Mike Crompton is the founder of forghetti, a subscriber-security and identity business working with telecom operators internationally. He has spent more than 25 years building and backing companies across technology, digital services, marketing, software and strategic partnerships, giving him a perspective that sits between founder, operator and investor.
Alongside forghetti, he co-founded MCH Software Solutions, which develops healthcare operations and patient-communication software, and founded Summit Digital, a digital agency supporting complex organisations with digital infrastructure, AI governance and technical risk management.
He is also an active angel investor in early-stage businesses, with a particular interest in how founders can use private capital to build the proof points, distribution and trust that make a company genuinely investable.
forghetti began with a simple idea around making secure credentials easier to create and use, and has since grown into a broader subscriber-security and identity experience for telecom operators. What did you see in the early days that convinced you this was a problem that presented an opportunity to build a business proposal around?
“I saw a very practical gap between the security measures people were asked to apply and how practical and accessible the available solutions actually were. Services that enabled the creation and management of secure credentials were often cumbersome and unintuitive. More importantly, they were designed primarily for business and enterprise users, rather than consumers.
“forghetti began with a simple idea: make secure credentials easier to create and use. The more we explored it, the clearer it became that this was bigger than a standalone password problem. Telecom operators sit at a critical point between people, devices and digital services, so they have both the reach and the responsibility to improve the security experience for subscribers.
“That created a genuine business opportunity. We could combine better security with a better customer experience, then work with operators to deliver it at scale. The early deployments and partnerships validated that the problem was commercially relevant, not just technically interesting. That gave us the confidence to evolve forghetti into a broader subscriber-security and identity platform.”
You describe your position as sitting between founder, operator and investor, shaped by more than 25 years building and backing businesses across technology, software and digital services. How does holding all three roles at once shape the decisions you make when leading a company?
“I think the three roles give me different lenses on the same decision. As a founder, I’m focused on the problem we’re solving, the customer value we’re creating and whether we’re building something that can become a durable business. As an operator, I’m more concerned with execution: what needs to happen next, who owns it, what resources are available and whether we’re delivering consistently. As an investor, I naturally think about risk, evidence, capital discipline and the opportunity cost of pursuing one path over another.
“The advantage is that those perspectives challenge each other. The founder in me may see a big opportunity, while the operator asks whether we can actually deliver it, and the investor asks what evidence supports the investment. That can make decisions more rigorous.
“The risk is trying to do everything at once or allowing one perspective to dominate. The discipline is to be clear about which role is needed at a particular moment. Sometimes the right decision is to invest behind a promising opportunity. Sometimes it is to simplify the plan, protect cash and focus on execution. Holding all three roles helps me balance ambition with evidence and pace with discipline.”
A recurring theme in your thinking is that private capital should be treated as a strategic relationship rather than a cheque. What does an intelligent use of private capital look like in practice?
“Private capital should be treated as a strategic relationship, not simply as a cheque. The right investor brings more than money. They can offer judgment, relevant introductions, commercial experience, credibility and sometimes a useful challenge to the founder’s assumptions.
“In practice, that starts with being clear about what the capital is meant to achieve. Is it funding product development, accelerating distribution, hiring, entering a new market or extending the runway until a specific milestone? Capital is most useful when it is tied to a defined plan and measurable progress, rather than raised simply because it is available.
“The relationship also needs to work in both directions. Investors should understand how they can add value, and founders should be honest about the areas where they need help and the areas where they want to retain control. The best private capital is patient enough to support the business properly, but engaged enough to improve the quality of the decisions being made.
“For me, intelligent capital means aligning money, expertise, networks and expectations around the next value-creating milestone. That creates a much stronger relationship than treating fundraising as a transaction that ends when the funds arrive.”
forghetti has secured public deployment and partnership experience in Asia through Hong Kong Telecom and CSL Mobile, and more recently worked with CIRA in Canada on branded security and DNS-filtering services. How can a founder turn early commercial partnerships of this kind into credible evidence that a business is investable?
“Early commercial partnerships become credible evidence when they demonstrate more than interest. A founder needs to show that a respected organisation identified a real problem, was willing to work through the practical challenges of deployment, and achieved a meaningful outcome.
That means being specific. What was the customer problem? Why did the partner choose this solution? What was actually deployed? How many users or customers were reached? What changed as a result? And is there a route to renewal, expansion or reuse with other organisations?
“For forghetti, deployments and partnerships in markets such as Hong Kong and Canada provide useful validation because they show that the proposition can work in real operator environments, not just in a presentation. The important next step is turning those examples into a repeatable commercial story: a clear customer need, a credible deployment model, evidence of usage or impact, and a pathway to revenue.
“Investors are not simply looking for impressive logos. They want to understand whether the partnership reduces risk and makes the next sale more likely. When a founder can explain that clearly, early commercial work becomes evidence of a scalable business rather than a collection of one-off pilots.”
forghetti recently achieved ISO 42001 certification, adding a layer of credibility around responsible AI development and governance. Building trust into a product that sits between people, their devices and digital services is a considerable undertaking. How do you approach earning that trust, and why does certification of this kind matter?
“Trust has to be designed into the product and demonstrated through how the business operates. In forghetti’s case, that means being clear about what the technology does, what data it uses, how it is protected and what controls are in place around access, accountability and decision-making.
That is particularly important when a product sits between people, their devices and digital services. Security cannot depend only on a strong technical feature. It also depends on transparency, predictable behaviour, responsible data handling, and the confidence of the deploying organisations.
