young people. I grew up in Tottenham in North London, in an impoverished area, and a lot of the friends I was associating with got involved in petty crime. In fact, some of them got involved in more serious crime. I didn’t get the grades I wanted to at GCSE [national examinations taken at 16 in the UK], and I had to push hard to get into sixth-form college. I didn’t look like the type of young person who was going to do a physics A level [examinations taken at 18, required for university entrance], and they rejected me more than once. But the woman who was head of the department said: “I’m sure anyone with your level of determination and drive will be able to do an A level in physics, and I’m going to put you onto this course as long as you can pass your GCSE in math while you’re at college.” That’s when I realized that “no” is only no if you accept it to be a no. “‘No’ is only no if you accept it to be a no.” I had always wanted to be a pilot, and when I was at university, I thought about ways in which I could go about making the income to support a career in aviation. As a youngster, I’d learned to play the violin and the saxophone, and I was proficient enough to get a university bursary for music, which meant I was good enough to teach it. I also learned martial arts from five years old, so by the time I got to university at age 18, I was an expert. By teaching people martial arts and music, I could earn much more money than my fellow students who were doing nine-tofive jobs at the weekend. Effectively, I was trying to get paid to do what I loved so that I could go on to do something else I loved! And I did eventually go to the US, where I achieved most of my licenses and commercial pilot training. A lot of what I had done was about helping people, so I started a business called The Safety Box. It’s a social enterprise designed specifically to address the growing concerns of antisocial behavior, low self-esteem and violence among young people. When I was at school, I was disengaged with things like math, and I wondered how I could make it more interesting. So I thought, let’s connect it to business. Disengagement in the curriculum leads to behavior issues in the school, and lack of <strong>Exceptional</strong> February–June 2016 43
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