Nick Maughan

Nicholas Peter Collingwood Maughan (born January 1980) is a British investor and philanthropist. He was born in 1980 in London, where he lived until studying Religion and Theology at the University of Manchester. He returned to London for his master’s in investment management at Cass Business School (now Bayes Business School). At the age of twenty-four, Maughan left the UK to work in New York and has since lived in Bulgaria, The Bahamas and Italy.

Maughan formalised his lifelong commitment to philanthropy by founding NMF at the start of the pandemic in 2020 to further a range of philanthropic initiatives in education, the environment and civic support schemes for disenfranchised communities. 

Maughan is the founder of BoxWise, the U.K.’s largest boxing focused youth work charity; a trustee of Tusk, the leading African wildlife conservation charity and of Dallaglio RugbyWorks, a charity that helps young people in pupil referral units who have been excluded from mainstream education.

Maughan is also the patron of StreetDoctors, which teaches young people likely to come into contact with violent street crime how to react in the critical life-saving moments after such events.In addition to this, Maughan is patron of the medical research charity, Womb Transplant U.K and of the African development charity Spotlight on Africa.

Maughan is also the founder of the ESG investment company Maughan Capital.

Biography 

Maughan was born in January 1980 in London, England. He gained a first-class degree in Religion and Theology at Manchester University, before graduating with a master’s degree in Investment Management from Cass Business School (now Bayes Business School).

Career 
Maughan started his career in 2003 as a quantitative analyst at Tamiso & Co in New York City and has since lived and worked in at least six other countries, including Bulgaria, the Bahamas and Italy.

In 2020, he founded Maughan Capital to target investments into companies that bring social and environmental impact. 

Portfolio companies include Forests For Mines Ltd, which converts old coal mines into newly planted forests, and start-up carbon credit trading exchange Climate Solutions Exchange (CSX), of which he is also a director. Other portfolio companies include Beobia Ltd, trading as The Bug Factory, an English start-up that recycles refrigerators and freezers into hardware for the growth of mealworm. Mealworm is used as an alternative source of sustainable animal protein with a low-carbon footprint that, unlike soy, does not require the clearing of rainforests for its production.

Maughan is also known for his expertise and investments in a range of artificial intelligence companies including Sen which live streams video footage of earth from space, augmented with AI and machine learning with particular applications for wildlife conservation and environmental monitoring. Maughan Capital has also invested in two fundraising rounds for Infogrid, an AI company that dramatically reduces building emissions by improving their efficiency.

Philanthropy 
Maughan established The Nick Maughan Foundation (NMF.org) in 2020 as a privately funded philanthropic initiative centred around the three pillars of education, environment, and community. NMF’s advisory board includes Lord St. John of Bletso, Edward King of the European Climate Foundation, Nomatemba Tambo (daughter of Oliver Tambo), Bim Afolami and Michael Farrant of Farrant Group.

In addition to running his eponymous philanthropic foundation, Maughan is a trustee of Tusk Trust and of Dallaglio RugbyWorks, the charity founded by former England Rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio, to help young people excluded from mainstream education to achieve better life outcomes.  

He is also the Patron of StreetDoctors, a grassroots charity that puts the youth at the centre of emergency first-aid provision and empowers them to become part of the solution to violence. The organisation trains young people to become street doctors, turning them from bystanders into active responders through knowing what to do if someone has been stabbed or knocked out. Over the past 10 years, StreetDoctors has trained over 25,000 young people in lifesaving first aid, targeting those individuals most likely to witness street crime.

Education & community 
NMF launched its flagship initiative BoxWise in 2020, founded by Nick Maughan and Rick Ogden.

BoxWise offers a 10-week boxing programme delivered entirely by England Boxing coaches, which helps young people with their personal fitness and mental wellbeing, while also supporting them to attain educational qualifications and step into gainful employment. Working closely with local police and social services for referrals, BoxWise is active in 42 locations across the UK, with two of its centers offering adaptive boxing classes to enable disabled young people to participate in the program. Its sites include five across London, and venues in Glasgow, Sheffield, Manchester, East Middlesbrough, Telford, Birmingham, and Wales.

In 2022, BoxWise went international opening venues in South Africa, Uganda,  Ireland, Egypt, and Brazil with a Tanzanian programme launching in 2023. Amongst the programmes offered are a course in Eastleigh Boxing Club dedicated to helping Ukrainian refugees adjust to life in the U.K., and a number of female only courses that encourage girls to pick up the sport. In addition, the programme in Egypt works with victims of domestic abuse to help them build new lives free from domestic violence.

BoxWise’s Advisory Board includes Mishcon de Reya’s Head of Mishcon Purpose Alexander Rhodes, Lord St. John of Bletso, English Boxing manager and promoter Frank Warren and Centre For Social Justice CEO Andy Cook. BoxWise is also represented by celebrity ambassadors that include professional boxers Lawrence Okolie, Joshua Buatsi, and Hannah Rankin as well as entrepreneur Ayo Gordon.

Maughan’s other community philanthropy initiatives include funding the Glasgow based Charlie Miller Football Academy. Maughan is also a major donor to the youth support charity Berkshire Youth Trust, through which he has contributed to the Trust’s reconstruction of the Waterside Centre in Newbury.

Maughan has worked on and funded various public awareness campaigns and policy enquires including the Fair Shot campaign with the Refugee Council and the inquiry into supporting young people at risk of crime through sport with the Centre for Social Justice.

He has contributed substantial sums to the development of his social infrastructure projects in Eastern Uganda. These include the largest maternity hospital in the region, the Nick Maughan Maternity Centre, the NMF Riverside School and the NMF IT Centre. The IT Centre is Uganda’s first purpose built IT training centre, located in the Mbale region, it teaches software development and networking skills to children and adults in order to help them to enter the global technology economy.

Maughan also funds academically gifted children from low-income families to attend elite private schools in London, including Putney High, and provides scholarships to cover the fees for exceptional students from disadvantaged backgrounds to study various masters degrees including at his alma mater, Bayes Business School as well as medical research PhDs.

Environmental 
Maughan donates substantially to African conservation initiatives, including a £1m donation to Tusk Trust, of which Maughan is a trustee.

He also matched all donations up to £150,000 made to Tusk through The Times newspaper’s Annual Christmas Appeal.

Maughan also sponsors the annual Tusk Wildlife Ranger Award, presented by the charity’s royal patron William, Prince of Wales, which recognises an individual working in the field to protect Africa’s wildlife as well as the Tusk Conservation Symposium.

Other interests 
Maughan is a horology enthusiast. His watch collection includes what was at the time the most expensive British wristwatch ever to be sold at auction, the George Daniels Millennium watch, which was sold at Bonhams in June 2021 for £519,000. That record was subsequently surpassed when an identical time piece was sold for CHF 828,600 plus auctioneers commission at Phillips Geneva on the 6th of November 2022.

References 

1980 births
Living people
21st-century British businesspeople
British financial analysts
British financial company founders