2025 Speakers & Chairs
Ray Eital-Porter
Ray is an expert in AI Safety and Ethics. He is Senior Adviser for Responsible AI to Accenture, where he was formerly Global Lead for Responsible AI, and, through Lumyz Advisory, provides independent consulting. Ray is also a Senior Research Associate for Responsible AI at the Intellectual Forum, Jesus College Cambridge, and has led ethical AI research collaborations with Stanford, MIT, The Alan Turing Institute and the Institute for AI Ethics at Oxford University.
Ray advises on principles and policy, governance, areas of risk (such as bias, explainability, reliability and sustainability), controls, capabilities and supporting platforms and technologies. Ray’s practical experience across industries and the public sector helps organisations build AI assurance programs and scale their use of AI with confidence.
Michael Findlay
Michael is Chair of London Stock Exchange plc, a non-executive director of International Distribution Services plc and will become Chair of Hays, the FTSE250 international recruitment business, on 1st May 2025. For the last 9 years he has been Chair of Morgan Sindall Group plc, the FTSE 250 construction, infrastructure and house building group. He spent his executive career in investment banking, latterly as Co-Head of Investment Banking for the U.K. and Ireland at Bank of America. He sits on the board of Jarrold Group Holdings and is a member of the FCA’s Markets Practitioner Panel. He is an investor in a number of companies in the Cambridge ecosystem.
Dr. Margaret Heffernan
Dr. Margaret Heffernan produced programmes for the BBC for 13 years. She then moved to the US where she spearheaded multimedia productions for Intuit, The Learning Company and Standard&Poors. She was Chief Executive of InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and then iCast Corporation, was named one of the “Top 25” by Streaming Media magazine and one of the “Top 100 Media Executives” by The Hollywood Reporter.
The author of six books, Margaret’s third book, Willful Blindness : Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril was named one of the most important business books of the decade by the Financial Times. In 2015, she was awarded the Transmission Prize for A Bigger Prize: Why Competition isn’t Everything and How We Do Better, described as “meticulously researched…engagingly written…universally relevant and hard to fault.” Her TED talks have been seen by over 13 million people and in 2015 TED published Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes. In 2020, she published Uncharted: How to map the future , which quickly became a bestseller and was nominated for the Financial Times Best Business Book award, was one of Bloomberg’s Best Books of 2021 and was chosen as the “Medium Best of the Best” business book. 2025 saw the publication of Embracing Uncertainty: How Writers, Musicians and Artists Thrive in an Unpredictable World, described as ‘a timely, insightful book….Heffernan highlights what it takes to excel in turbulent times.’
In 2024, she was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame, in recognition of her lasting impact on management thinking. She is a Professor of Practice at the University of Bath, Lead Faculty for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Programme and, through Merryck & Co., mentors CEOs and senior executives of major global organizations. She chairs the board of DACS and is a parish councillor.
- Website:
- www.mheffernan.com
Karen McLuskie
Karen McLuskie has been a pioneer at the intersection of technology, government and foreign policy for 20 years. She was at the frontier of what became known as digital diplomacy and was the first diplomat with a critical tech portfolio. She served in four continents before taking up the role of senior advisor at FCDO in the run up to the landmark AI Safety Summit at Bletchley. Today she leads on critical technology and industrial strategy for the Department of Business and Trade. She also chairs the Industry Advisory Board for UK Responsible AI, and speaks and writes widely on the implications of AI for society. She is the co-founder of not-for-profit startup 'Me3', which offers tech solutions for tackling sexual violence.
Mark Slack
Mark Slack qualified as a doctor at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. He then completed his postgraduate training at the University of Cape Town. He graduated from the College of Medicine of South Africa in Gynaecology, winning the Daubenton Gold Medal for the most distinguished candidate in the exams in the country.
He was previously head of Gynaecology and Urogynaecology at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, University of Cambridge Teaching Hospitals Trust, Cambridge. He is on the staff at the University of Cambridge.
Mr. Slack has run an active research unit in Cambridge. The unit was involved in a number of research initiatives. He developed and introduced the Sacrospinous Fixation to the UK. This is now the most performed procedure for prolapse in the United Kingdom. In addition, he has invented several procedures which were adopted and taken to global launch by international Medical Device companies. Two by Johnson & Johnson. He has published over 100 peer reviewed papers, more than 25 book chapters and numerous national guidelines. He is a regular contributor on several National Radio and Television programs including “case notes, “Women’s Hour”, The Victoria Derbyshire show and regional and National news programs.
He is a Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of CMR Surgical, a start-up company in Cambridge which has developed a novel surgical robot (Versius). This is a next generation surgical robotic system designed to increase the use of minimally invasive (keyhole) surgery. This is now the second largest soft tissue robotic company in the world. In 2021 it had the highest private MedTech funding round in the world with a $660 million raise. The subsequent valuation gave it Unicorn status. The company currently employs more than 700 people in multiple geographies. In 2023 it raised a further £165 million.
He was appointed the Ethicon travelling Professor in 2004 as well as the Sims Black Professorship of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists for 2005/6. He was recognised by the NIHR in 2015 with an award as one of the leading researchers in the UK for clinical research. In 2018, under his leadership the Urogynaecology unit in Cambridge achieved the highest accreditation score ever awarded by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists recognizing it as one of the leading units in the country. In 2021 he was awarded honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons and Physicians of Glasgow and the French Academy of Surgeons. Mark has also been awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal College of Surgeons, London.
Eben Upton
Eben is a founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and serves as the CEO of Raspberry Pi Ltd, its commercial and engineering subsidiary. He is the co-author, with Gareth Halfacree of the Raspberry Pi User Guide, and with Jeff Duntemann and others of Learning Computer Architecture with Raspberry Pi. He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2017, appointed a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society in 2019, and elected an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge in 2020. In an earlier life, he founded two successful mobile games and middleware companies, Ideaworks 3d and Podfun, held the post of Director of Studies for Computer Science at St John’s College, and wrote the Oxford Rhyming Dictionary with his father, Professor Clive Upton. He holds a BA in Physics and Engineering, a PhD in Computer Science, and an MBA, from the University of Cambridge.
2024 Speakers & Chairs
Anthony Adiotomre
Anthony is a recent graduate of Manchester Metropolitan University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He’s on a placement with Beko and a Young Ambassador for Black Talent & Leadership in STEM.
Ray Anderson
Ray has over 30 years’ experience in starting, growing, and selling businesses. Ray was named ‘Business Person of the Year’ in 2012. Ray co-founded Bango in 1999 after realizing that the convergence of the internet with the ubiquity of mobile phones could open up huge opportunities for content and service providers.
Elahe Arani
Elahe Arani serves as the Head of AI Research at Wayve, UK, where she leads the development of foundation models for embodied intelligence, including GAIA and LINGO, to enable safe, adaptable, and scalable autonomous vehicles. Additionally, she holds the position of Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands. With a unique background as both a neuroscientist and a computer scientist, her research is dedicated to advancing next-generation AI by integrating insights from the functional and learning mechanisms of the human brain. Her work focuses on pushing the boundaries of AI in behavior learning, perception, world modelling, and language, with the ultimate goal of creating robust, efficient, and reliable solutions for real-world applications, including autonomous driving and healthcare.
Amelia Armour
Amelia joined Amadeus Capital Partners in 2009 and is a Partner in the Early Stage Fund. Her current investment focus is on autonomous systems, AI and machine learning, cloud computing and novel materials.
She is a Director on several boards including Xampla, who have developed a plant-based material to replace single-use plastics; iPronics who are building the world’s first programmable photonic processor; Riverlane a developer of the operating system for error corrected quantum computers and SLAMcore, a spin-out from Imperial College, developing spatial intelligence for autonomous robotics and drones.
Amelia is also an active board observer at other companies including enterprise voice assistant company PolyAI and Graphcore, the developer of the Intelligence Processing Unit for next generation machine intelligence.
Amelia holds a BSc in Chemistry and Biology from Durham University and is a mentor on the Judge Business School’s Accelerate Programme.
Nicky Athanassopoulou
Nicky Athanassopoulou is the Head of Solutions Development team within IfM Engage. She is a strategy and technology management specialist and works with business and innovation leaders within the high-value manufacturing community, universities and government. She has been working in the IfM Engage team for 13 years.
Anne Bailey
Anne Bailey is CEO and Co-founder of Form the Future CIC, a not-for-profit careers and employment company. Anne entered the careers and skills sector after working in the private and public sectors and running her own PR agency. She ran BT’s CSR education programme which served as inspiration for Form the Future, a social enterprise that helps young people find their route through education intro employment, and provides employers with access to their future talent. She was awarded the Cambridge Social Innovation Prize in 2022 for her work establishing Form the Future and the impact they’ve had on the lives of young people in the Eastern region.
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/anneubailey/
Rupert Baines
Rupert is a seasoned start-up technology entrepreneur and CEO. He has founded a number of technology companies and had three successful exits. He was CEO of UltraSoc (sold to Siemens July 2020); CMO of Codasip ("RISC-V processors with a twist”); and CEO of QPT, combining deep-tech with sustainability. He is Chair of RANsemi, Chair of Cambridge Tech Week and Co-Chair of the Semiconductor Expert Working Group industry body reporting into DSIT.
Paul Beastall
Paul has spent his entire career working at the interface of business and technology and is highly motivated by the potential of science and engineering to make a better world.
His key strength is bridging the gap between technology specialists and investors, commercial functions and regulators, driving the impact of technological innovations.
He is currently CEO at HutanBio, a cleantech biofuel technology company and a non-executive director of the Medicines Discovery Catapult.
Monique Boddington
Monique is an Associate Professor of Management Practice and the Director of the MSt in Entrepreneurship programme at the Judge Business School. She holds degrees from the University of Nottingham and Cambridge. Her research interests lie in entrepreneurship, lean startups, and gender. She spearheads the EVER project, which aims to understand the strategic decision-making of early-stage ventures. Additionally, she is delving into the influence of gender on entrepreneurship. Monique has made significant contributions to the field of entrepreneurial education. Her passion lies in understanding how research can enhance the delivery and impact of entrepreneurship education, thereby shaping the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Stan Boland
Stan Boland is an active angel investor and advisor following a career of founding, building and successfully exiting a series of deep technology companies in semiconductors and AI. Most recently, he was a co-founder and CEO of Five AI, a significant European venture-backed software business founded in 2015 which developed a highly functional automated system for urban driving before pivoting to build an integrated, cloud-based development ecosystem for testing of automated driving systems in principled low-fidelity simulation, leading to its acquisition by Bosch in 2022 for an undisclosed sum. That was the third successful major exit for Stan, he previously co-founded and was CEO of two of Europe’s most valuable semiconductor startups, Element 14 Inc. and Icera Inc., which he sold to Broadcom and NVIDIA respectively, for an aggregate value of over $1.1 billion. Element 14 built high density chipsets and software for broadband connectivity whilst Icera built cutting-edge modem chipsets and software for cellular communications. Prior to founding startups, he was CEO of Acorn, a pioneer computer and technology firm and a Board member of its one-time associate, ARM. He is a graduate in physics from the University of Cambridge.
Dr Boris Breiner
Boris gained his PhD in chemistry from Florida State University, working in the field of organic photochemistry and winning the award for best PhD thesis of the year. Subsequent postdoctoral appointments took him to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cambridge University. He has more than ten years’ experience in industrial R&D and has authored/co-authored more than 10 patents and patent applications, as well as more than 20 scientific publications.
Gary Brotman
Gary Brotman is a passionate product and technology evangelist who leads Secondmind as Chief Executive Officer. He has 20+ years of experience leading teams responsible for building and commercializing product and service lines for leading Fortune 500 companies and startups with machine learning, mobility, and media at their core. Gary joined Secondmind from Qualcomm, Technologies, Inc. where as Head of AI Strategy and Product Planning he led the productization of the first four generations of the Qualcomm AI Engine across the company’s Snapdragon SoC platforms for Mobile, Automotive and IoT.
Chris Bruce
An international business executive with over 30 years experience of leading growth businesses in wireless, internet and cloud sectors. Chris has spent 15 years in the Wi-Fi Service Provider business: CEO BT Openzone Wi-Fi; Chair of the Wireless Broadband Alliance (Board Director for 10 years); MD and Board Director, GlobalReach Technology (Wi-Fi roaming and authentication specialists).
Chris is now a strategic consultant to wireless vendors and operators offering advice and delivering projects to enhance Go To Market results. Chris is NED Chairman of Handshakr SAAS platform company, bringing together large corporates and smaller innovators to collaborate.
Chris’s career includes: Sales and Marketing Director Business mobile, Telfort (Dutch Mobile Operator); CEO BT Openzone Wi-Fi; VP Advise for Communications providing advisory and wholesale services to Telcos in Middle East, Africa, Asia, LatAm; VP Europe Channels BT Internet Hosting and NED at Inet Spa, Italian Internet Hosting market leader. Chris held leadership roles in BT Global, launching services to Enterprise and Wholesale customers. Previously, Chris had Marketing and Product management positions at Ericsson, Ascom and CASE Communications.
Chris has a passion for innovation and growth and has supported start-ups and scale-ups as a mentor in accelerator programmes focused on Smart Cities, Blockchain and Authentication. Chris has a deep interest in Industrial IoT and Smart Cities.
Public sector experience includes a 12 month secondment to the Department of Trade & Industry, managing the UK Broadband Britain delivery programme and representing on BT’s East of England Regional Board.
Euan Cameron
Euan is our UK artificial intelligence (AI) leader, helping both clients and our own business to identify opportunities and embrace the shift to automation. Euan’s core team consists of more than 30 AI, robotic process automation (RPA) and machine learning specialists around the UK. He also collaborates with our 800 plus data and analytics specialists across the business.
Euan has been a PwC partner since 2007 and has over 20 years’ consulting experience. Prior to his AI role, Euan led the Business Services industry team in our Strategy practice, where he completed 200 plus assignments across numerous business services sectors, covering a multitude of businesses and business models. These include BPO, facilities services, professional services, recruitment, distribution and logistics. In particular, he has extensive experience in parcels, express & mail where he has provided corporate strategy services for a broad range of national carriers, and trust and corporate services where he has worked on a large proportion of recent transactions.
Euan specialises in:
- Artificial intelligence & data-led strategy development
- Revenue growth and expansion strategies
Recent clients include FTSE 100 corporates, fast-growing private business and a broad range of private equity firms. Euan holds an MEng from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from INSEAD.
Paul Ceely
Paul Ceely has over 25 years’ experience in technology and network strategy, covering strategy and solutions for mobile, internet, security, network management and technology evolution in general. He is responsible for the medium to long-term technology strategy for Digital Catapult, looking at the future digital technology landscape and identifying priority areas to focus on, as well as leading the emerging tech area including Quantum Technologies.
He led network strategy in the operators BT and EE in the UK, developing the 5G network strategy for BT, was instrumental in the strategy for EE’s 4G launch in 2012, as well as taking a leading role in the network strategy during the merger of BT and EE, and Orange and T-Mobile to become EE, having studied Physics and the University of Cambridge.
Daniel Clarke
Dan leads the Smart Cambridge Programme which was set up to explore how data, innovative technology and better connectivity can be used to transform the way people live, work and travel in the Greater Cambridge area and beyond. Local councils, technology businesses, university researchers and partner organisations are working together to find smart ways to tackle city challenges, such as transport and air quality.
David Cleevely CBE FREng
David Cleevely is an entrepreneur who has founded a series of companies including Abcam, Analysys and the award winning restaurant Bocca di Lupo. He was Chairman of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, founding Chairman of the Cambridge Science Centre, Founding Director of the Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge. He also co-founded Cambridge Network, Cambridge Wireless, Cambridge Angels and Cambridge Ahead.
He was Vice-Chair of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Independent Economic Review, Chair of the Cambridge Autonomous Metro (CAM) Technical Advisory Committee and is currently Chair of the enquiry into policy after Covid, the ‘New Era for the Cambridge Economy’.
He also chairs the Royal Academy of Engineering Policy Fellowships Working Group. For 8 years until March 2009 he was a member of the Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board and from 2001 to 2008 he was a member of the Ministry of Defence DES-ISS (DCSA) Board. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in Education by Bath University in 2022 and an honorary doctorate in Technology by Anglia Ruskin University in July 2023.
Duncan Clubb
Duncan started his career in the oil industry, as a programmer working for petroleum engineers and geologists. As well as developing graphical analysis tools for engineers and geologists, he also wrote systems that allowed disparate systems to communicate with each other via marine satellite.
Duncan then moved into the financial industry, initially developing comms systems for investment banks. He then further specialised in application development in asset finance and FX derivatives trading. While at Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan Chase) he became involved in the design and implementation of trading floor and data center infrastructure and was responsible for delivery of the infrastructure and applications for the whole derivatives trading floor.
