Beyond the Keynotes: What Really Happened at London Tech Week Today

London Tech Week 2026 is well underway at Olympia London, and the conversations happening off-stage are proving just as consequential as anything delivered from a podium.

Among the faces worth knowing: **Gary Gramajo**, Sr. Principal Program Lead for New Ventures at Chick-fil-A, made the trip to London not to pitch anything, but to listen. His agenda was straightforward and refreshingly honest. Gramajo wanted to understand what UK startups are actually looking for right now, and more specifically, how a company like Chick-fil-A's innovation arm could become a genuine partner in helping them scale up. That is not a question you hear often from corporate visitors at events like this. Most show up to broadcast. Gramajo showed up to learn.

That posture matters. For founders grinding through the realities of growth, the difference between a corporate partner who wants to extract value and one who arrives asking real questions is everything.

Also present in the mix: **Steven Robinson** from the US Department of Business and Trade, bringing a transatlantic lens to the week's programming. With Europe's startup ecosystem increasingly looking at cross-border partnerships as a survival strategy, Robinson's presence signals that American institutional interest in UK innovation is not cooling down anytime soon.

London Tech Week 2026 runs from June 8 to 10 at Olympia London, and it continues to hold its position as Europe's most influential tech and innovation showcase. This year's programming spans AI, fintech, and sustainability, drawing speakers and operators from across the global ecosystem. TechUK members have been active contributors to the thought leadership thread running through the event.

What stands out this year is the quality of the questions being asked in the room. Not "how do we use AI" in the abstract, but how do scaling companies actually build the partnerships, the infrastructure, and the cross-market relationships that turn a promising product into a durable business. Gramajo represents that shift in tone. He is a corporate insider walking into a startup space with genuine curiosity, and that dynamic is increasingly where the most productive conversations at events like this begin.

The founders making real progress at London Tech Week today are not always the ones on the main stage. They are the ones in the hallway, working out whether the person across from them actually understands their problem.

Gramajo seems to.

LinkedIn tags: @Gary Gramajo @Steven Robinson