“ISO 42001 matters because it provides a recognised framework for managing AI responsibly. It helps turn good intentions into documented processes, governance and accountability. Certification does not remove the need for judgement, nor is it a substitute for earning customer trust. But it gives customers, partners and investors evidence that responsible AI development is treated as an operating discipline rather than a marketing claim.
“For us, the value is that trust is built into how we develop and govern the technology, not added at the end when we are trying to sell it. That matters when working with telecom operators and other organisations handling sensitive services at scale.”
As an angel investor in early-stage businesses, you look beyond headline growth to distribution, customer validation and execution discipline. What are the qualities in a founder or a company that most reliably earn your backing?
“I look for evidence that a founder understands the problem deeply and is building something people genuinely need, rather than simply chasing a large market description. Customer validation matters, but I look at the quality of it. Are customers paying? Are they using the product repeatedly? Does the founder understand why they bought, what value they are getting and what would make them expand or recommend it? A few strong customers with real engagement can tell you more than a large but shallow pipeline.
“I also pay close attention to distribution. A good product still needs a credible route to market. That might come through partnerships, a founder’s domain expertise, a community, or a repeatable sales process. I want to see why this team has a realistic chance of reaching the right customers.
“The other major factor is execution discipline. Early-stage companies rarely follow the original plan exactly. I back founders who learn quickly, communicate clearly, use capital carefully and can separate signal from noise. They do not need every answer on day one, but they do need to turn evidence into better decisions.
“Ultimately, I am backing a combination of founder judgement, customer pull and a believable path to repeatability. Headline growth is useful, but durable backing comes from seeing that the business is becoming less risky with every cycle of learning.”
Alongside forghetti, you co-founded MCH Software Solutions, whose MCH Communicator is a UKCA Class 1 medical device now being introduced in a hospital environment, and you founded Summit Digital, a digital agency that has evolved into a leaner, strategy-led business. What does leading across such different sectors teach you about what it takes to succeed in each?
“Working across these sectors has shown me that the fundamentals of building a successful business are similar, but the operating context changes everything. In cybersecurity and telecoms, you need to think about scale, integration, resilience and the commercial complexity of working with large operators. The product has to solve a real problem, but it also has to fit into existing infrastructure and make sense to multiple stakeholders.
“In healthcare, trust, safety and compliance are central. MCH Communicator is a UKCA Class 1 medical device, so the route into a hospital environment demands discipline, evidence and patience. Compliance has shaped how we build, test and deploy.
“Summit has taught me a different lesson. A service business has to stay close to customer value and cash discipline. As the agency has become leaner and more strategy-led, we have had to be clearer about where we create the most value, which work is repeatable and where specialist support is better provided through a flexible network.
“Across all three businesses, the common thread is that leadership means matching ambition to the realities of the sector. You need a strong proposition, but also the patience to understand how decisions are made, how trust is earned and what the customer can realistically adopt.
“The biggest lesson is that strategy is not something you write once and then defend. You keep testing it against customer behaviour, regulation, delivery capacity and the economics of the business. That is how you make progress without losing control of the company.”
The economics of cybersecurity are changing quickly, with protection increasingly delivered as a service and built into the products people already use. Where do you see the most significant opportunities emerging over the coming years, and how is the company positioned to take advantage of them?
“I see the biggest opportunities where security becomes part of an existing customer relationship, rather than something people have to discover, buy and manage separately. For telecom operators, that is particularly interesting. Operators already have trusted relationships with millions of subscribers, the billing relationship and access to the connectivity layer. They are well placed to offer security as part of a broader service, whether that is protection against malicious domains, safer identity and authentication journeys, password management or other subscriber-security tools.
“The opportunity is to make protection simple and commercially sustainable. Consumers and smaller businesses do not want another complicated security dashboard. They want security that works quietly in the background, is easy to understand and is available through a provider they already trust.
“I also think there is a growing opportunity in predictable-cost security operations. Smaller organisations cannot always afford large specialist teams, so capabilities such as AI-supported monitoring and SOC analysis can help them access better protection without taking on the cost and complexity of building everything themselves. The important qualification is that AI must be governed properly, with clear accountability and sensible human oversight.
“forghetti is positioned around that combination of subscriber security, identity experience and operator distribution. We already have live commercial experience in Hong Kong and in Canada, including protection reaching roughly 8 million users through the existing deployment. That gives us evidence that the proposition can work in real environments, not just in theory.
“The next step is to turn those deployments into a repeatable model for other operators in Europe and North America. That means proving the customer value, making integration practical and showing that security can become a useful service relationship rather than another isolated product.”
What have you learned about building trust and credibility in private capital, and what advice would you offer to leaders looking to create long-term value?
“Trust in private capital is built through consistency, transparency and doing what you say you will do. It is easy to talk about long-term partnerships when everything is going well. Credibility is tested when a deal becomes difficult, information changes or expectations need to be reset.
“For investors, that means being clear about what you bring beyond money, how you make decisions and what you expect from the relationship. For founders, it means being honest about both progress and risk. Overstating traction may help a conversation in the short term, but it creates a problem later when the facts catch up.
“I have also learned that long-term value comes from aligning incentives properly. Everyone should understand where the value is expected to come from, how it will be shared and what contribution each party is making. Ambiguity around attribution, economics or responsibility can damage a relationship even when the original opportunity is strong.
“My advice to leaders is to focus on building an organisation that becomes more valuable over time, rather than optimising every decision for the next headline. That means solving a real customer problem, earning trust through delivery, developing people and creating systems that are repeatable without losing judgement.
“Private capital works best when it is treated as a relationship built around shared value, not simply a transaction. The leaders who create lasting value are usually the ones who combine ambition with evidence, communicate difficult truths early and protect their reputation through their actions.”