Duncan spent 4 years at RBS, running a variety of major programs, including the delivery of new HQ buildings, data centres and regulatory transformation for the Corporate Banking and Financial Markets division. In 2006, Duncan moved into specialist IT infrastructure consulting, initially at PTS Consulting (as head of the data centre practice), then CS Technology (as head of the data centre practice, then EMEA CTO and head of CST Middle East), and then as Managing Director for Align Communications (EMEA).
In 2016, Duncan was recruited to run a major transformation program for the Bank of England. This was initially intended to deliver a new data centre, but Duncan redeveloped the business case to move the entire IT estate out of existing bank buildings into two colocation data centres with improved resilience, performance and financials, as well as enabling a migration of some systems into the cloud. Designing the high-profile program took nearly two years and was, at the time, the biggest ever signed off by the Court and Governors.
Duncan joined CBRE in 2018 to set up a new digital infrastructure advisory business within the Data Centre Solutions Group. This involved providing advisory services to enterprise and public sector clients including UBS, Lloyds Bank, Heathrow Airport, Blackpool Council and Epsilon Telecoms. A key area of focus was the inter-networking of 5G and fixed fibre networks to provide peering solutions.
Ben Christy
Ben is the policy lead for supporting business and investment within the UK Government’s Office for Quantum. The Office is responsible for designing and delivering the UK’s National Quantum Strategy, a 10-year plan to make the UK a leading quantum-enabled economy, backed by £2.5 billion in public funding. Ben has a background in net zero and innovation policy and is a Policy Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Sherry Coutu CBE
Sherry Coutu CBE is a successful entrepreneur and investor with over 25 years of experience in the digital sector. She has established, floated, and sold several businesses in the financial services industry, including one valued at over $1 billion with 100M in profits.
Coutu is an active early-stage investor, having invested in more than 70 businesses, such as LinkedIn, Zoopla, and Joby. She serves on the boards of several companies, charities, and universities and is a frequent public speaker, having won and judged the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards. Her expertise lies in consumer, internet, information services, and clean energy. Now, she spends 60% of her time on for-profit activities and 40% on philanthropic activities.
As a philanthropist, Sherry has supported various charitable causes, such as founding Founders4Schools and Digital Boost, which support teachers and small business leaders with mentors. She also helped found the Prince’s Trust Technology Leadership Group, which supports young people in the UK in starting their own businesses, and served on the Cancer Research UK venture board. She is also a Harvard Business School European Advisory Council member, which supports the school’s mission to educate leaders who make a difference in the world.
In addition to these activities, Sherry wrote the Scaleup Report & founded the ScaleUp Institute, which supports entrepreneurs in scaling up their businesses, and served as a Trustee of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, which aims to put the power of computing and digital making into the hands of people all over the world.
Janet Coyle CBE
Janet leads the Business Growth activity for London & Partners promoting London as a hub of diversity and a great place to innovate, invest and scale a business. She is passionate about supporting businesses to connect with international markets and has a particular focus on driving economic growth that is sustainable, resilient and inclusive. Janet has led several Female Founder Trade Missions to Silicon Valley and continues to champion underrepresented entrepreneurs. She was in the Computer Weekly Hall of Fame in 2023. She was previously a diplomat for the UK Government, serving in several posts including San Francisco. In June 2022 Janet was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s platinum Jubilee honours for services to the economy.
Peter Cowley
Peter Cowley founded and ran over a dozen businesses in technology and property. He has built up a portfolio of 76 angel investments with 20 positive exits (including one that is 107 times his investment) and 21 failures. He co-founded the VC, Martlet Capital and is a President Emeritus of the European Business Angel Network and was chair of the Cambridge Angels. He has reviewed thousands of business plans, mentored over one thousand entrepreneurs and angels and is/has been on the board of over 40 companies, 25 of which were startups.
He is a fellow in Entrepreneurship at the Cambridge Judge Business School and has had 16 years’ experience as chair, treasurer and trustee of the boards of seven charities.
He has an honorary Doctor of Business Administration from Anglia Ruskin University, was awarded Angel of the Year in the UK 2014 and Angel Exit of the Year in UK and also in Europe in 2022.
He co-founded The Invested Investor with his late son, Alan which educates angels and entrepreneurs and has sold over 4500 books and 80 podcasts. Peter has been a public speaker in over 40 countries.
He is suffering from stage four cancer and is sharing his life in his third book: “Public Success, Private Grief”.
Morgan Dee
Morgan Dee is the Director of AI and Data Science at EDUCATE Ventures Research. She leads the Data Science team in using data and AI to extract meaningful insights about human learning. She holds a Master’s degree in Data Science with AI from The University of Exeter, where she received recognition for her outstanding academic performance. She also trained as a secondary school Physics teacher at the Institute of Education after completing her Master’s degree in Astrophysics from The University of Manchester. With a decade of teaching experience spanning across diverse locations including the UK, Nepal, Malawi, Hong Kong, and Japan, Morgan has developed a deep commitment to the ethical use of AI in Education. Her primary goal is to unlock the full potential of every learner, ensuring their growth and success.
Dr Anne Dobrée
Anne joined Parkwalk in 2024 and has been supporting University spin-outs and start-ups since 2001, working in various technology commercialisation roles at Imperial College and the University of Cambridge. Anne formerly led the growth of the University of Cambridge’s Seed Funds team for 15 years, including establishing the first University EIS fund with Parkwalk and spinning out Cambridge Innovation Capital. Anne has served on multiple early stage boards, across all technology sectors. Most recently Anne established the accelerator Founders at the University of Cambridge, to support founders at seed stage. Anne holds a BSc in Medical Microbiology and a PhD in Immunology.
George Drayson
Chief AI Officer at Appella and PhD student on the Foundational AI CDT at UCL. Specialise in Natural Language Processing and specifically around solving problems around task-oriented LLMs, guardrailing models and supervised classification.
Yuval Dvir
Yuval is a Senior Tech Executive and Advisor who creates meaningful impact within large multinationals and hyper growth startups. As an engineer, MBA and Neuroscientist, Yuval is a strong operator that effectively manages the technological, commercial and human challenges organizations face.
An expert in SaaS commerce, Yuval developed Google’s largest API partner ecosystem – currently serving as the main platform for its Generative AI productivity solutions. Prior to Google, Yuval spearheaded the successful business transformation at Microsoft – leading to a decade of growth at the enterprise.
Prior to that, Yuval worked at Skype during its hyper growth stages, reaching a peak of connected users and becoming the de-facto video conferencing platform globally (materializing the strategy of “from the boardroom to the living room”)
While at Alphabet, Yuval constructed the first commercial deals for SandboxAQ – Google’s Quantum and AI enterprise Software company, while still under Google X – the moonshot factory. He later helped spinoff the company into its own entity and raise the first investment round. The initial deals have led to the development of new divisions at SandboxAQ such as AQBioSim – Molecular simulation for Pharma, and AQtive Guard – unified cryptography management for telcos, financial institutions and other enterprises.
Yuval continues to lead his global group at Google, now responsible for over 50% of all Google Workspace customers globally. He has opened Google’s first partnership with OEMs, breaking decades old monopoly by Microsoft, as well as creating Google’s first ever instore physical solutions – proving that innovation can continue even in larger organizations.
Warren East CBE
Warren East CBE, FRS, FREng, FIET, FBCS is a British engineer and businessperson. He was appointed CBE in the 2014 New Year Honours ‘for services to the technology industry’. After a degree in Engineering Science at Oxford University he worked in the semiconductor Industry for 30 years, initially with Texas Instruments, during that time he did an exec MBA at Cranfield. He joined ARM Holdings in 1994 undertaking a series of roles before becoming CEO (2001-2013). After a brief period focussing on Non-executive roles he was appointed to lead Rolls-Royce plc as CEO from 2015-2022. He is currently a non-executive director at Tokamak Energy Ltd, a member of the supervisory board at ASML NV, chair of C-Capture, chair of NATS and serves on the advisory board for Avina Clean Hydrogen. Warren is an Executive in Residence at the Saïd Business School at Oxford and an Honorary Fellow at Wadham College, Oxford.
Ray Eitel-Porter
Ray is an expert in AI Safety and Ethics. He is Senior Adviser for Responsible AI to Accenture and, through Lumyz Advisory, provides independent consulting. Ray is also a Senior Research Associate for Responsible AI at the Intellectual Forum, Jesus College Cambridge, and has led ethical AI research collaborations with Stanford, MIT, The Alan Turing Institute and the Institute for AI Ethics at Oxford University. Ray advises on principles and policy, governance, areas of risk (such as bias, explainability, reliability and sustainability), controls, capabilities and supporting platforms and technologies.
Chris Ellis
Working out of St John’s Innovation Centre, Chris works both nationally and regionally as an Innovate UK Scaleup Director, supporting clients who are driving growth through innovation. He is also a Regional Champion for the IUK Business Growth Invest-Ability support offer, which keeps him close to the investor community.
He has extensive experience of building and scaling B2B and B2C businesses, having worked across several sectors, including FMCG, financial services and enterprise technology.
He recognises the challenges of scaling businesses may be reoccurring, and that the optimal mix of people, process and technology is often elusive – but vital.
Harriet Fear MBE
Harriet consults via her company HFA Ltd, including as Special Adviser to Cambridge&, the inward investment service for Greater Cambridge (www.cambridgeand.com). She is also Chair of Cambridge Ahead and a Trustee of Cambridge Science Centre.
Harriet was a Diplomat for over 20 years with the British Foreign Office. She served in 17 countries, in various roles including Deputy Ambassador 3 times, Head of Press and Public Affairs and Head of Commercial Services. She regularly served in hostile environments, trouble-shooting specific crises including in the Congo, Cambodia and Ethiopia.
Half her diplomatic career was spent in the commercial field, helping SME’s trade internationally. For 5 years she was the Head of the Governments national Life Sciences and Healthcare Trade Team.
Harriet was Chief Executive of One Nucleus from 2009 to 2017, which became the largest life science and healthcare membership body in Europe under her leadership and won a major award as ‘Best Global Life Sciences and Healthcare membership organisation’ in 2016.
Harriet was the Prime Minister’s Business Ambassador for Life Sciences for 5 years to 2018. She has worked at the heart of the Cambridge business ecosystem since 2003. She was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2016 for her services to Healthcare and Life Sciences.
Professor Andrew Flewitt
Professor Andrew Flewitt is Professor of Electronic Engineering in Cambridge University Engineering Department and is currently head of the Electrical Engineering Division. He is also a Fellow in Engineering at Sidney Sussex College. He graduated in Physics from the University of Birmingham in 1994 before moving to Cambridge to carry out a PhD in Engineering investigating the growth of hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin films using scanning tunnelling microscopy which he completed in 1998. He stayed in Cambridge as a Research Associate sponsored by Philips Research Laboratories working on the low temperature fabrication of thin film transistors. He was first appointed to a Lectureship in 2002 and was promoted to Professor in 2015. Current research interests encompass both large-area electronics, with a particular focus on thin film oxide materials, and microelectromechanical systems. He is a co-Founder of Sorex Sensors Limited which is commercialising film bulk acoustic wave sensors. He published a new textbook on ‘Electromagnetism for Engineers’ in 2022 with the aim of making this subject, which underpins so much of the technology we take for granted today, more accessible to undergraduate students, based over 20 years of supervising Cambridge students in this area. He currently serves on the University of Cambridge HR Committee. He is a Member of the Institute of Physics, a Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and is a Chartered Engineer.
Tim Fowler
Tim Fowler is the Chief Commercial Officer on the board of Cambridge Consultants. Tim has extensive technical and commercial experience in deep-tech innovation, much of that within the wireless industry, from the conception of GSM through to modern broadband technology.
Since joining Cambridge Consultants two decades ago Tim has helped clients from many markets to create winning deep-tech innovation strategies and lead their development and introduction; enabling those clients to secure winning market positions.
Martin Frost CBE
Martin Frost CBE is a Cambridge-based businessman and entrepreneur responsible for the start-up and scale-up of several highly successful global technology businesses. Martin is a co-Founder of CMR Surgical, one of the UK’s leading robotics startups, developing the next generation system for robotically-assisted minimal access surgery. He’s also co-Founder of Monumo, using machine learning and AI to optimise and design next generation electric motors.
Prior to founding CMR Surgical, Martin was CEO and CFO of Sagentia plc. He currently holds non-Executive Director and advisory positions for a number of technology, diagnostic and medical device businesses and is Chair of Peek Vision, a charity addressing preventable blindness in the Global South.
Pam Garside
Pam Garside has had a career in health care systems and digital health in the UK and internationally and is an angel investor in early-stage health tech companies. She is a Fellow of the Judge Business School of the University of Cambridge and a member of the Investment Committee of Cambridge Enterprise. Pam is Chairman of Cambridge Angels,and sits on the board of Crown Place Venture Capital Trust. She founded and co-chairs The Cambridge Health Network, a membership group of senior players in the UK health sector. Pam advises a number of life science companies, health technology accelerators and start-ups in the UK and Europe.
Raj Gawera
Raj has over 20 years of experience in short range and wireless communications technology R&D, business development and marketing. Raj was part of initial IEEE 802.11 team to define first WLAN standard in 1996 – a technology which has now shipped in 10s of billions of units. Raj also helped pioneer the first 3G data transmissions working with Motorola and others to demonstrate one of the first video calls at the 3GSM show in 1998 – many years before 3G licences were awarded. He has also been awarded a number of patents including short range wireless technologies. Raj was a founder member of startup UbiNetics (1999), which successfully exited in 2005 for over $120m USD. As part of that deal, Raj joined CSR and ultimately took the role of VP Marketing where he was part of the team that acquired SiRF Technologies for $136m (2009) to add GPS technology to CSR portfolio. More recently in 2012, he helped sell CSR’s handset business to Samsung in a deal worth $310m for 310 staff to form the SCSC division. As part of that deal, Raj took up the role of VP Marketing responsible for defining future wireless products. In 2014, Raj was promoted to head up the SCSC division leading the silicon and software development for Samsung’s connectivity solutions. Since 2021, Raj has been a Non-Executive Director of the Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult and now heads up the Customers and Markets committee within the board.
Marina Gonzalo Soares
Marina is responsible for providing operational support to the Ecosystem Initiatives & Partnerships business unit at Cambridge Enterprise, with a particular focus on International Outreach.
Marina is a biochemist and science communicator who has professionally trained as a marketing project manager in entrepreneurial TechBio environments. Prior to joining Cambridge Enterprise, Marina dedicated her career to enable life sciences and technology start ups to scale. She brings her scientific marketing, corporate strategy, and business development skills to her current role.
Marina holds a BSc in Biochemistry from the Autonomous University of Madrid, and a MSc in Biomedical Sciences & Science Communication from Leiden University. In 2022, she completed a leadership apprenticeship, certified by the Chartered Management Institute.
Irene Graham OBE
Irene is the founding CEO and a board director of the ScaleUp Institute, a private sector, not-for-profit company focused on making the UK the best place in the world to scale up a business.
She is a former senior banker at Standard Chartered where she held both European and global managing director roles. She set up, ran and scaled several of the bank’s key client and product businesses across its corporate and institutional bank and led several global M&A activities. Working internationally across Europe, the Americas, Middle East and Asia, living in Singapore for a period of time.
During the height of the financial crisis was seconded to work across the banking industry where she led the Business Finance Taskforce and Better Business Finance which was responsible for, amongst other initiatives, the founding of the Business Growth Fund, SME Finance Monitor, and leading on developments in Open Banking, and the Small Business Act.
She is a Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at Strathclyde University and holds a variety of non executive director and advisory roles across the creative, business and finance communities.This has included participating in the Fintech Strategy review; the Life Sciences Scaleup Taskforce; Creative Industry Councils and sitting on Canada’s National Research Industrial Advisory Council.
Gerard Grech CBE
Gerard works at the forefront of emerging technologies and economic growth. He has vast experience in working with the UK’s most successful founders and fast-growing tech companies, having supported over 1300 companies, including 42 unicorns, during his time as Chief Executive of Tech Nation. Now as Managing Director at Founders at the University of Cambridge, he is supporting innovative businesses coming through the university to accelerate their growth and development through capital investment, expertise mentoring and community. Its mission is to equip these companies with everything they need to become investment ready so they can scale and have societal impact. Cambridge University and its ecosystem form the best performing science unicorn hub of Europe and it is globally ranked third for technological innovation output. In 2024 Gerard was appointed CBE by the King in the New Year’s Honours List for services to the technology sector and he is a long-standing adviser to the UK government on tech and digital policies.
