Grief is an inevitable part of life. It’s something we call at some point have to pass through, and with the right support, we can do so. But what happens when that support isn’t helpful – when the teams and processes designed to help us in our most challenging moments can’t step up.
Step-Up founder, Henry Joseph-Grant, sadly passed through a tragic event in his life. An event that no parent wants to imagine – the death of his son. During the process of having to arrange the funeral for his son he had the unsettling discovery that “it is literally easier to order a pizza than it is to arrange pretty much anything when you lose and grieve for someone.” The root cause of the problem? “The entire end of life industry/grief management at every step is inefficient.”
Henry is a globally recognised entrepreneur, having been part of the Just Eat team that built the company from startup to multi-billion dollar IPO, before going on to scale, exit and advise various successful tech startups around the world.
Taking his painful life experience with his colourful professional career, Henry has been building a startup from Belfast that is aiming to make what are incredibly difficult and painful times easier for everyone on the planet. He’s developing something that’s unique and is a much-needed development for the grief industry, entering an area that many startups have struggled to take on.
Taking time to gain executive experience and put in extensive research, Henry has been building Send-Off and has just announced six new major appointments to the Advisory team – and they bring a host of experience and know-how. The world-class team includes David Buttress, Bari Williams, Steve O’Hear, Eamonn Carey, Donovan Frew and Justice Williams MBE.
David Buttress is the former CEO of Just Eat, having led the famous company from startup to multi-billion dollar IPO and exponential growth. He’s now a VC with 83North. Bari Williams is the former Senior Lead counsel for Meta, Head of Ops North America at StubHub. VP at Phil Libin’s global AI studio All Turtles, and is now a published author on Diversity, Equality and Inclusion and Advisor to Bandwagon.
Joining is Steve O’Hear – former tech journalist at TechCrunch and currency VP of Strategy at Q-Delivery scaleup Zapp, while Eamonn Carey is former RTE TV and Radio journalist and Managing Director at Techstars. He’s now General Partner at Estonian based venture capital fund Tera Ventures.
Donovan Frew is the former CTO at Secret Escapes and StrataJet. He’s now CTO at PropTech scaleup GoodLord and Justice Williams MBE is an award-winning entrepreneur, formerly founder and editor in chief of Tru Life magazine and Women of the Year awards. In 2010 she became the youngest black woman to be awarded an MBE by the Queen for her voluntary work.
This advisory board certainly gives great credentials to the vision of Send-Off and reflects promising signs of the company’s potential to soar once it launches.
Henry Joseph-Grant, Send-Off CEO and Co-Founder commented “I hand picked our Advisory team to add proven, complimentary experience and to be representative of the diversity of our users, I’ve never seen a startup attract the level of experience, calibre and reputation of all six advisors so early on, it’s a real statement of intent of the world class company which we’re building here in Belfast”.
Henry’s story is certainly inspirational and what he is building from Belfast will undoubtedly touch the lives of people across the world.
