Tom GearingFounder

United Kingdom - London, England

My journey into wine started when I was just eleven years of age. A lot of my childhood was spent visiting vineyards with my father, in particular Burgundy. His passion for wine, finance and entrepreneurship passed onto me, firstly through his venture financialwines and then by launching Cult Wines, where we pioneered the concept of portfolio management for fine wine. The thesis was simple, how do we make investing and collecting wine more accessible to a broader audience.

A passion that has never died, but only grown. Wine fascinates me from the profundity of a single bottle, to the global market dynamics which impact supply and demand, the ever changing landscape of "fine wine" and who's buying it, the deep-rooted history and it's never-ending ability to reinvent itself, and the significant opportunities that exist today to transform the way wine is bought, sold and collected.

My entrepreneurial journey with wine, started with a simple premise and trusting friends, willing to take a risk to turn an idea into reality. And has since taken me on a mission to extol the virtues of this incredible product, whilst learning first hand what's required to create a global business. The rigour; open-mindedness; determination; motivation; humility; candor; willingness to be wrong; adaptability; vision; perseverance; and to make sure you have incredibly good people to help get you there.

Every year presents a new challenge and something to learn. Over the past decade this incredible journey has afforded me the opportunity to gather knowledge on subjects as diverse as corporate finance, m&a, investment management, AI and ML, coding, data engineering, scaling and growing businesses, design, branding, building bricks and mortar, as well as digital marketplaces, blockchain, nft's, logistics, warehousing, procurement, international tax and legal structuring, launching in overseas markets, financial regulation and securities, digital payments and plenty more to come.

I am as hungry, motivated and passionate for learning, and building the Cult business in 2023 as in any other year. My journey of learning, evolving, and building continues a pace and I embrace the challenge ahead.