Mia Haffety
Mia joined techUK in September 2023.
Mia works to ensure that the UK policy and regulatory environment promote investment into the tech sector, recognising the role of digital and emerging technology towards future growth and productivity.
Prior to joining techUK, Mia worked as a Senior Policy Adviser at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) within the Policy Unit.
Mia holds an MSc in International Development from the University of Manchester and a BA(Hons) in Politics and International Relations from the University of Nottingham.
Russell Haggar
Russell Haggar is co-founder, CEO and chair at VyperCore. Russell has been active in the high-tech industry for well over 30 years, graduating from deep technical roles into commercial and operational leadership activities – including a productive six-year spell as a venture capital principal with the UK’s leading early-stage tech investor (Prelude Ventures, now Molten Ventures). Former companies include Element 14, Marconi, Madge Networks, Sagentia, XMOS, SiConnect, and Prelude Ventures. He has been directly involved with over 30 tech startups, and now helps the UK government deliver its national semiconductor strategy.
Nathalie Haller
Nathalie is a Director at UK Infrastructure Bank (UKIB) where she has lead coverage responsibility for the Industrials & Supply Chain sector, which encompasses investments in semiconductors. As part of its twin mission to accelerate investment into projects tackling climate change and catalysing regional economic growth, UKIB is offering long-term patient capital in support of semiconductor manufacturing and scaling-up the UK’s domestic capabilities. Nathalie has over 15 years of origination and execution experience across the infrastructure and energy sectors and brings with her a wealth of experience in advising, raising funds and structuring transactions ranging from growth equity to complex greenfield project financings. Before joining UKIB Nathalie was heading the EMEA project finance advisory team at the Korea Development Bank which she helped set up, and previously served as a director in Mizuho Bank’s EMEA project finance desk. Nathalie is a CFA charterholder.
John Hartley
A passionate net zero advocate, John studied climate change and environmental economics at the University of Cambridge before pursuing a career in energy and technology development. Prior to Levidian, John was Global Director of Product Management for Centrica, with accountability for bringing new, low-carbon technology to their global business customer base including EV enablement, demand response and battery storage.
Dr Hermann Hauser CBE
Hermann co-founded Amadeus Capital Partners in 1997 with Anne Glover. He has founded and invested in many technology companies including Acorn, ARM, Solexa which was bought by Ilumina, CSR, Graphcore and Photonic.
Hermann holds an MA in Physics from Vienna University and a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and was awarded an honorary KBE in 2015.
Faye Holland
Faye Holland wears many hats within Cambridge’s famed technology sector, inspiring and connecting on many different levels, driving Cambridge’s global reputation as the UK’s centre for Technology, Science & Innovation.
Her 25+ years in tech spans the UK’s first ISP, various emerging business practices in IBM, and running the European and Asia-Pacific operations of a global media company.
Her multi-award-winning tech specialist PR and communications consultancy, cofinitive, is focused on promoting early-stage startups and scaleups – guiding clients to top awards whilst delivering impactful communications for companies poised to make a difference in the world.
Faye is also known for creating the influential #21toWatch innovation awards, and being a mentor to various entrepreneurship programmes run by the University of Cambridge. She is a popular MC and speaker at national/ international events, a regular judge of tech competitions, and for the last five years has held a free drop-in comms clinic advising tech startups, which is always busy!
David Holman
David Holman, is a Director and Co-Founder of Armour Communications since 2014. Earlier in his career he held a variety of sales and general management positions within international organisations in the IT industry, including being the CEO and co-founder of Becrypt, where he led the business to profitability and £10m revenue. In addition, he has been a Non-Executive Director/Advisor for several start-up companies in the security industry. During this time, David has also sat on various Government/industry committees, presented on behalf of Tech UK SME’s to the Department of Business and Trade (DBT) parliamentary select committee on digital free trade and is currently a DBT Export Champion for London, a role which he has performed since 2020.
Dr Niall Holmes
Dr Niall Holmes is co-founder at Cerca Magnetics Limited and Mansfield Fellow in Physics at the University of Nottingham. Niall has been developing and commercialising hardware and techniques to enable wearable neuroimaging since 2016. Cerca produce quantum-enabled magnetoencephalography (MEG) systems which collect highly accurate brain data whilst permitting participant movements during scans across all ages (unlike e.g. MRI). Cerca’s technology allows a unique window on the brain with both clinical and neuroscientific applications.
Sir Andy Hopper CBE
Andy Hopper is a technologist and entrepreneur. His interests include computer and data systems. Over his lengthy career he co-founded over a dozen companies, three of which floated on stock markets, and the others were sold.
Cian Hughes
Cian Hughes is a Cambridge, UK based venture capitalist and technology entrepreneur with over 20 years operational experience in the areas of venture capital, accelerators, executive networks, software solutions, mobile platforms and supply chain operations.
Previously Cian was an executive with Lotus Inc. (now IBM), Intel Corporation and Palm Inc. as well as being Vice President of Operations for the San Francisco and San Jose, CA based Silicon Valley Global (SVG) Partners.
Jane Hutchins
Appointed as Director of Cambridge Science Park in August 2022, Jane Hutchins brings a wealth of experience of the science park sector and the innovative companies and people it serves.
Jane is also chair of the Cambridge Forum for Place, established by Cambridge University Health Partners and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, and chair of Anglia Ruskin University’s business advisory board.
Working in partnership with Trinity College Cambridge and managing agents Bidwells, Jane is responsible for delivering the College’s future vision for the Science Park. This includes an ambitious new cycle of investment focused on sustainability, amenity enhancement and the creation of diverse and inclusive employment opportunities for the wider Cambridge community. Jane also plays a key role in supporting existing and new businesses on the Park, which is at the heart of one of the best-known and economically successful science, technology and innovation ecosystems in the world – Cambridge.
Adam Igra
Adam joined the Board of Trustees in October 2020.
He has extensive experience across the Health and Social Care sector, having worked in senior operational, strategic and project management roles at several acute and tertiary hospitals, regulators and commissioners, as well as in a private sector management consultancy firm.
Throughout, Adam has specialised in transforming clinical pathways to improve the quality and patients’ experience of care, and reduce the administrative burden on clinical staff. Increasingly this has involved exploiting the opportunities presented by digital technology. In his current role as Director of Innovation at Cambridge University Hospitals, he is working to develop new technologies and ways of working that improve the efficacy, efficiency and experience of patient care. This includes fostering innovation and entrepreneurship within the Trust, but also partnering with external organisations that are at the forefront of clinical research and development in areas such as artificial intelligence, novel devices and genomics, promoting the adoption of innovative technologies that can support staff to deliver better patient care.
Alongside his NHS role, Adam works for a Health Tech company, Phare Health, that is developing AI to automatically and accurately structure unstructured clinical notes in support of clinical coding and other applications. By sitting on both sides of the fence, Adam has a unique perspective on the opportunities – and challenges – represented by healthcare innovation.
Adam is delighted to be supporting the RCPCH as it plays a crucial role in developing the future of care for children and young people.
Philip Intallura
Philip is the Global Head of Quantum Technologies at HSBC. Part of the Global Innovation & Ventures team, Phil is supporting the bank leverage new and emerging technologies to serve customers better and develop competitive advantage. Phil has a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Cambridge, and showed the world’s first demonstration of telecom fibre-based quantum key distribution using single photons from a quantum dot.
Dr Rajeshwari Iyer
Dr Iyer is co-founder and CEO of sAInaptic, an AI company that automates the marking, measurement and personalisation of assessments, beyond multiple choice questions, across the education sector. Their first product, sAInaptic School, is used across the UK and abroad for homework & assessments in GCSE Sciences.
She received a PhD in computational sciences from Imperial College London after an MPhil from Cambridge. With over 16 years of experience in data science, complemented by a background in software technology, across academia and the NHS, Raj brings a wealth of experience in the use of technology & AI in both healthcare and education.
Valerie Jackson
Valerie Jackson is an accomplished developer, Project Manager and Business Owner with over three decades of IT acumen. Her career commenced in 1990 following her studies in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science in the United States, after which she worked with the US Department of Defence and HM Treasury.
Her career has taken her across the US, Italy and Germany, though she has called the UK home for the past 30 years. Her diverse professional background includes founding her own SAP consultancy, where she worked with multiple Fortune 500 companies including Ericsson, Siemens and Unilever. Additionally, she technically supported small businesses and served as a Business Manager for Brickfield Surveyors Ltd, demonstrating her versatility and leadership in different business environments.
Currently, Valerie is a Technical Project Manager at Wolfram Research, based near Oxford, whose external projects leverage Wolfram’s cutting-edge technologies in data science, machine learning and LLMs. In this role, she oversees the Project Management Office to deliver innovative solutions to customers in the technology, education, healthcare and finance sectors.
Craig Jamieson
Craig Jamieson originally trained in horticulture and has a master’s degree in International Rural Development with ‘Distinction’. He has worked in business management, consultancy and also scientific research, specialising in sustainable agriculture and biomass. His work has taken him across Africa and Asia for clients including the UK Government, UN FAO, World Agroforestry and the International Rice Research Institute.
In 2016 with support from the UK Government, Craig established an industrial pilot plant collecting waste rice straw. Straw Innovations Ltd was born and he is now taking it to first commercial scale in the Philippines.
Catherine Joce
As Head of Sustainability at Cambridge Consultants, Catherine is driven by the urgency of the world’s environmental and social imperative. As she puts it, many of the solutions needed to complete a sustainability transition simply don’t exist yet. There is a pressing need to develop new solutions that have low, no, or even positive impact.
Catherine thrives at the intersection of sustainability and innovation, helping clients grasp the opportunity that deep tech offers to transform their business with long-term commercial advantage. From game-changing climate tech to systems-approaches to solving the most intractable of environmental and social challenges, her message is clear. It’s time to innovate.
Lee Johnson
Lee is responsible for developing Toshiba’s quantum technology business in EMEA, focusing on quantum safe networking. He has 30-years’ experience across a range of engineering, sales and marketing roles deploying disruptive technologies within the Enterprise, IT and Telecoms sectors.
Dr Nik Johnson
Elected Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough in 2021, Dr Nik Johnson was born in 1969 and has been active in local politics for many years, including serving as a district councillor, and standing as a parliamentary candidate for Huntingdon in 2015.
Originally from the North-East of England, Dr Johnson qualified as a doctor in 1993 and has worked as an NHS paediatrician at Hinchingbrooke Hospital since 2007. Passionate about improving public health and wellbeing, he sees the work of the Combined Authority as a catalyst of beneficial change – collaborative work delivering local solutions for inclusivity, for more equal access to opportunity and resources, for ‘good green growth’, and for affordable, public transport that serves communities and respects the environment.
Now three years into his Mayoral term, the Combined Authority that Dr Johnson leads has been highly rated for its active travel plans, has championed local bus services in the face of cuts, been a powerful support for business during the pandemic and into the high street recovery. It has also revamped its transport and connectivity strategy to prioritise left-behind communities, address digital exclusion, and link more people to education, training, work, and leisure opportunity.
Dr Johnson lives near the Cambridgeshire market town of St Neots, with his wife, who is a fellow doctor, and their three children, revelling in a “weekend life based around the participation and enjoyment of sport, dance and acting activities.”
The Mayor is the Patron of Eddie’s – a charity supporting people with learning disabilities in Cambridgeshire.
Sir Peter Knight
Knight is Chair of the UK National Quantum Technology Programme Strategy Advisory Board and has been involved in the creation of the UK Quantum programme since its inception, including the creation of the UK Quantum Strategy and the commitment of £2.5bn over the next decade to the field. He chairs the Quantum Metrology Institute at the National Physical Laboratory and is Senior Research Investigator at Imperial College where until 2010 he was Deputy Rector (Research). He was knighted in 2005 for his work in optical physics. Knight was the 2004 President of the Optical Society of America and 2011-2013 President of the Institute of Physics. He was until 2010 chair of the UK Defence Scientific Advisory Council and remains a UK Government science advisor. His research centres on quantum optics, nonclassical light and quantum technology. He has won the Thomas Young Medal and the Glazebrook Medal of the Institute of Physics, the Ives Medal and the Walther Medal and Prize of the OSA, the Royal Medal of the Royal Society and the Faraday Prize of the IET.
Zygmunt Lozinski
Zygmunt is the Principal Architect for Telecom in IBM. He led the creation of the GSMA Post Quantum Telco Network Task Force and was the Editor of “Post Quantum Telco Network Impact Assessment” Whitepaper (Feb 2023). He works with leading telco clients in US and Europe on Quantum Computing and Post-Quantum Cryptography programs.
He is also responsible for IBM’s Telco Network Cloud (NFV), Network Edge and 5G security solutions. He co-lead the design of the first telco edge platform in the world, and co-lead delivery of one of the first telco clouds in Europe. He was a ontributor to the ETSI NFV Security and Linux Foundation ONAP Security work groups; he has advised western governments on the security aspects of 5G.
Zygmunt has filed over 30 patents, and lives outside Cambridge
Tom Mason
Currently working on a new AI stealth startup, Unlikely AI, in explainability, reasoning and neurosymbolic architectures.
Previously CTO @ Stability AI, Awarded Top 75 Innovators of 2023 by World AI Summit, Creator of DreamStudio.ai.
Tom led the Engineering division for the Stability AI Platform and Infrastructure, working on the future of generative AI to inspire global creativity and innovation, including Stable Diffusion and other large foundation models. Stability AI-backed research communities developed breakthrough AI models applied to imaging, language, code, audio, video, 3D content, design, biotech and other scientific research. Working with Amazon Web Services provided us with the world’s fifth-largest supercomputer – the Ezra-1 UltraCluster – supplying the necessary power to generate these advancements.
Previously Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Chorus Intelligence, global data platform for law-enforcement and formerly founder of tech accelerator YouSoft.
Currently also mentoring Founders @ University of Cambridge.
Dr Christine Martin
The Cambridge Enterprise Ventures team are responsible for venture investing University of Cambridge funds into University of Cambridge spin-outs. The team invest in opportunities across the breadth of University research including quantum, silicon, sustainability, AI, med tech and drug discovery.
Christine’s background is in Life Science investment with a focus on drug discovery. She has supported numerous University of Cambridge spin-outs, including Carrick, Pretzel, Transition Bio, Z-factor, PhoreMost, Qkine, Spirea and Pharmenable.
With a degree and D. Phil in Chemistry from the University of Oxford, prior to becoming an investor, Christine had roles managing licensing of University intellectual property and before that working for a biotechnology spin-out from the University of Cambridge.
Duncan McCunn
Duncan has spent the majority of his career in Banking and Finance.
Working for NatWest, IBM and Barclays he has specialised in Corporate Banking, directly and leading teams providing Capital Markets, Corporate Finance, Working Capital and Payment Solutions to SMEs and Global Corporates.
As a founder Director of Cambridge Ahead, he started to work more deeply within the Cambridge Ecosystem 10 years ago and is now CEO of Cambridge&, an organisation focussed on growing Foreign Direct Investment into Cambridge and the Economic Impact of Cambridge more broadly across the UK and globally.
He is also a Board member of the Oxford to Cambridge Supercluster and an active supporter of the Pan Regional Partnership, where he looks to help grow Economic Impact more broadly across the region.
Owen Metters
Dr Owen Metters is an Investment Manager in the Deep Tech team at Octopus Ventures, one of the most prolific venture capital investors in Europe. He sits on the board of start-up companies in the fields of robotics, semiconductors, materials chemistry, and quantum computing. Owen was previously part of the investment team running the Foresight WAE Technology Funds and has spent time in technology transfer at the University of Oxford.
He has a PhD in Materials Chemistry from the University of Bristol having carried out research in the fields of catalysis and main group polymer chemistry.
Laraine Moody
I started my career in education in 1994 by working with the Department for Work and Pensions and being responsible for engaging adults in training for new and future careers. I was so bowled over by the impact that skills training had on people’s lives that I became a Training Advisor for a private training company specialising in Apprenticeships across Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. It was there that I fell in love with Apprenticeships, adult skills and work-based training. I could not be prouder of my role as Group Principal of UPD and the work that we do across the Eastern Education Group in changing lives for the better.
John Morton
John Morton is Professor of Nanoelectronics & Nanophotonics at University College London (UCL) and has spent the past 20 years researching and developing spin-based quantum technologies such as quantum computers and quantum sensors, in a range of materials and devices. After reading Electrical Engineering at University of Cambridge, John undertook at PhD at University of Oxford, to work on techniques for controlling spins as quantum bits. John was a Royal Society University Research Fellowship from 2008-16, and he has held back-to-back European Research Commission (ERC) grants. At UCL, John is Director of the UCL Quantum Science and Technology Institute (UCLQ) which includes over 120 researchers and 30 research groups. John’s awards include the Nicholas Kurti European Science prize (2008), the Institute of Physics Moseley Medal (2013) in experimental physics, and the Sackler International Prize in Physical Sciences (2016). John has published over 130 papers with 13,000 citations and has an h-index of 52. He has co-founded multiple companies in the field of quantum technology, including Quantum Motion (developing silicon-based quantum computing hardware) and Phasecraft (developing quantum algorithms). John is active in the public engagement of science, including public exhibitions, documentaries, videos, radio broadcasts and popular articles on quantum science and technology.
