"A dinner conversation once led me to set up Abcam, a company that later sold for $6billion," says Dr David Cleevely CBE, telecoms pioneer, deep tech investor and innovation ecosystem architect. "Now, was that just luck, or something we can understand and replicate?"

In his new book Serendipity: It Doesn't Happen by Accident, David Cleevely challenges conventional thinking around chance and innovation. He argues that, far from being the result of random good fortune, serendipity (the discovery of valuable, unexpected outcomes) can be deliberately cultivated. And, with the right environments, networks and mindset, we can all change the odds in our favour - engineering serendipity instead of waiting for it to happen.