Our latest Tonbridge Profile features Gori Yahaya (JH 98-03), the founder of UpSkill. He has been invited to 10 Downing Street to shape policy on digital upskilling for minority communities.

Gori left Tonbridge in 2003 after a successful academic and sporting career, playing in three first teams. He then headed to Manchester University to read Chemistry with Business Management.

After university, Gori built up a portfolio of work as an Experiential Marketeer developing and delivering creative experiences for product launches at notable events such as the New York Marathon in 2008, London Olympics in 2012 and Rio Olympics in 2016. Driven by his passion for digital learning and social impact, Gori founded several funded start-ups, including a digital social dining app in New York, a Sports-Lux online platform called SportStylist and an image recognition e-commerce software called StyleTAG with a fellow Tonbridgian. This was followed by a four-year stint with Google running national training programmes on digital technologies.

In 2015, he founded and now runs a digital education and inclusion scale-up, UpSkill Universe. Working with the likes of Walmart, HSBC, and Google, he reimagines corporate learning with an intelligent learning platform; helping businesses unlock potential in their workforce and the communities they serve, empowering learners to embrace the future of tech and drive towards inclusive cultures.

UpSkill was listed in 2023 as one of the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 Companies. As a fully bootstrapped, multi-award-winning organisation, UpSkill have trained over 690,000 people globally and are the driving force behind some of the most notable Digital Skills programmes around the world such as the Google Digital Garage, UK Government Skills Bootcamps, Lloyds Bank Academy, and BT Skills for Tomorrow. With a 61% growth in sales, working over 34 countries, UpSkill's core team and network of 390 expert coaches have trained hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.

Gori has been invited to 10 Downing Street to shape policy on digital upskilling for minority communities. He continues to be a sought-after keynote speaker engaging audiences at conferences from Saudi Arabia to South Korea on the pressing challenges and solutions he sees for a sustainable digital future. He also leads The Digital Collective (Brussels-based non-profit), promoting digital inclusion in Europe.