Dr. Shahram Mossayebi
Dr. Shahram Mossayebi is the co-founder and CEO of Crypto Quantique, a London-based company specialising in cybersecurity solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT). Before co-founding Crypto Quantique, Shahram worked as a cybersecurity consultant. Alongside his co-founder Dr. Patrick Camilleri, he invented the world’s first quantum tunnelling physical unclonable function (PUF) chip, called QDID, after identifying a significant vulnerability in existing IoT chip designs. Shahram is recognised as a quantum cybersecurity expert and has published several scientific papers and patents. His work focuses on creating simple, scalable, and secure solutions that address the complex challenges of IoT device connectivity and protection against cyber threats. Under his leadership, Crypto Quantique has raised funding from prominent venture capital firms over multiple rounds, won multiple grants from the European Innovation Council (EIC) and has been awarded multiple industry awards.
Shahram holds an MSc in Information Security and a PhD in Post-Quantum Cryptography, both from Royal Holloway, University of London. His doctoral thesis focused on providing an in-depth analysis of the security of existing symmetric encryption schemes against attackers with quantum capabilities.
Henri Murison
Since his appointment in 2017, he has led the Northern Powerhouse Partnership as the business led organisation which convenes the North together. From having made the case consistently for both HS2 to the North alongside Northern Powerhouse Rail, to challenging for a better deal for the most disadvantaged from the education system, his team are focused on how government, business and partners can drive the North’s ambitions. Before joining the Partnership, he worked in senior research and policy roles in policing and financial services, and as a former senior local government figure in Newcastle upon Tyne remains a commentator on regional and wider industrial policy.
Since 2020 he has also served as a member of the Royal Society Science, Industry and Translation Committee, as well as being a member of the Court of Newcastle University.
Richard Murray
Richard co-founded ORCA Computing in 2019. He is an accomplished business executive and technologist with a PhD in quantum atom-optics and over 15 years of experience managing scientific teams working on disruptive early-stage technologies such as quantum, AR/VR and other consumer and industrial applications of photonics. Under Richard’s leadership, the company has grown to a team of over 65 people and expanded its global presence by establishing U.S. headquarters in Austin, Texas, following a strategic acquisition in 2024. He developed a roadmap focused on building a fault-tolerant universal quantum computer. Previously, Richard worked for the UK government alongside Sir Peter Knight creating the £270m UK quantum technologies program. He was also pivotal in the early stages of the €1 billion EU quantum flagship program.
Shin Nikkuni
Shinichi (Shin) Nikkuni is Managing Partner / Co-Founder at NordicNinja VC, the largest Japanese VC that is headquartered in London and Stockholm. Shin is now based in Cambridge, after spending almost 5 years in Finland.
NordicNinja is a team of founders and operators focusing on problem areas the world has to solve – from transportation to healthcare to a wide array of digital infrastructure – to decrease the vast carbon footprint and achieve ambitious missions with founders. Before becoming a capitalist, Shin once co-founded H2GO Power, a climate-tech spin-out company from the University of Cambridge, right after the Cambridge MBA.
Cecilia Nunn
As Responsible AI Lead at Digital Catapult, Cecilia works with businesses, government, start-ups, academics and investors to put ethics into practice. She attends the All-Party Parliamentary Group for AI (APPG-AI), the Responsible Quantum Forum and is a member of the the BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides) board led by the BBC and the University of Edinburgh. She’s managed multi-million-pound international digital projects for leading technology companies such as Google and as a full-stack software engineer, focuses on integrating trust, safety and fairness into all stages of the AI lifecycle.
Mission-driven by programming, design and the use of tech to transform society, she’s extremely passionate about getting more women into STEM. Having originally come from a humanities background in international relations where she worked in India, Guatemala and Chile, she blends this experience with her technical expertise.
Phil O’Donovan FREng
Phil O’Donovan, as founding Managing Director, helped grow Cambridge-based CSR plc from a startup of nine cofounders in 1999 into a highly successful FTSE 250 listed fabless semiconductor company employing, in 2015, more than 2,000 people in 23 locations.
Within four years from 1999, CSR became the largest global market supplier of Bluetooth chips with annual revenue of $1billion in 2012 and by 2015 had shipped 4billion chips. CSR was acquired by Qualcomm in September 2015 for $2.5billion.
Phil is an Engineer and a Cambridge-based mentor, director and angel investor in technology startups, a speaker on entrepreneurial topics at universities and business schools and an advisor to organisations wishing to commercialise their IP.
Tim Passingham
Tim was sponsored by BT while at Manchester University and graduated with a First-Class Honours and Masters in electrical and electronic engineering. After projects working with IBM, BT Japan and BT Syntegra Trading Systems, he joined BT in 1997 as a Systems Engineer working in the Global Finance organisation. In 1999, he joined Concert, BT’s joint venture with AT&T. Following roles in IP and eBusiness consulting and specialist sales working across pharmaceutical, automotive and industrial manufacturing industries, Tim moved back to BT to join their new global oil and gas practice as an Account Manager and later became the Global Account Director for BP.
In 2005, Tim was appointed to lead BT’s Oil and Gas Line of Business and after two years of exceptional growth became General Manager for the Oil & Gas, Pharmaceutical and Technology Sector. He was then appointed as Director to lead the new Energy and Industry Sector. In September 2009, he went on to lead the newly structured Global Partners organisation where he led market units focused on supporting the information and communications technology needs of BT’s largest systems integrator, technology and BPO partners.
In 2011, Tim was asked to take on the VP role for BT Conferencing where he transformed the business into one of the fastest growing divisions of the BT Group.
In 2013, Tim moved from BT to Level3 Communications (now Lumen Technologies) to run most of their business in EMEA and to accelerate the growth of the $560 million business. After an ambitious growth initiative, he joined Colt to transform their wholesale telecommunications business.
Tim Founded Cambridge Management Consulting in 2015 between roles in Level3 and Colt. In 2018, he left Colt to focus on Cambridge Management Consulting. He is now the Executive Chair of Cambridge MC where he works to help their clients have a better impact on the world. He also chairs Lightning Fibre, an alternative network provider, and Iknaia, a pollution reduction and technology company, and acts as a non-executive director for edenseven and the Carrier Club.
Tim chairs a thinktank called The Intelligent Network (TIN) which is attended by CxOs from many of the world’s largest telecommunications, cloud and content providers. And he is a William Pitt Fellow of Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, where he works to bring the worlds of academia and business closer together.
He is committed to donating his time to charitable causes, and supports several charities, including Telecoms Sans Frontieres (TSF), where he is a Global Ambassador, and acts as a Patron and Trustee of the British Exploring Society (BES).
Graham Peters
Graham Peters is a co-founder of UKQuantum and member of its Executive Committee. He is the Managing Director of Government Services at Arqit which he joined in 2019. He was chair of the UKspace trade body from 2018 to 2020 and independent chair of the cross government/industry/academia Space Partnership Board from 2018 to February this year. He has 30+ years’ experience in the telecommunications and space sectors with extensive c -level relationships across industry and government. Prior to joining Arqit he ran the Applied Technologies and Government Services business at the satellite broadband provider Avanti Communications. Previous to that he had general management and engineering roles at Telespazio-Vega and British Aerospace. He holds a BSc(Hons) in Physics from London University.
Claudia Perry
In her digital research and development role, Claudia’s focus is on quantum technologies from an end-user perspective, and in working to understand the future quantum landscape, she enjoys collaborating with organisations large and small from across the ecosystem. Claudia represents bp in their UKQuantum consortium membership, and is chair of the UKQuantum Responsible Quantum Innovation working group.
With a background in maths and computer science, and having also spent time in bp’s digital security team, Claudia continues to work with emerging ‘trust technologies’. She has knowledge of the information security industry, and led company-wide behavioural change programmes, aiming to lower cyber risk across the organisation.
Miha Pipan
Miha is the cofounder of Better Origin, a deep tech based in Cambridge specialising in insect bioconversion. Better Origin convert food waste into sustainable animal food using black soldier fly as the conversion catalyst. He is a founding member of the UK Insect Bioconversion Association. Miha read Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, specialising in biochemistry.
Tim Pryce
A highly skilled business leader with extensive experience in building teams, creating successful growth environments and has delivered multiple realisations, across industry sectors, in the USA and UK.
Prof Rachel Oliver FReng
Prof Rachel Oliver FReng is a materials engineer, inventor and spinout founder, and Director of the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride. Her passion for understanding and engineering the small-scale structure of semiconductor materials to enable new technologies has been recognised in 2021 by her selection as an IEEE Photonics Society Distinguished Lecturer and in 2023 by the award of a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies. Rachel is an advocate for equality, diversity and inclusion in science and engineering, and has addressed the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee on these issues. She is also engaged with policy-making as a member of the Advisory Board to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Semiconductors, and was a member of the UK semiconductor strategy delegation to Washington DC in 2023.
James Parton
James supports the local start-up ecosystem in his role as the Managing Director of The Bradfield Centre, and as co-host of Cambridge Tech Podcast.
He has operated at leadership level in both start-up and corporate organisations, most recently at Twilio, where he built and ran their EMEA operation until IPO.
James co-authored ‘Developer Relations’, published by Apress in 2021, and he advises companies on how to build and nuture successful technical communities.
Professor Claire Pike
Claire is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education Enhancement) at Anglia Ruskin University. In this role, she leads work on curriculum development and enhancement – particularly in relation to innovative education in response to employer need – academic quality, student achievement, and the student experience, across a wide range of courses, disciplines and delivery modes. She is passionate about the power of education to positively transform people’s lives.
With a research background in molecular biology, Claire’s career to date spans science, education, and academic leadership. She led Anglia Ruskin’s Gold-awarded submission to TEF 2023, and is leading the Talent/Skills strand of the Innovate Cambridge strategy for the wider Cambridgeshire ecosystem of knowledge-intense sectors. Claire is a National Teaching Fellow, a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology.
Cate Poulson
Cate joined Excelerator Partners as co-founder and COO in March 2024. She is an experienced business leader and business builder, with a background in executive talent and private equity in the scale-up ecosystem.
Prior to Excelerator Partners she spent 12 years at BGF, the UK’s most active growth capital investor. She joined BGF shortly post launch and created the BGF Talent Network, developing it into one of the largest and most active value creation capabilities of any investment firm. She and her team partnered with over 500 businesses to shape highly effective Boards, including placing more than 400 Non-Executive Chairs and Directors and hundreds of Experts in the UK, Europe and US.
She was a member of BGF’s Executive Committee, developed their in-house research and intelligence team, and took the lead on BGF’s strategy to increase investment into women led businesses.
Cate is a guest lecturer at Henley Business School and regular speaker on Board Effectiveness; she is a member of the Women in Angel Investing Taskforce; and an Independent NED at the ScaleUp Institute.
Dr Richard Price
Richard is co-founder and CTO at Pragmatic Semiconductor and has more than 25 years’ experience in the development and commercialisation of new technologies based on novel processes and materials. He is a Non-Executive Director at the Henry Royce Institute – the UK’s National Institute for advanced materials research – and is inventor/co-inventor on over 30 patent families. Richard holds a PhD in Chemistry from Durham University.
Tony Quested
Tony Quested is CEO of Cambridge-based Business Weekly which in May 2024 entered its 35th year of publishing East of England B2B news and views. A veteran of national newspapers, radio and television, Quested was swift to recognise the importance of Cambridge academia, technology and life sciences and has worked with entrepreneurs in those sectors, alongside thought leaders, investors and collaborators to help raise the Cluster’s reputation and worth on the global stage.
Gary Rawlins
Gary Rawlins has been a prominent figure in the IT industry for over 30 years, with an illustrious career primarily focused on the storage marketplace. With an unparalleled depth of experience and a knack for innovation, Gary has consistently been at the forefront of driving technological advancements and delivering cutting-edge solutions to clients worldwide.
Recently, Gary has made a strategic transition into the exciting realm of GenAI business development. Leveraging decades of industry insight and a keen understanding of market dynamics, Gary is pioneering initiatives that harness the power of Artificial Intelligence to revolutionise businesses across diverse sectors.
With a passion for driving growth and a proven track record of forging impactful partnerships, Gary is dedicated to unlocking the full potential of GenAI technologies for clients, enabling them to achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency, productivity, and competitiveness in today’s digital landscape.
Sean Redmond
Sean Redmond has 40 years of experience in the semiconductor and software industries. He is a Managing Partner for Silicon Catalyst, the world’s only semiconductor startup incubator and accelerator which has helped over 100 semiconductor companies world-wide. He leads the team that runs the UK Governments ChipStart UK early stage startup incubator. His Government policy work includes key roles in the UK’s industrial strategy and semiconductor strategy with successive governments. Sean has a BSc(hons), MSc EE from Kings College, London and MBA from Henley Management College.
Mike Rigby
Mike is the CEO of Eastern Promise, a non-profit Community Interest Company dedicated to championing the East of England’s people, places, and potential.
His energetic, values-based and wholly positive approach is exemplified by his popular Eastern Promise podcast. Now in its third year, the podcast is known for its uplifting and informative content, highlighting the East of England’s stupendous potential across its sectors, industries and places.
Eastern Promise also holds live events where the same themes of seizing opportunity, realising potential and positive action lead the way. Mike is also an in-demand MC and moderator, having helmed local, regional and national events, including panels at the UK Real Estate, Infrastructure and Investment Forum (UKREiiF) and Cambridge Tech Week.
Before starting Eastern Promise, Mike spent 15 years as a Parliamentary Researcher to a Norfolk MP, during which time he wrote speeches, national press statements and articles, supported select committee work, organised events, helped draft legislation, led the response to the 2009 expenses scandal, and both conceived and managed the “How Should Norfolk Grow?” initiative, in many ways a forerunner to Eastern Promise.
Mike is also a media and PR consultant, white-label podcast producer, occasional stand-up comedian and lecturer, although not simultaneously.
Tracey Rob Perera
Tracey Rob Perera CA is the Head of Corporate Development & Community at Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates, where she plays a pivotal role in driving the growth and inclusivity of the global tech ecosystem.
With over 25 years of experience in the tech and finance sectors, Tracey is an IoD award-winning NED for 2023 and a Chartered Accountant. She runs a dynamic portfolio career to drive growth and innovation in tech startups and scale-ups. As a Fractional CFO/COO, Scale-up Director and Angel Investor, Tracey specialises in strategic financial management, investor readiness, and operational excellence, helping businesses navigate the complexities of rapid growth.
Tracey is focused on building innovative tech startups and scale-ups, providing strategic guidance on financial management, investor readiness, and operational excellence. She leverages her deep expertise to mentor emerging tech founders through initiatives like Techstars, Nat West, Outlier Ventures, Mint Ventures and Innovate UK helping them navigate the challenges of rapid business growth.
Previously, Tracey served as a Director at KPMG, where she played a pivotal role in addressing major challenges such as Brexit and sustainability. Her international experience spans multiple sectors, working with clients ranging from emerging scale-ups to FTSE 350 and FTSE 100 companies. During her time at KPMG, she led diverse and inclusive teams, bringing a unique perspective to business transformation, growth, risk management, and regulatory compliance.
In addition, Tracey holds several non-executive director positions, serving on boards and Audit and Risk Committees, including London Metropolitan University and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, where she also chairs the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) committee.
Marc Rodríguez Garcia
Marc is Xampla’s co-founder, having developed the technology with Professor Knowles at the University of Cambridge. With a PhD from the University of Glasgow, his expertise lies in the use of natural biopolymers in microencapsulation and other structured materials. Marc is a unique CTO with incredible scientific knowledge and strong commercial acumen.
Sylvie Russell
Sylvie is the Chief Operating Officer at Cambridge Cleantech and has over 20 years of experience in senior roles in international companies, from SMEs and charities to large multi-national brands. She manages the Cleantech Venture Day, a flagship pitching event and a meeting place for innovators, investors, large enterprises and economic development partners to see next generation climate tech solutions and investment opportunities. Sylvie managed the delivery of the Act4Green programme in 2021 and the UK-India Tech Startup programme 2022, both intensive business accelerator programmes for British and Indian cleantech start-ups supported by the UK Government’s FCDO office. With a French Baccalauréat and a 4-year international business and management degree, her career has taken her to Monaco, the UK, Spain and Uruguay, providing her with experiences that have helped shape her understanding of different cultures and working environments. With every role and challenge, her aim has always been to ensure that everything goes smoothly for everyone involved.
