Misha Dhanak

Taking a start-up through to scale is never easy, but Misha’s leadership of Spacehive has been the driving force behind a period of transformational change. In just under four years, Misha has created enormous impact, from turbocharging growth, challenging industry norms, defining a more progressive culture and embarking on international expansion. Misha is a purposeful, focused and thoughtful leader and quickly invigorated our team and company vision. We love working with her. - Frank Kibble, Partnership Director, Spacehive

Record growth

Within twelve months of Misha’s arrival, Spacehive had record revenue growth of 81%. All revenue channels were optimised, while annual recurring revenue grew from 63% to 96% and has maintained this industry leading level.
Misha encourages a microscopic curiosity that she labels ‘Don’t Accept Mediocre’. A full brand identity review, led directly by Misha (borrowing from her previous 20 year career in marketing) has created a more inclusive and contemporary platform that better reflects our customers, leading to record users in 2023 (up 175%). Our Customer Satisfaction rating is now 98%, something that we hadn’t previously reviewed. Misha’s attitude to hearing adverse feedback (which borders on zeal) and then creating solutions to address it is impressive.
Not content with just UK growth, Misha led the successful expansion of Spacehive into Ireland, the first of several new international openings planned. This has been in ‘the plan’ for Spacehive since it launched in 2011 but Misha single mindedly delivered it.

Being what you can’t always see

On her first day at Spacehive, Misha insisted that our team must better reflect the diverse and multicultural communities that Spacehive serves (in a team of 28, there were only two women). Following a restructure of our hiring policies, 55% of the team is now female (with a 50/50 split in our management team) and 35% of the team are from ethnic minority backgrounds. With her actions, Misha is challenging the ‘male white guy’ dominance of the crowdfunding industry.

Driving culture change

Misha joined Spacehive during the winter lockdown of 2020 and we couldn’t meet in person for several months. Even through Zoom, it was clear that Misha’s energy and encouragement would provide the direction the company needed. She set about a period of culture change, ensuring that we felt equipped and empowered to deliver with revised tools, policies and personal development plans. The autonomy that she enables has allowed us to develop much faster as individuals and yet Misha is always available if the sh*t hits the fan.

Given the company’s work in delivering social impact for local communities, observers often assume Spacehive is a charity, a query that Misha welcomes, stating that ‘we are proud to demonstrate that a business can make money whilst also doing good for the planet’. She isn’t afraid to make good on those words too, on occasion turning away new business and considerable revenue that doesn’t genuinely reflect the Spacehive mission and purpose.