Why Failure, Resilience and Neurodiversity Made Simon Morris a Global Innovation Leader Simon Morris is widely recognised as a powerhouse neurodiversity speaker and creative entrepreneur whose career has spanned the front lines of entertainment, technology and innovation.

His leadership roles at SEGA, Sky, Ginger Television, LOVEFiLM and Amazon testify to a rare merge of creative vision and business execution. Launching Sonic into the mainstream, co-founding one of the UK's first dot-coms, transforming LoveFilm into what became Prime Video, and shaping global campaigns at Amazon—his journey reads like a playbook for scalable impact.

In this exclusive interview with Entrepreneur UK, Morris opens up about how he's used neurodiversity, disruption and resilience to lead in ever-evolving markets—and what today's entrepreneurs can borrow from a creative mind built for change.

Q: You've had a remarkable career journey, from SEGA and Virgin to Sky, LoveFilm and Amazon. Looking back, what key decisions and opportunities shaped your path as an entrepreneur and leader?

Simon Morris: "My career journey was not really planned. I came from a South London background. Nobody in my family had ever gone on—my grandma was a World War II veteran, postman, railway worker. My mum was a secretary; my dad had been at sea and then got a job in a bank. So, I didn't have a peer group, I didn't have examples.

"And then my auntie married a chap who worked in advertising. That was a moment for me. I was always drawn to TV and the creative industries, and the realisation at 13 that I could earn a living in that world was a real eye opener. So, I was moving in that direction. I got a job in an agency as an account man, which is on the production side, not the finance side. And then everything just happened in sequence.

"I always tell people; I've never applied for a job. Those jobs found me, those roles found me, but I've always been relentlessly curious and driven. I started as an account man, became a creative, and that really defined where things went.

"I had one part of me mentally in the creative side and one part in the entrepreneurial business side. From the agency I worked on blue-chip clients and learned my trade but then had an opportunity with video games with Virgin and SEGA right at the start of the video games wars in the '90s.

"They hired me, and I became Marketing Director of SEGA in the UK for four years. From there, because of the work we did, Sky hired me to do something similar. Both companies were challenger brands, disruptors, innovators, and that pattern has followed throughout my career. I then found myself at Virgin running SEGA in the early days of video games.

"I'm very proud of launching Sonic the Hedgehog, and it always brings a smile to people's faces when you tell them you did that—from launch to market dominance to establishing a whole category of entertainment.

"Similarly, at Sky I was responsible for the early days of marketing or the early days of multi-channel television, always with a strong leaning towards the content and programming side of things. From there I met Chris Evans when he first came down from Manchester as a young rock and roll DJ. He and I were friends from the SEGA days.

"It followed that I went to run Ginger Television when we were doing really innovative stuff: game show Don't Forget Your Toothbrush or TFI Friday, which most people will remember, plus the national radio show. But we wanted to become a media owner rather than…

"I had been working on that and ultimately it led to me being involved in the start of 365, one of the first big UK dot-coms. I'd been involved with Autonomy as well whilst at Ginger. I was really doing two roles at the same time: Autonomy and MD of Ginger.

"Very different roles, but Autonomy—fairly famous—was created by Mike Lynch, the guy they call the UK's Bill Gates. So, I was launching an internet software company and running an entertainment business.

"I ended up not staying at Autonomy despite Mike's best advice, and that was a career decision that I think back on, maybe I shouldn't have. But eventually both of those opportunities led to 365 which, as I say, was the first big UK dot-com.

"We built that, grew that, millions of customers all over the world and proved that the digital content world didn't belong to the incumbent big media companies. I did that, IPOed, then left after about four or five years, about a year after we became a public company.

"My comeback after that break was LoveFilm, and with a few old friends of mine backed by a great investor called Arts Alliance, we had seen what Netflix was doing in the States and that just felt really comfortable territory for me—a new form of entertainment.

"So LoveFilm was founded. We fought very hard in an emerging market. I always tell people there were about 15 "me too" companies at the start. We built, consolidated, took some investment from Amazon in 2008, and pioneered the streaming side of the business.

"So, it started as a subscription DVD business, pioneered streaming, and then Amazon invested in us and eventually bought us. And so then, again by accident, my career at Amazon started. I was involved in turning LoveFilm into what is now Prime Video, and then about two years into that I became Global Chief Creative Officer for everything—for advertising, for devices, retail, emerging technologies like Alexa or Kindle—in all the different countries around the world. I did that for nearly 11 years.

"Along the way I also invested and co-created or co-founded, or became a founding investor in, a couple of other businesses. Graze would be one that people know, a snack food by post subscription business. Similarly connected to that, we did the same thing in pet food with Tails.

"I was doing those as a non-exec director and investor until those businesses were sold. In the last few years, post-Amazon, I've been doing non-exec jobs, investing and chairman jobs.

"These days my portfolio ranges from being a Governor of the Museum of London, Chairman of a creative technology business called DO, Chairman of a podcast-to-TV business called Novel, and investor in a number of other things. So that was really the journey of a very happy accident."

Q: Creativity and business often feel like two different worlds. What's the biggest lesson you've learnt about harnessing creativity to drive commercial success?

Simon Morris: "My personal journey was, I started as an account man. I was a kid from South London that had no point of reference. I didn't go to art school or film school, and I'm colour blind. I did a business degree and was encouraged and found that within six months of doing that I could do the creative work as well. I had a voice and a say and got results in the creative side of the business.

"That has been my lesson: I am part creative, part businessman. That's been a somewhat rare combination. I had people in my life in those early days—there was a creative director called Dave Horry at the agency I worked in, and Sir John Hegarty was a really big influence on my life—who encouraged me to be as creative as possible in the businesses that I was involved in.

"So, my biggest lesson is that magic can come from many different places. Often it comes from finding an identifiable truth and expressing it in a way that people may not have thought of before, in an original, surprising and entertaining way.

"I think that's the biggest lesson I've learned across all the categories I've worked in: FMCG, entertainment, television, new forms of entertainment, new forms of distribution, and global businesses. I found it consistently true."

Q: There's increasing recognition of neurodiverse talent in business. How do you believe embracing neurodiversity can spark innovation and give companies a competitive edge?

Simon Morris: "That terminology "neurodiverse" certainly didn't exist in my world when I started in the late '80s. But it's a label I'm quite happy to apply to myself. I didn't realise about myself until later in life. I've had a history of addiction, mental health. I'm a poster boy for ADHD. I've experienced depression, and lots of different facets of what they put under this common banner of neurodiversity.

"But I found that a lot of other great business people are similar. We're consistently different, and yet what brings us together is an ability to hyper-focus when we need to. You can have an ADHD brain which is all over the place, but if you have the ability to hyper-focus when the moment is required, there's a good argument to say that parts of neurodiversity are a superpower.

"I'm here to encourage that. I'm lucky enough to have got through the challenging times in my life by following certain processes. I'm a big champion of employees, messaging, marketing, and work environments that acknowledge, embrace, understand and seek to optimise neurodiversity. Customers are in that place as well; the world at large is in that place.

"The business I'm Chairman of and an investor in, JAAQ.com, is testament to that. It's a fresh approach designed to help people with a number of neurodiverse conditions. That wouldn't have existed ten years ago. Society is far more open to discussing, embracing and improving support. For me it's the culmination of my own journey, and now it has become very relevant to all of the things I'm connected with."