Terry Ryan
Terry is currently Head of International Subsidiary Banking for London, in the UK, at HSBC. She has over 33 years of banking experience across various areas including, Retail Banking; Premier & Wealth management, Corporate Banking and Strategy.
She is passionate about diversity and inclusion, embedding these values in the numerous and diverse teams she has successfully managed, ensuring that customer engagement and strategies are tailored to individual needs and the positive customer journey experience is maximised. Terry is a member of the Generations, Journey, Nurture, Balance and LGBT+ Employee Resource Groups, as well as being a Sustainability Ambassador and Influencer.
Terry holds a degree in Financial Services from the Institute of Financial Services gained during her career.
In her spare time Terry enjoys going to the gym, travelling, walking (recently completed the Yorkshire 3 peaks challenge), going to theatre, listening to music and reading. She lives with her partner Steve and their 2 cats Ava and Parsley.
Jaroslaw Rzepecki
Jaroslaw is CTO of Monumo, a deeptech engineering start-up creating the world’s best electric motors. Having previously held software engineer positions at Siemens, Microsoft Research, and Arm, Jaroslaw has a PhD in Astrophysics and leads the company’s technology development. In his role, he is responsible for overseeing hardware and software development pipelines and directing Monumo’s deep ML research.
Dr Monica Saavedra, EngD
Monica has degrees in Physics, Nanotechnology and a doctorate in Nanomaterials (National Physical Laboratory). Over more than a decade in startups, Monica has built solar cells, batteries and DNA sequencers, and characterized them with novel techniques. Monica’s focus on sustainability and multidisciplinary mindset has led her to deliver on business development, commercial strategy, fundraising, and putting together an award-winning company, bringing us a step closer to net zero. Monica solicits transparency and good communication practices.
Dr Amir Sani
Dr Amir Sani is a thought leader in AI-driven process automation and strategic decision-making within private markets. With an impressive background that includes roles as Senior Vice President of Fund & Investment Analytics at Techstars, Partner at EY, and Chief Technology Officer at 13Books Capital, Dr Sani brings a wealth of experience to his field. His academic credentials are equally notable, with an MSc in Machine Learning from University College London, a PhD in Reinforcement Learning from INRIA France, and research fellowships at esteemed institutions such as Oxford University, Imperial College London, and the Centre d’Economie de la Sorbonne. This diverse experience amounts to over 15 years of expertise in advanced analytics, machine learning, and complex systems.
In addition to his professional roles, Dr Sani is a co-organiser of AI Salon London and an active advisor to AI startups, private market funds, and family offices. He views the innovation ecosystem as a complex system and advocates for high-quality, data-driven third-party matching between investors and startups to address liquidity constraints and connectivity limitations in the UK ecosystem.
Richard Selby
Richard is Chief Investment Officer at Brockton Everlast Inc., and co-manages the firm alongside Jason Blank and David Marks. Richard is responsible for Brockton’s overall strategy and execution and is directly involved in all investments, including originating, underwriting, executing, financing and asset managing.
Richard joined Brockton as Partner in 2014 after merging his niche development business, Grantham Associates, with Brockton. Richard and his seven-strong development and planning team had been successful, repeat joint venture partners of the Brockton Capital funds between 2006 and 2014, prior to the two firms merging.
Richard formally started his career in the property industry in 1989. Having originally gained his grounding in the Valuation and Appraisal team at Hillier Parker (now part of CBRE) in the late 1980s/early 1990s, Richard moved in to the family development business (Heritage Group), before establishing Grantham Associates in 1998.
After more than three decades in the business, virtually all of it in the development field in the UK, Richard has gained extensive, detailed knowledge and practical, hands-on experience across most sectors of the real estate market including offices, flex/co-working assets, life science and lab buildings, private and social residential, hotels, and retail. He has been involved in over 40 projects with a combined GDV in excess of £6.0 billion and has successfully led over 50 planning consents across 18 local authorities throughout his career. Richard spent the early part of his development career in finding innovative design solutions for listed and Historic England-protected sites, and now focuses on designing and delivering buildings and phased masterplans across large scale urban blocks.
Dr Andy Sellars
Andy serves as Strategic Development Director. He is a highly regarded expert in the UK semiconductor industry, frequently providing expert evidence to government and parliamentary inquiries. Andy led the Catapult’s international outreach with countries including Hong Kong, India, Taiwan and USA.
Andy was appointed by Innovate UK to develop the business case for CSA Catapult and subsequently led the start-up phase.
Andy chairs the Semiconductor Expert Working Group for the UK Telecom Innovation Network (UKTIN)
Andy chairs the Industrial & Scientific Advisory Board for the CORNERSTONE Photonics Innovation Knowledge Centre at Southampton University.
Andy was appointed to serve on the Government’s Semiconductor Advisory Panel.
Andy holds an Executive MBA from Glasgow University, a research doctorate from Strathclyde University and is a Fellow of the IET.
Oliver Sexton
Oliver is an Investment Director at UKI2S. Specialising in high impact biology based investments he has managed the engineering biology fund since its inception in 2014. He has invested in a broad range of companies in sectors as diverse as therapeutic, agritech and clean biotech, all of which are using biology to make sustainable and highly novel products.
He sits on multiple boards and has overseen exits including the £85m sale of Quethera to Astellas. He is also a member of the Future Planet Capital ESG steering group.
Prior to joining UKI2S, Oliver worked at the venture fund Imperial Innovations as well as other roles in the industry. He has a background in strategy analysis and consultancy including roles in New York and has a masters from the University of Bristol and commenced a PhD in bioremediation at the University of Nottingham.
Dr Chloe Sharp
Chloe’s work in grants started in 2013, and her work in innovative product development followed soon after, in 2016. In the last decade, she has supported multiple start-ups, SMEs and scaleups in accessing over £10m in non-dilutive funding and understanding their market, users and customers.
Chloe takes an evidence-led, data-driven approach, summarised in her book ‘Make Products That Matter’ from working in product management and UX research within an AI start-up and providing research services.
Humayun Sheikh
Humayun is an entrepreneur, investor, and tech visionary who is passionate about technologies such as AI, machine learning, autonomous agents, and blockchains. In the past, he was a founding investor in DeepMind, where he supported the commercialization of early-stage AI and deep neural network technology. Currently, he is leading Fetch.ai as CEO, a start-up building the autonomy of the future. He is also the chairman of the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance. Humayun is an expert on the topics of artificial intelligence, machine learning, autonomous agents, and the intersection of blockchain and commodities.
Professor Emily Shuckburgh OBE
Professor Emily Shuckburgh OBE is a world-leading climate scientist and science communicator, who is the director of Cambridge Zero, the University of Cambridge’s ambitious climate change initiative.
She is a mathematician and Professor of Environmental Data Science at Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology (CST). She also leads the UK national research funding body’s (UKRI) Centre for Doctoral Training on the Application of AI to the study of Environmental Risks (AI4ER) and is a director of the Centre for Landscape Regeneration (CFLR).
Professor Shuckburgh worked for more than a decade at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) where her work included leading a UK national research programme on the Southern Ocean and its role in climate. A Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey, the Royal Meteorological Society (RMS) and Darwin College, Emily Shuckburgh has also undertaken research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and École Normale Supérieure (ENS).
She is an advisor on climate to the UK Government and a Friend of COP26.
Emily is co-author with HM King Charles III and Tony Juniper of the Ladybird Book: Climate Change and was awarded an OBE for services to science and the public communication of science in 2016.
Dimitra Simeonidou
Dimitra Simeonidou is a Full Professor at the University of Bristol, the Co-Director of the Bristol Digital Futures Institute and the Director of Smart Internet Lab. Her research is focusing on the fields of high-performance networks, programmable networks, Future Internet, wireless-optical convergence, 5G/6G, and smart city infrastructures. In the past few years, she is increasingly working with Social Sciences and Humanities on topics of climate change and digital transformation for society and businesses. Dimitra has been the Technical Architect and the CTO of the smart city project Bristol Is Open. She is currently leading the Bristol City/Region 5G and Open RAN pilots.
Dimitra is a member of the DSIT Supply Chain Diversification Advisory Council, a founding member of UKTIN and has led major research projects funded by UKRI and the EC. She is currently coordinating the DSIT REASON project developing blueprint architectures and technologies for 6G.
She is the author and co-author of over 700 publications, numerous patents, and several contributions to standards. She has been co-founder of three spin-out companies developing solutions for connected smart infrastructures.
Dimitra is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), a Fellow of the IEEE (FIEEE), Fellow of WWRF, a Royal Society Wolfson Scholar and member of UKCRC.
Michael Simpson
Michael Simpson is co-founder and Chief Commercial & Product Officer for Cheesecake Energy, leading the development of a modular compressed air energy storage technology for commercial and industrial customers in need of 5-20 hours of storage. He previously worked on a range of gas turbine design and analysis challenges for Rolls-Royce Plc. and conducted research into energy storage at the University of Nottingham. Mike has a PhD in high-efficiency compression/expansion from Imperial College London and an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Cambridge.
The Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury PC MA PhD
Lord Smith has been the Master of Pembroke since 2015, He is a former Culture Secretary and Chairman of the Environment Agency.
Born in 1951, Chris was educated in Edinburgh and then Pembroke College, Cambridge, achieving a double first in English (and later a PhD on Wordsworth and Coleridge) and was also a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard.
Chris began his political career as a Labour Councillor for Islington Borough, becoming MP for Islington South and Finsbury in 1983. In 1992 he joined the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Environmental Protection, and two years later moved to Heritage, then Social Security and Health. When Labour came to power in 1997 he became Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and Chairman of the Millennium Commission. During his four years as Secretary of State he restored free admission to national museums and galleries, established NESTA, the Film Council, Creative Partnerships for schools, and the Foundation for Youth Music, expanded funding for the arts and sport, championed the creative industries for the first time in Government, and began the switchover process for digital television. He returned to the back benches in 2001, played a leading role in opposing the Iraq war, standing down from the Commons in 2005. Immediately afterwards he was made a life peer, taking his seat in the House of Lords in July 2005. He currently sits on the crossbenches as an independent Peer.
In 2003 he became Director of the Clore Leadership Programme, helping to develop the potential of future leaders in the cultural sector; he stepped down in July 2008 to become Chairman of the Environment Agency. He chaired the Environment Agency from 2008 to 2014; from 2007 to 2017 he was also Chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority. In 2014 he became Chairman of the Art Fund; he was Chairman of Judges for the Man Booker Prize in 2004; and Chairman of the Donmar Warehouse Theatre until 2014. In 2011-12 he led the Review of Film Policy for the Government. He is also Chair of the Intellectual Property Regulation Board, a Non-Executive Director of PPL, Chairman of South Staffs and Cambridge Water, and Honorary President of the Wordsworth Trust.
Euan Smith
An optical physicist by training, Euan has taken a varied path over 25 years of commercially facing technology development and technical leadership, mostly within startups, and occasionally hunched in the back of a clean-room in China trying desperately to get the production process to work. He is an author on over 40 patent families, more than 160 patents in total, across diverse technical areas.
Euan still publishes the occasional technical paper, is an IEC technical expert, and is an international speaker on this, and other subjects. Euan has enjoyed challenges from nano-scale photonics to system-level display design, image processing on restricted embedded systems, through to full-stack web-app development, always while balancing the competing requirements of customers and the limits of technology.
Lorriane Smith
Lorraine manages the international team and global programmes for Innovate UK Business Growth in the East of England. Lorraine and her team facilitate the delivery of Global Business Innovation Programmes and Global Incubator Programmes which are funded and designed by Innovate UK. Covering many key industry sectors from AI to Net Zero, across markets from Australia to New Zealand, the programmes support the growth of UK businesses through R&D, collaboration and partnership opportunities.
Dimitris Spathis
Dimitris Spathis is a senior research scientist at Nokia Bell Labs and a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge, where he completed his PhD. His work enables AI to handle complex real-world data efficiently, with a particular interest in how personal devices can be helpful for daily health.
He studies various topics in AI including data efficiency, multimodality, robustness, trustworthiness, and signal processing. He has previously worked at Microsoft Research, Telefonica Research, and Ocado. In 2020, he helped start one of the largest studies in audio AI for health (covid-19-sounds.org).
His research has been published in top academic venues in machine learning and AI for health, while findings have been featured in international media such as the New York Times, BBC, CNN, Guardian, Washington Post, Forbes, Financial Times, and Techcrunch. He has organized scientific meetings at top AI conferences and he serves on the editorial boards of Nature Digital Medicine and IEEE Pervasive Computing. His primary goal is to solve real problems and make AI more robust, humane, and useful. You can read more at https://dispathis.com/.
Peter Stephens
Peter Stephens leads Government Partnerships for Arm, where he acts as the interface between Arm and the UK government, supporting on key themes, including education, ecosystem growth, trade, tech policy, cyber security and artificial intelligence.
Peter is an experienced civil servant and international policy advisor. In previous roles within the UK government, Peter advised Ministers and the offices of Prime Ministers on the creation of Delivery Units at the heart of government. He led the ‘Secure by Design’ initiative, developing the world’s first legislation for the cyber security of the IoT, and was a knowledge partner to the G20. Within education policy, Peter was a Delivery Adviser to the Secretary of State for Education, specialising in social mobility and post-16 education alternatives to university. He has been a teacher in a south London academy and former school governor.
Charles Sturman
As CEO at TechWorks, Charles is driving collaboration between Deep Tech and Semiconductor companies, Academia and Government in order to promote the sector and grow business opportunities for UK companies. Previously, Charles was responsible for International Business & Marketing at HiSilicon (Huawei’s chipset business) based in Cambridge UK, with responsibility for product strategy, go-to-market and business development in IoT, edge and smart devices fields. Prior to this he led u-blox’ activities in the fast moving consumer IoT segment (wearables, smart-home and entertainment) following the acquisition of the ARM Software Radio spin-out Cognovo, where we was founder and executive VP Sales & Marketing. Charles has held various positions in system design, business development and product marketing within Acorn Computers, TTPCom, Motorola and ARM.
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/cfsturman
Satnam Surae
Satnam is CTO and co-founder of twig bio, a sustainability focussed synthetic biology start-up. At twig, he leads activities across ML/AI, computational biology, bioinformatics and automation. Prior to twig, he was a leader in product management for machine learning and AI enterprise software platforms, Peak AI and Aigenpulse, and in the sustainability group for chemicals company, Invista. Satnam holds a PhD in Computational Structural Biology from University College Dublin, an MRes in Computational Biology from University of York/University of California at San Diego, and a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of York.
Dr Simon Thomas
Simon is CEO of Paragraf, the company he founded in 2018. With a diverse background in physics, engineering and materials science, he spent many years in the fields of compound semiconductor materials, devices, and applications. Working in multiple scientific and technology disciplines led to the innovation of a novel manufacturing technique for graphene fabrication and subsequently Paragraf, today the only company in the world capable of producing graphene-based advanced material electronics at scale.
Simon is passionate about developing technologies that can solve today’s enduring challenges and beneficially affect global society. He believes that new materials hold the key to transformational products that will deliver a brighter more sustainable future.
Owen Thompson
Owen is CEO and Co-Founder of Cambridge Future Tech, a technology-first venture builder working with top-tier UK universities to spin-out the most promising deep technologies into commercial ventures with global impact.
Prior to his role at CFT, Owen was a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force for over a decade, then subsequently General Manager for Advanced Technologies at BAE Systems, which included running multiple R&D sites with technology focus areas such as microwave materials, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), printed electronics, and additive manufacturing.
Owen plans to expand CFTs venture-building activities, co-founding over 40 DeepTech companies in the next five years.
Dan Thorp
Dan was appointed as the Chief Executive at Cambridge Ahead in 2023 having previously been Director of Policy and Programmes. On behalf of Cambridge Ahead’s business, research and academic membership, Cambridge Ahead produces research and analysis driven by a focus on sustainable and inclusive growth into the long-term. This involves working closely with national and local policymakers.
Previously Dan worked at the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority as part of establishing the new Authority and focusing on place-making. This included developing the first Local Industrial Strategy and instigating the Market Town Masterplans programme.
Prof Florin Udrea
Florin Udrea is a professor in semiconductor engineering and head of the High Voltage Microelectronics and Sensors Laboratory at University of Cambridge.
