Inspiring alumna - Erika Brodnock

Erika is an influential life and parenting coach, with a passion to ensure every child can reach their potential. Erika has won multiple awards for her dedication and work in child psychology and digital education, including ‘Female Entrepreneur of the Year’ in 2015.

In April 2012, Erika founded Karisma Kidz, the interactive brand that teaches three to eight-year-olds social, emotional and enterprise skills in a fun and engaging way, providing a bridge between digital and real-world play. Preloaded to around 15 million devices, Karisma Kidz was championed by The Sunday Times as the next big thing to shake up the children’s entertainment industry.

Erika has gone on to become Sky News’ resident parenting and child wellbeing expert and a highly regarded inspirational speaker. Her corporate seminars cover most areas of family life and her first TEDx talk has been viewed 200,000 times.

Erika chose Surrey Business School to study for her MBA, and during this time she founded Kami, which combines the knowledge of child development experts with the power of smart technology to create a trusted personal ‘companion’ for each parental journey. Parents can access instant advice through a bot that connects them to trusted experts when they need it most. Kami was recently awarded £50,000 in grant funding from Innovate UK. Erika is a Research Fellow at King’s College London and guest speaker for the undergraduate and MSc Entrepreneurship programmes, MBA and executive MBA cohorts.

“Studying for the MBA facilitated a deepening of my business, leadership and financial acumen. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring advanced consumer behaviour, financial strategy and venture capital, particularly as they relate to diverse subsections of society. I find it imperative to understand the behaviour, spending patterns, struggles and triumphs of those within the demographics to which I belong, while broadening this knowledge to an understanding of the behaviour patterns of other minority and indeed majority demographics, and how behaviour change can be affected.”

Find out more about the Surrey MBA (full-time) and Executive MBA (part-time) or register for a Taster morning.