Ahana Banerjee

Ahana BanerjeeAug 28, 2026

I'm back in my childhood home in Cheshire for the bank holiday weekend. In my childhood bedroom in this house, I had a thick window ledge that I used to sit on at night. Our house was rural enough that it got properly dark. I could look out and see the stars clearly - and that’s where my fascination with space (and physics) began. Although I loved my view of the stars, and so many of my happiest childhood memories live here, I was simultaneously an edgy teenager who couldn’t wait to escape her “small town”. I was, ultimately, delighted to move to New Delhi when I was 14. I then moved to Singapore at 16 and London at 18. So now, aged 27, I've spent almost half my life in big, bustling cities. I love their energy, ambition, and sense that something is always happening. But coming home to Chester for the bank holiday has reminded me how grateful I am for the grounding of those first 14 years. I’m reminded that the places we’re desperate to leave when we’re young often become the ones we’re most grateful to come back to as an adult. Growing up somewhere quieter gave me space to be curious and imaginative. It taught me to find wonder in things that didn’t demand my attention, and to dream far beyond the world immediately around me. My life now is faster, louder and fuller than the girl sitting on that window ledge could have imagined. But so much of the person I became started there: looking up at the stars, wondering what else was out there, and feeling impatient to go and find it. Turns out I didn’t need to escape my hometown. I needed it to give me somewhere solid to begin.

Ahana BanerjeeAug 26, 2026

I’ve written a piece about Britain’s relationship with talent, risk and ambition - and why a country that produces exceptional people so often waits for somebody else to believe in them first. It explores how education, class, age, gender and access to capital shape who gets to become a founder, whose potential is recognised before there is proof, and who is expected to absorb the cost of experimentation themselves. The piece brings together experiences and observations accumulated over several years: from the stories our CTO Charles Johnson hears from me in our daily stand-ups, to statistics published by the Treasury, to panels, stages and candid conversations in rooms I have been fortunate enough to enter. It is also informed by an unusual vantage point: being educated across the British, American and international IB schooling systems; studying physics at Imperial; being backed by Y Combinator; and running a US-incorporated company with predominantly American investors while Britain remains my home. I write as both a female founder and a member of Gen Z - part of the younger generation whose ambition, experience and work ethic are so often discussed by people much older than us. And, through watching my fiancé complete a PhD in quantum computing at Oxford, I’ve had a close view of the gap between Britain’s extraordinary academic research and its ability to turn that research into enduring economic value. The essay asks a simple question: Britain produces the talent - so why does America so often capture the upside? So far, I've only shared it with my family and my team at Clear. If you’d be interested in reading it, let me know. I may share an excerpt here, and perhaps even the full piece.

Ahana BanerjeeAug 31, 2026

Last week, I posted about a piece I’d been working on about Britain’s relationship with talent, risk and ambition. What I didn’t mention was just how good it felt to sit down and write it. I’ve always loved writing, but as a founder, I rarely get the opportunity to write creatively. Being a founder means doing a frankly ridiculous variety of jobs - strategy, sales, product, hiring, fundraising, and occasionally staring into the middle distance wondering why something has broken - but essay writing isn’t usually one of them. Documenting my life here on LinkedIn is honestly the closest I get (and why I actually love it)! Before Clear, I studied physics at Imperial, where the closest thing to an essay was a lab report. Important, yes. Thorough, hopefully. But not quite enough to scratch the creative itch. At school, I did higher-level English literature in the IB, alongside higher-level maths and physics, which people always found to be a slightly odd combination. It never felt strange to me. I loved understanding how things worked, whether that meant pulling apart an equation or a sentence. Sitting down to write this essay - to bring together some of the things I’ve learnt over the past few years, purely for the sake of writing - frankly, felt fantastic. It reminded me how much I love it and, reassuringly, that I hadn’t entirely lost the skill. We often treat school as the last time we’re allowed to do something unless we decide to make a career from it. The last essay. The last play. The last painting. The last time we seriously use a part of ourselves that once mattered. But the last time we did something doesn’t have to be the last time we ever do it. We’re allowed to return to the things we love, even when they aren’t especially productive, commercially useful or part of the job. Sometimes, doing something simply because it makes you feel more like yourself is reason enough.