He received his BSc degree from Politehnica University of Bucharest in 1991, his Master degree in sensors from Warwick University, UK in 1992 and his PhD degree in power devices from the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, in 1995. He was a research fellow (JRF) with Girton College, Cambridge University between October 1995 and September 1998. Since October 1998, Prof. Florin Udrea has been an academic with the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK. Between August 1998 and July 2003 he was an advanced EPSRC Research Fellow. He is currently leading a research group in power semiconductor devices and solid-state sensors that has won an international reputation during the last 25 years.
Prof. Udrea has published over 550 papers in journals and international conferences. He holds over 150 patents (for distinctive inventions) in power semiconductor devices and sensors.
Prof. Florin Udrea founded five companies, Cambridge Semiconductor (Camsemi) in power ICs – sold to Power Integrations, Cambridge CMOS Sensors (CCS) in the field of smart sensors – sold to ams, Cambridge Microelectronics in Power Devices, Cambridge GaN Device in high voltage GaN technology and Flusso in Flow and temperature sensors. Cambridge Semiconductor (Camsemi) sold 1bn power IC chips in the market between 2007 and 2015, before being acquired by Power Integrations. Both Cambridge GaN Devices Ltd and Flusso have received a string of awards and are considered two of the most exciting scale-up companies in the Cambridge Cluster.
Prof. Florin Udrea was board director in Cambridge Enterprise between 2011 and 2019. For his ‘outstanding personal contribution to British Engineering’ he has been awarded the Silver Medal from the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2015 Prof. Florin Udrea was elected a Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2018 Prof. Udrea has been awarded several major prizes, including the prestigious Mullard medal from the Royal Society. In 2021 Prof. Udrea was named “the Academic Entrepreneur of the Year” by Business weekly.
Jamie Urquhart
Jamie’s career started as a chip designer for what was one of the leading companies in the field – Plessey Research (Caswell) Limited. The rise in “home computers” led to a move to Acorn Computers to work on the Acorn RISC Machine chipset. Acorn changed strategic direction and the design team spun out as Advanced RISC Machines Ltd (later renamed ARM Ltd) where he moved to Sales. After leading the sales organisation, he moved to the role of Chief Operating Officer when the company floated on the LSE and NASDAQ. Later he moved to Chief Strategy Officer before retiring from ARM in 2002. He started Angel Investing but then joined Pond Venture Partners Ltd as a Venture Partner to help raise and invest their third fund. Retired again, Jamie spends his time advising and mentoring start-ups. Jamie is a Fellow of the IET and an Honorary Fellow (Entrepreneurship) of the Judge Business School.
Shai Vyakarnam
Prof Vyakarnam has had a passion for entrepreneurship education and development for over 30 years. He is currently Visiting Professor at the Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurship at Cranfield University, having had the honour of being its Director for four years. Previously, for fourteen years, he was founding director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at the University of Cambridge. His current role entails growing entrepreneurship education, mentoring and inspiring new generations of entrepreneurs.
His latest co-authored book is the Scale-Up Manual. It follows on the heels of Camels, Tigers and Unicorns: Rethinking science and technology enabled innovation. The Scale-Up Manual is designed to help teams navigate their way from early to mature stages of growth through understanding of the three chasms they will encounter on the journey as well as learn of the 12 vectors they can use to help overcome the challenges of the chasms. His last book with Neal Hartman, Unlocking the Enterpriser Inside, a book of Why, What and How takes readers into the practicalities of how to create courses and learning in education FOR entrepreneurship.
Prof Vyakarnam is active in several stages of business development from start-ups through scale-ups and growing businesses as educator, mentor, and coach. Typically involved in strategy, boardroom dynamics, team building and assisting with getting teams ready to pitch to investors with a particular interest for science and technology enabled businesses. As a result of these experiences, he has been invited to provide policy advice and executive education for larger firms that want to embrace entrepreneurial thinking. He is also on the advisory board of several early stage companies.
Ed Wood
Ed is a seasoned leader with a track-record of helping create & bring to market category-creating Products; he combines engineering sensibilities with a strong and creative product sense with business acumen.
His pragmatic Market Led approach has been instrumental in successfully positioning products in both mature, highly competitive and ‘green field’ markets.
Beyond Product, he has skills and experience leading Marketing, Business Development and Commercial activities. He is a passionate advocate of clear communication of the business benefits of a solution, delivered by the underlying technology
He has worked to bring high-impact high-utility solutions to multiple market sectors world-wide including Banking, Finance, Manufacturing, Government and Hyperscalers. He has experience of high growth environments, from start-ups to international technology giants.
Ed is fascinated by company culture and the ability of good culture to multiply productivity; he is actively involved in the nurturing and maintaining of the ambitious and productive ethos at Nu Quantum.
He loves to share his business experience and is involved in multiple programs to mentor and guide technology startups.
Philip Young
Philip Young is the Director for Strategy and External Affairs at Digital Catapult. He has 12+ years in digital consultancy and leadership, and 7+ years in deep technology market intelligence, research and strategy with both domestic and international programme development experience.
Named in Forbes 30-under-30 in 2016 and an international TEDx speaker, Philip has worked in various leadership roles in UK startups, scaleups and open-source technology companies spanning multiple domains. He has worked with the UK Government to set out the innovation and R&D strategy for Artificial Intelligence and Industry 4.0, and is currently helping to shape the building blocks of a new cyber physical internet underpinned by digital twins, metaverse and web3.
Steve Young CBE
Steve Young CBE, FRS, FREng is a Venture Partner at Amadeus Capital Partners in its early stage, deep tech investment team having joined in 2023. Steve has collaborated with Amadeus for over twenty years and supports the team in identifying and assessing promising investment opportunities and advising on portfolio companies as they scale and commercialise.
Steve is Emeritus Professor of Information Engineering at Cambridge University. His main research interests are in artificial intelligence and machine learning, especially the application of speech and language processing in conversational agents.
He was Head of the School of Technology from 2001 to 2004 and Senior Pro-Vice Chancellor from 2009 to 2015. He was a founder and VP Engineering at Entropic Inc acquired by Microsoft in 1999 and founder of VocalIQ Ltd acquired by Apple in 2015. From 2015 to 2019 he was a Senior Member of Technical Staff in the Siri Development team in Cambridge.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the IET and the IEEE. He holds an IEEE Signal Processing Society Technical Achievement Award, the ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement, a European Signal Processing Society Technical Achievement Award, the IEEE Gauss Education Award and the IEEE James L Flanagan Speech and Audio Processing Award.
He was awarded a CBE for services to software engineering in 2022.
Michaela Eschbach
Michaela has an impressive track record as a Founder and Director, both in the not-for-profit and for-profit space.
As co-founder of Form the Future CIC, Michaela drove strategic direction and operations for this multi-award-winning organisation which connects young people with career opportunities. As Managing Director of Founders4Schools, Michaela led the operational, financial and cultural transformation of this ed-tech charity.
Michaela is known for her passion and dedication in successfully driving companies through growth and challenges.
She was winner of the Cambridge News ‘Cambridge’s Most Influential Businesspeople Award’ in 2017 and was included in the EU-Startups’ Top 100: Europe’s Most Influential Women in the Startup and Venture Capital Space in 2023.
Michaela says, "As CEO of Cambridge Wireless, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to lead this exceptional organisation through a period of dynamic change in the tech landscape. Together with our dedicated members, we will harness the power of innovation to not only adapt to the evolving industry but to also drive it forward, ensuring Cambridge Wireless remains the cornerstone of technological advancement and value creation."
2023 Speakers & Chairs
Dr Victoria Baines
Dr Victoria Baines is Professor of IT at Gresham College, the City of London’s oldest higher education institution. Her current series of lectures is focused on Humanising Cyberspace and putting citizens back at the heart of tech policy. She frequently contributes to major broadcast media outlets on digital ethics, cybercrime and the misuse of emerging technologies. Her areas of research include electronic surveillance, cybercrime futures, and the politics of security. She also provides research expertise to a number of international organisations. For several years Victoria was Facebook’s Trust & Safety Manager for EMEA. Prior to this, she led the Strategy team at Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), where she was responsible for the EU’s cyber threat analysis, and the ground-breaking cybersecurity futures exercise, Project 2020. Victoria chairs the Security Panel of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, the IT Livery Company in the City of London. She has an MA from the University of Oxford and a doctorate from the University of Nottingham.
Dr Belinda Clarke
Dr Belinda Clarke is the Director of Agri-TechE, the UK’s longest-established and largest commercial membership network connecting farmers and growers with researchers, technologists, entrepreneurs and investors. We bring together those who see innovation as way to enhance the economic growth, agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability of the agri-food value chain. Agri-TechE was named national Networking Group of the Year at the UK SME Business Awards 2019.
Belinda is also a Non-Executive Director of Agrimetrics, one of the UK’s Agri-Tech Centres, and was a member of the Council of UKRI-BBSRC and a Trustee of the Royal Norfolk Agricultural Association (2015-2021). In 2021 she was awarded the Sir Timothy Colman Prize for “outstanding leadership in the agri-tech sector.”
She has a first degree from the University of Cambridge in Natural Sciences (Part II Plant Sciences) and a PhD in plant biochemistry following her research on starch production in peas and potatoes at the John Innes Centre. She is a Nuffield Scholar, a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Councils, a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Biology, and the Clean Growth Leadership Network, a Chartered Biologist, and a qualified business coach.
Dr Eleanor Drage
Her current research investigates how AI hiring tools and protest recognition tools relate to structural inequality. She also helps improve the way companies respond to AI ethics guidance and regulation, like the EU AI Act. Her work has been featured in the BBC, The Telegraph, The Guardian, and internationally.
Eleanor is the author of An Experience of the Impossible: The Planetary Humanism of European Women’s SF, and co-editor of The Good Robot: Feminist Voices on the Future of Technology, and Feminist AI: Critical Perspectives on Algorithms, Data and Intelligent Machines.
She co-hosts The Good Robot podcast with Dr Kerry McInerney where they ask the experts: what is good technology? Is ‘good’ technology even possible? And how can feminism help us work towards it?
Tabitha Goldstaub MBE
Tabitha is the co founder of CogX, a festival and online platform. Alongside CogX, Tabitha is the chair of the UK government’s AI Council and a member of the DCMS Digital Economy Council and on the TechUK board. A serial entrepreneur, Tabitha was the co-founder of video distribution company Rightster (IPO 2011.)
Tabitha is the author of How To Talk To Robots – A Girlsguide to a World Dominated by AI. She’s also an advisor to Tortoise Media, The Stack, TeensInAI, Raspberry Pi, CarbonRe, Monumo, Cambridge Innovation Capital and The Alan Turing Institute.
Yush Kalia
Yush Kalia has over a decade of experience in mixed reality, working with ambitious companies and directors to consistently deliver innovative, world-first executions. He’s an industry champion and a member of the BAFTA Virtual Reality Advisory Group, advocating for impactful VR, AR and volumetric video uses across the entertainment industry. Prior to Dimension has worked at leading digital, social and PR agencies managing accounts including Xbox, Diageo, Evian, SKY, and Lego.
Coco Newton
Coco is a neuroscientist and entrepreneur focused on finding ways to detect dementia earlier. Her PhD at the University of Cambridge explored new cognitive diagnostic tests for Alzheimer’s disease dementia, which she is currently translating to healthcare as co-founder of early spin-out Fathom Cognition. Coco also works in the digital tool selection hub of EDoN, an organisation spearheaded by Alzheimer’s Research UK with a mission to create a wearable digital toolkit for remote and early dementia detection. Alongside research, Coco trained in entrepreneurship through programmes by the Cambridge Judge Business School and Cambridge Gravity, including EnterpriseTECH STAR, Accelerate Cambridge, and Biospark.
Joe Parry
Joe is founder and CEO of Cambridge Intelligence.
At Cambridge Intelligence, we build data visualization tools that make the world a safer place.
From law enforcement to cyber security and fraud detection, we work with organisations around the globe. Every day, thousands of analysts rely on our technology to ‘join the dots’ in data and uncover hidden threats. Joe has bootstrapped Cambridge Intelligence to 80 people without taking any external investment.
Joe has worked on visualisation systems for intelligence work for the last two decades, doing software development, design, systems architecture and more experimental research projects. His past achievements include a PhD earned as a member of Stephen Hawking’s research group.
Maria Maragkou
Maria has over a decade of experience in quantum technology. As Head of Business Development at Riverlane, she built a network of global partners and a deep understanding of the global quantum computing ecosystem. As VP of Product, she is developing solutions that address those needs.
Maria has a PhD in Physics from the University of Southampton and an MBA from Kedge business school. After 4 years of post-doctoral research on single photon sources, she worked in science publishing as a Senior Editor at Nature Materials. Outside of work, she swims, works on her headstand and plays with her sons.
Caroline O’Brien
A semiconductor industry specialist, Caroline O’Brien is CEO at Kubos Semiconductors and brings over 30 years of experience in the technology sector, where she has developed a broad knowledge of working with VC-backed businesses and blue-chip multinationals. She has held senior commercial and executive positions in several companies and start-ups, including NEC Electronics, HiWave Technologies, Pyreos and Oxford Semiconductor. Caroline has dedicated her career to developing ‘deep tech’ solutions with a focus on commercialising new technologies and products. She holds a B.Eng in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from Swansea University and an MBA from the University of Bath.
Mike Butcher MBE
Mike Butcher MBE is Editor-at-large of TechCrunch. Mike has been named one of the most influential journalists in European technology by media outlets such as Wired magazine and The Daily Telegraph. He is a regular tech commentator on the BBC, Sky News, CNN, CNBC, and Aljazeera. He has advised the UK government on tech startup policy and was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to the technology industry. He co-founded The Europas Awards for European startups, the non-profits TechVets and Techfugees, a judge on hit TV series “The Apprentice UK” and named one of the 100 Most Connected Men by GQ magazine.
Meredith Broussard
Meredith Broussard is an associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University and the research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. She is the author of an upcoming book, More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech (MIT Press, 2023), as well as the award-winning 2018 book Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World. Her research focuses on artificial intelligence in investigative reporting, with particular interests in AI ethics and using data analysis for social good. She appears in the Emmynominated documentary “Coded Bias,” now streaming on Netflix. Her work has been supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Institute of Museum & Library Services, and the Tow Center at Columbia Journalism School. A former features editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, she has also worked as a software developer at AT&T Bell Labs and the MIT Media Lab. Her features and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Vox, and other outlets. Follow her on Twitter @merbroussard or contact her via meredithbroussard.com.
Priya Guha MBE
Priya is a Venture Partner at Merian Ventures, investing in women-led innovation, an Advisor to Kheiron Medical Technologies and Gallos Technologies, a member of the Investment Governance Board at Future Planet Capital, a NED at Reach PLC, UK Research & Innovation, the Digital Catapult & GB Badminton and Adjunct Faculty at the Ashridge Hult Business School. She was previously GM for RocketSpace, launching their UK operations.
Priya used to be a career diplomat, most recently as British Consul General to San Francisco and previously in India and Spain. She sits on the Royal Academy of Engineering International Committee, Althea Foundation Board, Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates Advisory Boards. She is a Trustee at TechSheCan. Priya was awarded an MBE in 2021 for services to international trade and women in innovation.
Neil Chivers
Neil Chivers was appointed as CEO of Chorus in January 2023 having joined the organisation in 2020. Initially joining as Chief Sales Officer, Neil was appointed to create and execute a strategy to expand Chorus’ UK client footprint whilst at the same time launching its US operation.
Chorus Intelligence Inc is wholly owned subsidiary of Chorus Intelligence and is rapidly acquiring new name public safety logos. The US business is headquartered in the City of Virginia Beach.
Having started his career in the public sector, Neil entered the private sector tech space in 2004 and has worked in start-ups and corporate organisations across roles that spanned all facets of executive management.
Chorus’ mission is to create the best digital intelligence and investigations software in the world to help our customers combat serious and organised crime.
Brian Mullins
Brian has been CEO of Mind Foundry, an Artificial Intelligence company that spun out the University of Oxford, since 2019. Brian is an entrepreneur and technical leader with over a decade of experience in high-growth technology companies. In his prior roles as CEO, Brian was responsible for all aspects of leadership and management of over 350 employees across four countries; raising over $330 MM in investment capital.
Brian has been at the forefront of technology and studies the potential of technology to positively change the lives of people around the world. He has been awarded over 100 U.S. patents, has been asked to testify as an expert before the U.S. Senate, received an Edison award for Industrial Design, was named one of the CNBC Disruptor 50, and was named one of Goldman Sachs “100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs”.
Aleksandra Pedraszewska
Aleksandra Pedraszewska is Co-Founder and COO at VividQ. She is a certified project manager and a graduate of Cambridge Judge Business School. Before joining VividQ’s founding team, she gained professional experience at Rolls-Royce, HBO, and an investment fund IdeaLab Ventures.
