Paul and Ayrton Cable are the father-son team behind EnSo Impact, a chain of ‘changemaker’, schools for the developing world. After singing opera across Europe, Paul pioneered education in India and Africa to develop young people as socially conscious citizens and leaders, as well as offer world-class education to the poor through technology.
Ayrton, 13, is a poster child for such education: He spoke in Parliament at the age of 9, has appeared widely in the media, and has a cabinet full of social entrepreneur awards as well as nomination for the International Children’s Peace Prize. Paul’s father and Ayrton’s grandfather, Sir Vince Cable, is an angel investor in EnSo Impact.
Q. Where were you born and who are your parents?
Paul: I’m Scots, brought up in Glasgow in the early 70’s. Dad was a lecturer at Glasgow University and cutting his political teeth in the Labour party. My mum, Olympia, who had Goan parentage and was born in Nairobi, was working on her PhD on Brazilian politics, and teaching history in a seriously tough local state school.
Ayrton: Well you’re talking with dad right now, so I don’t really need to introduce him! Mum is Agnesa Tothova, who is Slovak born, the same as me. She was a prodigy operatic soprano - that’s how she and dad met - and is now an amazing educator and coach, with a deep passion for treating PTSD, including in military veterans.
Q. What are your early memories?
Paul: Mum was a genius teacher. Her passion was classical music, and when I was 6, she asked me if I wanted to learn to play the piano. That started me on a 3 decade-long journey into music under her guidance. She was super strict, and would do whatever it took to get me to learn – including yelling!
Ayrton: Mum and dad always tried to make sure I grew up empathising with people and animals who suffered, so some of my earliest memories are of feeding homeless people and starving animals.
Q. What in your early life led you to doing what you’re doing now?
Paul: My early life had a huge impact on me. Part of it was having an amazing teacher - mum - as my own teacher, so I got to directly feel the difference a superb teacher makes. Another part was seeing dad and mum focus so hard on service; dad’s service was through politics and it was inspiring to see that. When I was in my teens, the film ’Gandhi’ had a big impact on me, and Gandhi’s message of ‘being the change you want to see’ resonated deeply with me, and is a cornerstone of what we are doing at EnSo Impact.
Ayrton: When I was 8, dad took me up to London and I really got to see homelessness and hunger in ‘Cardboard City’ near Waterloo Station. That started me on my efforts to make a difference. I realised that bringing attention to issues through media e.g. films, is a powerful way to create change.
Q. What was the biggest turning point in your life?
Paul: When I was 30, I was singing Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ in Prague. Although I was in a postcard-perfect city and singing the title role of an opera I’d always wanted to sing, I finished the performance and felt a terrible emptiness inside. I asked myself ‘If this is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life, will I look back on it and think I really lived this life well?’ I realised I needed to create a new path for myself; one that made a difference.
Ayrton: Speaking in Parliament when I was 9 to launch a bill to end factory farming and all the suffering that that causes - that helped give me the confidence that we young people are not just the future generation, but can be the ‘now’ generation and make a difference now while we’re still young.
Q. What’s your biggest challenge and how have you overcome it?
Paul: One of my most painful learnings has been that trying to make a difference using a donor-based model is tough, and ultimately not very scalable.
You end up spending most of your time fund-raising, and very few organisations make it to serious scale. That’s why we’ve taken a purpose-driven for-profit model for EnSo Impact, in which people can invest and see a triple bottom line return - social, environmental, and financial.
We’re currently raising £7mn in investment to expand in East Africa.
Ayrton: I’m happy to say that I haven’t had any major challenges yet in my life. I’m sure they’ll come! So far, thanks to some luck and hard work, things have worked out pretty well.
