WA tech founder Tina Ambrose could be in for a full-circle moment if she expands her multi-million dollar startup into London — the city where she was once a homeless teenager.
Ms Ambrose leads a team of four at her Perth tech recruitment company Valrose, which rakes in $2 million in annual revenue, but it’s a far cry from the life she once led in the UK.
Growing up in west London, the then-16 year old found herself couchsurfing following her parents’ separation ultimately ending up at a youth homeless shelter for four months, an experience she described as “one of the most challenging, but formative times of my life”.
“I think I lived off toast for breakfast, and pasta and ketchup for dinner for like a month at one point,” Ms Ambrose said.
She recalled getting “a leg up out of homelessness” by subletting a three-bedroom house with the people she worked with at a London restaurant.
Ms Ambrose said entrepreneurs often needed similar qualities that got her through the adversity of being homeless.
“An entrepreneurial mindset, you need grit, you need resilience, you need optimism when it gets tough because it inevitably will get tough, you need to be adaptable and have a growth mindset,” she said.
“Superheroes aren’t made because they’ve come from privilege, superheroes are made because they’ve come from adversity.”
Ms Ambrose moved to Perth in January 2016 to be closer to her step-family after her father passed away. Just over two years later, she set up Valrose.
The company focuses on recruiting roles in industries like software development, data science and cyber security.
“I started working for a few different tech recruitment firms around Perth when I first got here and I just had a vision of it being done different,” Ms Ambrose said.
“The metrics that they were getting me to measure the consultants on were very transactional.”
As a chief executive and also the co-chair of not-for-profit organisation Women in Technology WA, Ms Ambrose is still yet to fully grasp how far she’s come.
“I always focused on what was within my circle of control and at that time, this was was nowhere near my circle of control,” she said.
“I would have probably laughed if someone had told me this was what I was going to be doing at 40, I probably didn’t expect to be around at 40.
“I can’t image what teenage Tina would have thought about what I’m doing now, hopefully she would be proud.”
While Ms Ambrose has “thought bubbles” around potentially expanding into London, there are no solid plans.
“There’s always a vision to expand, London makes the most sense because I have got a network there already,” she said.
“It would be a really (full-circle moment) going back to where it all started.”
By openly talking about her experience, Ms Ambrose wants to break the stigma around homelessness.
“(I want to) remove the stigma of the fact that I never got the opportunity to go university, I’ve come from a lower socioeconomic background and a homeless shelter, and worked my way up,” she said.