At VividQ, Aleksandra established the company’s commercial office in London. Today, she leads the sales and marketing efforts and manages day-to-day operations. She focuses on taking VividQ’s software to the market with pioneering hardware manufacturers and chipmakers and on maintaining investor relations.
She was named on the Forbes ”30 under 30″ list in Europe, London Tech London Advocates “25 under 25” list and won the WinTechSeries “Rising Star” award in 2019.
Eben Upton
Eben is a founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and serves as the CEO of Raspberry Pi Ltd, its commercial and engineering subsidiary. He is the co-author, with Gareth Halfacree of the Raspberry Pi User Guide, and with Jeff Duntemann and others of Learning Computer Architecture with Raspberry Pi. He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2017, appointed a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society in 2019, and elected an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge in 2020. In an earlier life, he founded two successful mobile games and middleware companies, Ideaworks 3d and Podfun, held the post of Director of Studies for Computer Science at St John’s College, and wrote the Oxford Rhyming Dictionary with his father, Professor Clive Upton. He holds a BA in Physics and Engineering, a PhD in Computer Science, and an MBA, from the University of Cambridge.
Nimmi Patel
Nimmi Patel is the Head of Skills, Talent and Diversity at techUK. She works on all things skills, education, and future of work policy, focusing on upskilling and retraining. Nimmi is also an Advisory Board member of Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (digit). The Centre research aims to increase understanding of how digital technologies are changing work and the implications for employers, workers, job seekers and governments. She is also a member of Chatham House’s Common Futures Conversations.
Prior to joining the team, she worked for the UK Labour Party and New Zealand Labour Party, and holds a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Manchester and is currently studying MA Strategic Communications at King’s College London.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Krishnan Guru-Murthy has been a well known television journalist for over thirty years and was named Network Presenter of the Year at the Royal Television Society Journalism Awards 2022. As well as daily news he also presents foreign documentaries, travelling to some of the planet’s most far flung and dangerous places including Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. He has covered eight British general elections, interviewed six Prime Ministers and many world leaders as well as presenting a host of special live television debates. He also hosts a popular, award-winning podcast.
Krishnan has chaired a number of high level conferences and awards in Britain and around the world. His first foray into television came presenting the BBC youth discussion programme, ‘Open to Question’, at the age of 18 before he set off for Oxford University to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Krishnan went on to present the children’s programme Newsround, then was a reporter on the current affairs programme Newsnight before helping to launch the BBC News channel. He also presented a Sunday morning politics show on LBC radio and for some years wrote a column for the Metro newspaper. He has appeared on a range of entertainment programmes from “Eight out of Ten Cats” to “Have I Got News for You” and played himself in the hit British zombie movie “Shaun of the Dead”.
Alan Patterson
Alan Patterson is an Electrical & Electronic Engineer with 30 years of machine learning experience. Ex-Googler, Senior Director at eBay, VP at HomeX and several successful startup. Head of Applied Science at HomeX where he built a team of around 20 AI/ML experts working on a diagnostics engine. A Senior Director at eBay building their product knowledge graph. He spent 4 years at Google where he built their ML-driven advertising fraud detection system. He led the team at TrueKnowledge (Evi) that built a Q&A platform that was acquired by Amazon and turned into Alexa.
Vincent Korstanje
Vincent Korstanje is CEO of Kigen. Vincent’s mission is to make eSIM and iSIM the foundation of all connected devices, which led him to found the Kigen group in Arm in 2016. Kigen formed into a separate company in October 2020 to drive this vision to secure trillions of connected devices. Vincent worked for Arm for 22 years in which he helped build the UK’s leading technology company. Before Arm, Vincent worked at TNO in compiler and security technology.
Tim Naylor
Tim Naylor is a Digitalisation and CleanTech veteran and heads Envision Digital’s business in the UK and Ireland. He has an Honours degree in Information Science from Otago University, an MBA from London Business School and 20 years leadership experience with Oracle EMEA. For the past 8+ years Tim has been based in London, helping global energy, infrastructure and investment companies create advantage from Net Zero digitalisation, where advances in Artificial Intelligence and Internet-of-Things are dramatically reshaping carbon-neutral value chains.
Emmi Nicholl
Emmi has an educational background in Applied Linguistics, but her career path always led her into operational roles. She has worked in finance, consulting and telecoms across two continents, and has worked in a tech start-up as COO. This has given her the advantage of being familiar with the start-up journey.
Emmi is the Managing Director of the angel investment group, Cambridge Angels. The group provides smart capital from entrepreneurs to entrepreneurs and helps to equip future generations of entrepreneurs by supporting innovative technology companies. Emmi’s role is to support Cambridge Angels’ reach by building networks to attract high quality investment opportunities.
Laurence Garrett
Partner at Highland Europe from Fund I and beyond. Born in Liverpool, red for life. Plays golf, cycles, swims, and runs but can’t keep up with the real athletes in the Highland Europe team.
Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh
Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh is PI on the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk’s research projects, and leads CSER’s research direction, strategy and management. As founding Executive Director, Sean has led the development of CSER from concept to physical centre, developing its research vision in collaboration with its founders, securing its funding and recruiting its research team. Sean’s own reseach focuses on technological trajectories and impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies. He has led research programmes on these topics at the Future of Humanity Institute (Oxford) from 2011–2015, and co-developed both the Strategic AI Research Centre (Cambridge-Oxford collaboration), and the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (Cambridge-Oxford-Imperial-Berkeley collaboration) in 2015.
Prior to Cambridge, Sean established the FHI-Amlin Collaboration on Systemic Risk – a major academic-reinsurance industry partnership on catastrophic risk modelling – as well as several other research programmes in Oxford. His research interests include: emerging technologies, global risk, science and technology policy, and horizon-scanning and foresight. He has a PhD in genomics from Trinity College Dublin.
Dr Vishal Gulati
Dr. Vishal Gulati is a specialist venture capital investor backing scientists and tech founders bring their innovations to market. Vishal’s investment thesis is based around the convergence of healthcare, data and engineering.
In his venture capital career, Vishal has held roles at leading firms such as Atlas Venture, Oxford Science Enterprises and Molten Ventures, whilst making independent private investments in ground breaking healthtech companies.
Vishal has served on the boards of over fifteen public and private health and life sciences companies; from Horizon Discovery to the world’s most scalable DNA synthesis platform (Evonetix). His portfolio of over 30 VC and angel investments makes him one of the most active investors in this space.
Vishal chairs the investment committee of Cancer Research UK seed fund, and holds similar roles at The Francis Crick Institute, (KQ Labs), British Heart Foundation, Medical Research Council, and Innovate UK. Vishal also serves on the advisory board of Reuben College.
James Cole
James has spent over 15 years working at the intersection of business, sustainability, innovation and entrepreneurship. As part of CISL’s senior leadership team he works across business policy and finance initiatives building the capacity of leaders, and leading institutions, to drive systemic change for global sustainability. In 2022 he launched The Canopy – CISL’s incubator, accelerator and workspace in central Cambridge, to activate an international community of impact-led startups, entrepreneurs, investors and innovators. Prior to CISL he established a Business Engagement and Innovation team at Friends of the Earth to develop new ideas, partnerships and alliances across environmental campaigns. James previously founded a digital media startup, and held various senior commercial partnership development roles at Vodafone UK. In 2011 he worked for 6 months setting up sustainable agriculture projects in high altitude communities in the Peruvian Andes. James holds a BSc in Rural Estate Management and a master’s in leadership for Sustainable Development.
Monty Barlow
Monty was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge Consultants in January 2023 to lead the company’s mission to tackle the toughest, most business-critical, and societally important innovation challenges for its clients.
Working with some of the world’s biggest brands and most ambitious start-ups, Monty leads a global organisation of engineers, scientists, designers and consultants to deliver more than 500 scientific, engineering and design projects each year.
Previously Chief Technology Officer, Monty has been with Cambridge Consultants for 23 years and has been responsible for incubating new strategic technology groups to extend the company’s expertise in bleeding-edge technologies such as synthetic biology, machine psychology and quantum computation.
Cambridge Consultants has played a leading role in founding and establishing the Cambridge technology cluster, creating more than 20 spinouts, three of which have been amongst Cambridge’s >$1 billion capitalisation companies.
Dr Botty Dimanov
Dr. Botty Dimanov is the CEO and Co-founder of Tenyks, a University of Cambridge spin-out on a mission to protect the world from the Terminator. Tenyks helps AI developers figure out how to fix rogue AI models. Backed by Y Combinator (one of the most prestigious startup accelerators in the world), Tenyks has raised $3.5m in funding.
Botty holds a PhD in Explainable AI from the University of Cambridge, he is an inventor of a US Patent for interpreting the behaviour of AI systems, and he has been featured in the Forbes 30U30 list.
Henry Ajder
Henry Ajder is a globally recognised advisor, speaker, and broadcaster working at the frontier of the generative AI and synthetic media revolution.
Henry’s work has transformed society’s understanding of deepfakes and generative AI. He has led pioneering research at organisations including MIT, WITNESS, and Sensity AI, influencing international legislation and corporate AI strategy.He advises organisations on the opportunities and challenges these game changing technologies present, including Meta, The European Commission, BBC, The Partnership on AI, and The House of Lords.
Henry presented the BBC documentary series, The Future will be Synthesised, and regularly features in global media including The New York Times, MIT Tech Review, CNN, Reuters, and The Financial Times. He has been published by outlets including WIRED, The Next Web, NYU, and The World AI Summit.
An established keynote speaker and guest expert, Henry has spoken at venues including SXSW, CogX, The University of Oxford, and Adweek.
Daniel Hobbs
Daniel is engaged in promoting innovation and the application of new technology to deliver improvements to mobility, using system engineering and business management capability. This builds on his experience developed through 30 years working with local authorities and government to develop, design, procure and implement transport solutions.
Carmen Palacios-Berraquero
Company co-founder and CEO, Carmen carried out her physics training and research at the University of Cambridge (St John’s College) and Imperial College London. Author of multiple high-impact academic papers and inventor of the technology which resulted in the foundation of Nu Quantum, for which she was awarded the 2018 Institute of Physics National Medal. Carmen is a founding member and Director of UKQuantum, the voice of the UK’s quantum industry, and member of the Technical Advisory Group to the UK’ National Quantum Computing Centre. Featured in Forbes magazine as a ‘Rising Star 2021’, WIRED, BBC, and others. Founder and leader of multiple LGBTQ+ and equity initiatives inside and outside academia throughout her career.
Abiel Ma
Abiel is the CEO and Co-founder of Vuala. Vuala is making food waste recycling easy with its automatic food waste separation technology. Vuala’s innovation utilizes targeted microorganisms and novel mechanical design, to automatically separate food waste from other waste; turning them into raw material for energy production within hours onsite. Vuala’s technology allows food waste to be stored up to a month without smell, significantly reducing collection frequency, saving 95% logistic, labour and CO2 emission.
Vuala has obtained a 3-year waste treatment permit, 3 grants and 4 signed pilots. Vuala’s mission is to reduce 100 million tonnes of CO2 in 10 years.
Abiel began his career at PwC and was the head of sales and marketing at a London food logistics company. Prior to Vuala, Abiel served as CEO of Path Solutions Group, an ESG consultancy firm for 5 years.
Abiel is the Australia Global Talent Visa recipient and InnovateUK’s Young Innovator 2022/23. Abiel graduated from a Master’s in Entrepreneurship(CleanTech) at the University of Cambridge.
Dr Tom Diethe
The mission of Tom’s team is to devise innovative products and solutions using machine learning algorithms that will make the drug discovery pipeline more efficient and aid in a better understanding of biology and medicinal chemistry. Tom is a Machine Learning leader with 20+ years of experience in a mix of industry in academic roles, including Amazon, Microsoft Research, the British Medical Journal Group, QinetiQ, UCL and the University of Bristol. He has specialized in healthcare applications of ML/AI, including genomics, proteomics, digital health, and physiological measurement. He is co-author of the online first book “Model-Based Machine Learning.” Tom is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, a member of the IEEE Signal Processing Society, and serves as an Area Chair for ECML-PKDD.
Tuomas Knowles
Tuomas Knowles is Professor of Physical Chemistry and Biophysics in the Department of Chemistry and at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, and is co-director of the Cambridge Centre for Protein Misfolding Diseases. He has a background in Biology (University of Geneva) and Physics (ETH Zurich), and received his Ph.D. in Biohysics from the University of Cambridge. He was elected to a Research Fellowship in 2008 at St John’s College, Cambridge, and was then appointed to a University Lectureship in Physical Chemistry in 2010, joining the faculty at the Department of Chemistry in Cambridge. He then successively held a University Readership between 2013 and 2015 and a Professorship since 2015. In 2023 he was elected as the 1920 Professor of Physical Chemistry at Cambridge. He is the recipient of a number of international prizes, including the Sackler Prize in Biophysics and the Corday-Morgan Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Beth Knight
Beth Knight is a Senior Associate at the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL). Alongside her work at CISL, Beth is Head of ‘Amazon in the Community’ for Europe where she has led the development of social impact programs since 2020. In this capacity, she oversees a community investment portfolio focused on ensuring young people who face systemic barriers to social mobility and inclusion have the resources they need to thrive. Prior to Amazon, Beth spent over fifteen years applying her expertise in ESG, community investment and sustainability to help transform global companies into purpose-led businesses. Her roles have included: Global Markets Director at EY, Head of Strategy and Operations for the Beacon Institute, and Head of Corporate Sustainability for EY’s Financial Services business.
Dr Jason Mellad
Jason is a scientist entrepreneur passionate about translating innovative technologies into better patient outcomes. As CEO and co-founder of Start Codon, a Cambridge based venture builder, he aims to identify the most disruptive healthcare founders and innovations worldwide, seed fund them and leverage the exceptional resources of the Cambridge cluster to de-risk and drive the success of their start-ups. Previously he was CEO of Cambridge Epigenetix and Business Development Manager for Horizon Discovery’s diagnostics division. He also served as an associate at Cambridge Enterprise, the technology transfer office of the University of Cambridge.
Anna Jordan
Anna Jordan is a Co-Founder and CEO of Alchera Technologies. She has an MSc in Physics from Imperial College London and continues her involvement with the university by supporting women in STEM as a key member of the Imperial Women’s Network Steering Committee. Anna is an active Advocate of Tech London Advocates and has been previously published in The Sunday Times.
Tim Pullan
Tim Pullan is founder and CEO of ThoughtRiver, the advanced contract analytics pioneer. He has 20 years’ experience as a lawyer and business executive helping some of the world’s largest companies with complex commercial projects and issues. A partner in EY’s UK law firm and then Lawrence Graham (now Gowling WLG) he joined consumer data company Experian in 2006 holding senior executive roles in UK and subsequently Asia Pacific. In 2015 Tim relocated from Singapore to UK to develop ThoughtRiver’s technology in Cambridge, one of the world’s leading centres for natural language processing and machine learning. Tim is a regular writer and speaker on the role of data analytics in transforming legal risk management.
Umaima Ahmad
Umaima is CEO and co-founder of 52North, a multi-award winning med-tech company focused on reinventing the healthcare journey, starting by transforming cancer care with Neutrocheck®. In 2023, 52North became the first ever venture investment of Macmillan Cancer Support.
In 2022, Umaima was recognised on Management Today’s 35 under 35 Women in Business. She is also a Non-Executive Director at Health Tech Enterprise and the Pharmaceutical Licensing Group, Editor of the Business Development and Licensing Journal, and a trustee at Cambridge Community Arts.
A former business development professional and banking lawyer, Umaima is a seasoned negotiator of significant M&A and licensing transactions with values in the billions of dollars, involving pharmaceutical assets across multiple therapy areas which have had significant tangible impact on patient treatment pathways and health outcomes.
Umaima is a graduate of King’s College London, the University of Strasbourg and BPP Law School and holds an MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Cambridge. She is passionate about business, innovation, commercialising science, championing women to pursue STEM subjects and careers, and continuous learning.
Shirin Dehghan
Shirin has over 25 years of experience in tech and has founded several successful software businesses. Her latest start-up Oxford Algorithms develops AI algorithms that predict the financial markets returning over 20% annualised return to its investors. Her first start-up was Arieso, a leader in telecoms geolocation solutions which was acquired by JDSU. She has also acted as Chairwoman and NED of several companies two of which successfully exited to PE backed companies in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
Shirin also spent several years working with a leading VC firm in London both as senior as well as operating partner. As well as operational roles, she is also an angle investor and mentor to several young entrepreneurs. Shirin has won a number of prestigious industry awards, including Blackberry’s Top Woman in Technology, Best Woman in Mobile, and European female entrepreneur of the year in 2013. In 2019, she was also awarded her Fellowship at Royal Academy of Engineering in recognition of her contributions to technology and engineering.
