This year, CCCU alumnus Tremaine achieved a prestigious Forbes Under-30 listing, an accolade which celebrates some of the world’s most entrepreneurial young minds. We talked to Tremaine to find out how a combined honours degree helped him to achieve such early recognition.
Tremaine was always interested in business, but he was interested in a lot of other things as well. “I wanted to be a tuba playing, singer, doctor, business owner,” he says.
As the first person to go to University in his family, he didn’t have anyone to guide him as he applied for courses, so he applied both for a number of medical courses and to conservatoires to study Music.
Then Tremaine discovered that both disciplines were offered, at the time, as a combined honours degree at Christ Church.
Balancing two such varied subjects wasn’t too hard. What was odd was that I would have random days where one minute I'd be doing chemistry and the next I’d be having a singing lesson.
Tremaine Noel-Richards
Following his graduation, Tremaine pursued his joint interest in business and music by setting up a music management company, which he ran for about five years.
In 2019, he applied to be a non-executive in the NHS, a role that involved working for three to four days a month. “I was recruited through a national scheme which seeks to bring people with a diversity of different experiences into the NHS.” Tremaine was the youngest person ever to be accepted onto any board of the NHS.
Six months after Tremaine’s appointment, COVID-19 hit. Tremaine’s team have worked on a number of different projects, one of which was creating automated systems that could monitor the oxygen levels in tanks of COVID-19 patients. Tremaine believes this was probably one of the reasons why he achieved a Forbes Under-30s listing.
Launched in 2011, Forbes Under-30s is an annual accolade given to just 30 winners for each of 20 categories, chosen from many thousands of nominees. One of the benefits of his Forbes listing is becoming part of a web community of extraordinary people; Tremaine’s web networking includes acclaimed environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg.
Currently, Tremaine is working on projects to see how automation can help doctors work more efficiently. “Banking has been doing this sort of work for over 10 years because the market has driven the necessity for it. But now, because of COVID-19 and the enormous backlogs that have come from the pandemic, the NHS is facing a similar necessity”, says Tremaine.
Asked how studying at University helped him, Tremaine says
One of the most important things it teaches you, is to take on board something of which you have no prior knowledge, to research it and then apply it. When I started business it was the same, I had to research, and then apply. I also find myself now writing documents the length of dissertations at least twice a year. The networking I did at University was also important, I've been able to travel the world because I met and became friends with so many international people when I was at Christ Church.
Tremaine Noel-Richards
His combined honours proved useful, not only did his Business degree help him, but Music too.
"Music also helped with my communication skills. When I was studying, I had to become part of a community choir. That meant I had to be able to interact with people of all ages and backgrounds. So, when I left and I was having to manage - and be managed by - people of different ages including some who were older than me. I wasn't intimidated by that at all."
Given his achievements to date, it is hard to imagine Tremaine being intimidated by anything! We wish him every continued success.