Rishi Chowdhury
Rishi started in tech at Huddle, supporting its growth from 10 people to 180 and raising over $40m. He subsequently left to start a group of companies that closed the gap between startups, investors and corporates. Alongside his co-founder George, he bootstrapped the business to 7 figures. Most recently he started Incube Space on a mission to transform commercial real estate from stale high carbon-emitting assets, into healthy spaces for people and the planet through the use of machine learning.
Dr Harry Cronin
Dr Harry Cronin is an experienced invention engineer who leads on a diverse range of invention projects at Iprova. He holds a first degree in physics, an EngD in materials science and has worked as a research engineer and R&D manager in the fields of infrared detectors, printed electronics and photovoltaics, and is named inventor on over 35 patent applications.
Richard Claridge
Richard is an applied physicist specialising in accelerating new physics-enabled technologies from the lab bench to viable capability. His technical expertise is in applying fundamental science to understand and identify how new technologies can be used to bridge capability gaps, and to then design a system around them. Richard has led the technical delivery of PA’s activities in both quantum sensing and computing, including the “first piece of work to demonstrate quantum benefit using a NISQ machine to solve militarily important problems”. Outside quantum domain and has a particular interest in and focus on near term applications of quantum technologies. His other recent, work, outside quantum, includes the application of mathematics to the challenges of an increasingly complex and congested EM environment, development of non-linear optical systems and three separate approaches to 3D printing of chocolate.
Laura Modiano
Laura leads relationships with top VCs investing in EMEA and their portfolio companies, including international funds such as Sequoia, Accel, Index Ventures, NEA, General Catalyst as well as local funds such as Cambridge Innovation Capital, Molten Ventures and Albion VC. She previously led AWS’s Helathcare and Lifescience Startups business in EMEA. Prior to AWS, Laura worked in healthcare startups, was a strategy consultant for pharma with Monitor Group and worked in the NHS where she led the strategy for Genetic Testing in England.
Professor Andy Neely OBE FREng FAcSS
Professor Andy Neely, OBE, is Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. His previous appointments include Head of the Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge, the Royal Academy of Engineering Professor of Complex Services at the University of Cambridge, the Deputy Director of the Advanced Institute of Management Research, a UK national research programme and the Director of the Centre for Business Performance at Cranfield University.
During his career, Andy has founded several major research centres and groups, including the Cambridge Service Alliance and the Centre for Digital Built Britain, both at the University of Cambridge and the Centre for Business Performance at Cranfield University. He is co-founder of Anmut, the data valuation specialists, a Non-Executive Director at the High Value Manufacturing Catapult and a member of the Board of Trustees of the American University of Sharjah.
He has written over 100 books and articles, including “Measuring Business Performance”, published by the Economist and “The Performance Prism”, published by the Financial Times. In 2020 he was awarded an OBE for services to research and university-industry collaboration.
Matt Dunn
Matt has over 20 years’ experience in data science engineering in both the UK and US, and has worked extensively in cyber security and product innovation. In his role as Chief Technology Officer for Europe, Matt heads up Darktrace’s mathematical and engineering teams in Cambridge, which have been recognised in the Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Innovation Award Committee in both 2017 and 2019, and also oversees Darktrace’s R&D centre in the Hague. He has acted in an advisory capacity to early stage start-ups and with the application of statistical and machine learning methodologies for several non-profit organisations. Matt holds a degree in Physics from the University of Leeds.
Dr Gareth Conduit
Dr Gareth Conduit is chief scientific officer and co-founder at Intellegens, a Cambridge-based software company specialising in machine learning applied to R&D in the chemicals, materials, life science, and manufacturing sectors. Gareth has led the development of the Alchemite™ method, a novel algorithm with strengths in extracting value from real-world, sparse and noisy experimental and process data. He has a track record of applying the technology to practical research challenges, with contracts spanning disciplines from materials science to drug discovery. He is also a Royal Society Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge.
Melissa Heikkilä
Melissa Heikkilä is a senior reporter at MIT Technology Review, where she covers artificial intelligence and how it is changing our society. Previously she wrote about AI policy and politics at POLITICO. She has also worked at The Economist and used to be a news anchor. Forbes named her as one of its 30 under 30 in European media in 2020.
Hermione Crease
Hermione is CEO of Purrmetrix, building tools that make it quicker and easier to measure building performance and manage decarbonisation in housing. Although she originally qualified as a Chartered Surveyor, she has spent the majority of her career commercializing innovative technology and is particularly interested in the relationship between energy and buildings.
At Purrmetrix she is concentrating on finding ways to help deliver contractors and advisors deliver better retrofit and heating upgrades, using data and monitoring.
Gina Neff
Gina Neff is the Executive Director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on the effects of the rapid expansion of our digital information environment on workers and workplaces and in our everyday lives. Professor Neff holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University and advises international organisations including UNESCO, the OECD and the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society. She chairs the International Scientific Committee of the UK’s Trusted Autonomous Systems programme, is associate director of the ESRC Digital Good Network and is a member of the Strategic Advisory Network for the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council. Professor Neff serves on the board of directors for the Social Science Research Council and chairs the board of directors for the UK-based social media startup Bright.
Whitney Richardson
Whitney Richardson is a multidisciplinary storyteller and project leader, bridging live experiences, visual art, and technology to gather and inform intellectually curious audiences around the world.
She is currently an Aesthetics Scientist at Apple, where she works alongside senior software engineers to help shape the features for the world’s most popular camera.
Before joining the Apple team, Whitney spent the past decade working at The New York Times in a variety of roles straddling the newsroom and business side. As the Global Events Manager for The Times, Whitney led the team awarded a Times Publisher’s Award for launching The New York Times Climate Hub in 2021, a nine-day in-person and live-streamed event running alongside the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
Whitney also launched The Times’s first international photo and video exhibition on climate change, “Carbon’s Casualties”. The exhibition toured to London, Paris, Scotland, and Hong Kong, reaching thousands of audiences in person, and virtually.
She was previously the Photo Editor covering business and technology for The Times, where she assigned and directed photography, illustrations, and video concepts formatted for print and digital presentations. Prior to this, she was the producer of “The Lens” photography blog, where she co-produced for the 2015 and 2016 New York Photo Portfolio Review. Her published writing focuses on the intersection of art, technology and media in Africa.
Whitney has lectured on trends in the media landscape at Yale University School of Arts, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, UNESCO, and World Press Photo Foundation. She also wrote the forward to Performance Review, by Endia Beal.
Martina King
Martina King joined Featurespace in 2012. Formerly the Managing Director of augmented reality company Aurasma, she has an extensive career in media and technology, including MD of Yahoo! Europe and Capital Radio. Under King’s leadership, Featurespace has become the world’s leading provider of Enterprise Financial Crime prevention software, risk scoring events and preventing fraud and financial crime in more than 180 countries. The company has also raised more than £100 million in funding, supporting its ongoing expansion and ability to protect more than 30 major global financial institutions, including HSBC, TSYS, Worldpay, NatWest Group, Danske Bank, BBVA and Barclays PLC. Since 2018, she’s been honored by PaymentsSource as one of its Most Influential Women in Payments and has previously been named “Top 40 Powerful Women in Tech” by Silicon Republic. Martina is also President of the London Chamber of Commerce.
Jim Ajioka
Jim is a founder and Chief Science Officer. Jim has had a life-long passion for the environment, with a PhD in Ecology and Evolution. At the University of Cambridge, Jim’s background in building tools for molecular genome analysis led to early adoption of synthetic biology methods aimed at the construction of a biosensor as a sustainable method to assess arsenic contamination of drinking water in Nepal and Bangladesh.
Oli Barrett MBE
Oli Barrett loves connecting people and ideas. He co-founded Clean and Cool, connecting hundreds of cleantech founders with partners and clients around the world. He is a shareholder in several companies including Ethos (reinventing our relationship with energy), mental health business Calm.com and Troubadour Theatres, creating new theatres and film studios. Oli co-founded the UK’s largest schools enterprise competition, Tenner, which is now run by Young Enterprise. He also co-founded StartUp Britain with support from the British Prime Minister, and the Turn On The Subtitles (TOTS) campaign, encouraging broadcasters and tech companies to improve children’s literacy. A former Butlin Redcoat and Walt Disney World cast member, Oli is a regular event host and presenter and sits on the advisory boards of Tech London Advocates, One Million Mentors and Founders4Schools.
Ian Lane
Ian focusses on new technology investments, managing CIC’s investments into Seldon (MLOps), Cambridge GaN Devices (Power Semiconductors), Salience (Photonic Compute), Unlikely AI (AI), Secondmind (AI) and AudioTelligence (AI). Before joining CIC, Ian was a Director at Unilever Ventures in London, where he spent 11 years leading B2B/Technology direct investments across Europe/North America and managed a portfolio of fund LP positions. Prior to Unilever Ventures, Ian worked at L.E.K. Consulting in London and Australia, working on strategy consulting and private equity due-diligence projects. Ian has PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Cambridge and Msci in Chemistry from Bristol University.
Patrick Pichette
Patrick Pichette has over 30 years of financial and operating expertise. He has led world-class companies like Google, McKinsey, Sprint Canada and Bell Canada to break through the complexities of ‘hyper-growth’ and digital transformations.
As CFO of Google from 2008 to 2015, he took an active part in Google’s growth agenda and ultimately supported the creation of the Alphabet structure. As part of Google’s executive committee, Patrick was involved in Google’s extensive corporate M&A agenda, engaging in close to 150 acquisitions, including Nest and Motorola. Patrick now sits Lightspeed POS Inc, where he serves as a Lead Independent Director. He was on the board of Twitter between 2017 and 2022. In addition, he has been an independent investor, advisor and board member to a number of startups and innovation networks around the world, including Neo4J (Sweden), Zwift (US/UK), Hopper and Wealthsimple (Canada) and Creative Destruction Labs, among others. Patrick, an active environmentalist through his Kenauk Project (Kenauk.com and institutkenauk.org), holds an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford, where he attended as a Rhodes Scholar, and a BBA from UQAM.
Tom Grogan
Tom is CEO of MDRxTech, The Mishcon de Reya Group’s technology consultancy. He works with some of the world’s most innovative organisations, writing strategy and building software to harness the Metaverse and other technology frontiers, while navigating risk.
Toju Duke
Toju Duke is a programme manager at Google where she leads various Responsible AI programmes across Google’s product and research teams with a primary focus on Large Models. She is the founder of Diverse AI, a community interest organisation with a mission to support and champion underrepresented groups to build a diverse and inclusive AI future. Toju is a popular keynote speaker and provides consultation and advice on Responsible AI practices.
Fenella Boyle
Fenella is co-founder and CEO of Versed AI, a University of Cambridge spin-out which applies cutting edge NLP technology to automatically map multi-tier supply chains and help companies manage their supply chain risks.
After graduating from Oxford wih a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford, Fenella worked in the global fund management industry for 15 years, initially at Putnam Investments and later at UBS Asset Management. She has covered a broad range of sectors, from healthcare to industrials to natural resources, conducting research, financial analysis, and making investment recommendations. After graduating from London Business School wih an MBA with distinction in 2019, Fenella founded Versed AI along with co-founder Simon Baker. She is vice-chair of youth policy charity Partnership for Young London, and has a two year old daughter.
Kirsty Gill
Kirsty joined Arm in 2002 and has held various leadership roles in the People group, including executive remuneration, reward, organizational effectiveness, and people services and systems. She became Arm’s Chief People Officer in 2018. Her portfolio now extends to include people, workplace, and sustainability.
She is known for delivering a unique, progressive, and human working environment, ensuring that the Arm Core Beliefs are at the heart of how it feels to work at Arm, allowing everyone to thrive and contribute to their full potential.
Prior to Arm, Kirsty was HR Director for a start-up company, GF-X, and started her HR career at Accenture.
Kirsty graduated from Cambridge University and is a board director of Cambridge Ahead.
Paige Fox
Paige Fox is a Business Development Manager, with 8 years of experience in local government. Since joining Virginia Beach’s Department of Economic Development in 2021, Paige has been responsible for business attraction in the City’s International markets – focusing on the United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany. Her portfolio covers cross-industry markets, with significant involvement in the areas of information technology, renewable energy, and advanced manufacturing.
Paige has her Bachelors of Science in Political Science with a Minor in Business Administration from Texas Christian University, and her Masters of Public Affairs from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Originally from Austin, TX, she resides in Virginia Beach, VA with her husband and dog.
Rob Carter
Rob joined RG Carter in 2007, and having led several of the subsidiaries, became joint MD in 2019. His background in engineering fuels his passion for innovation, solution finding and collaborative decision making. He is enormously proud of the strong family values that are the foundation of the business, placing importance on the development of long-term relationships with both clients and the supply chain. Rob is energised by the current and future advancements in material technology and enabling systems, that combined will produce, renew, and revitalise efficient spaces.
Suhair Khan
Suhair Khan is a technology entrepreneur and creative leader. She is the founder of open-ended design, a platform and incubator for creative technologists working with artificial intelligence. Her work centers on impact-driven work at the intersection of design, culture and future-facing technology.
In over a decade at Google and Google Arts & Culture, Suhair led initiatives which merged cutting edge technologies with arts, design, culture, education and environmental sustainability. Her work cut across products in machine learning, AI, hybrid realities and search, as well as emerging markets.
She is chair of the board of trustees of dance choreographer Studio Wayne McGregor, and is on the board of trustees / advisory committees to the Design Museum, British Library, Sadler’s Wells, London Design Biennale and the UK’s Museum of the Year Prize.
A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard University, she is currently a visiting lecturer at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design where she lectures on technology and spatial practices.
Amelia Armour
Amelia joined Amadeus Capital Partners in 2009 and is a Partner in the Early Stage Fund. Her current investment focus is on autonomous systems, AI and machine learning, cloud computing and novel materials.
She is a Director on several boards including Xampla, who have developed a plant-based material to replace single-use plastics; iPronics who are building the world’s first programmable photonic processor; Riverlane a developer of the operating system for error corrected quantum computers and SLAMcore, a spin-out from Imperial College, developing spatial intelligence for autonomous robotics and drones.
Amelia is also an active board observer at other companies including enterprise voice assistant company PolyAI and Graphcore, the developer of the Intelligence Processing Unit for next generation machine intelligence.
Amelia holds a BSc in Chemistry and Biology from Durham University and is a mentor on the Judge Business School’s Accelerate Programme.
Maria Axente
Maria is a globally recognised, award-winning AI ethics public policy expert, a member of various Advisory Boards - UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on AI (APPG AI), NATO EDT & SKEMA AI Institute, and Chair of techUK Data and AI leadership committee. In her current role as Head of AI Public Policy and Ethics, she aligns PwC's AI strategies with ethical considerations and regulatory trends, fostering collaboration with external stakeholders and leading PwC's responses to public policy consultations and initiatives. Maria's commitment to responsible AI has made her a recognised thought leader and influencer in the field. Maria is a passionate advocate for children's rights in the age of AI, serving as a member of the Advisory Board for UNICEF #AI4Children and World Economic Forum Generation AI programmes. She also serves as an Intellectual Forum Senior Research Associate at the University of Cambridge researching human-centric AI and the intersection between tech policy and ethics.
- Twitter:
- @maria_axente
Stan Boland
Stan Boland is an active angel investor and advisor following a career of founding, building and successfully exiting a series of deep technology companies in semiconductors and AI. Most recently, he was a co-founder and CEO of Five AI, a significant European venture-backed software business founded in 2015 which developed a highly functional automated system for urban driving before pivoting to build an integrated, cloud-based development ecosystem for testing of automated driving systems in principled low-fidelity simulation, leading to its acquisition by Bosch in 2022 for an undisclosed sum. That was the third successful major exit for Stan, he previously co-founded and was CEO of two of Europe’s most valuable semiconductor startups, Element 14 Inc. and Icera Inc., which he sold to Broadcom and NVIDIA respectively, for an aggregate value of over $1.1 billion. Element 14 built high density chipsets and software for broadband connectivity whilst Icera built cutting-edge modem chipsets and software for cellular communications. Prior to founding startups, he was CEO of Acorn, a pioneer computer and technology firm and a Board member of its one-time associate, ARM. He is a graduate in physics from the University of Cambridge.
Gary Brotman
Gary Brotman is a passionate product and technology evangelist who leads Secondmind as Chief Executive Officer. He has 20+ years of experience leading teams responsible for building and commercializing product and service lines for leading Fortune 500 companies and startups with machine learning, mobility, and media at their core. Gary joined Secondmind from Qualcomm, Technologies, Inc. where as Head of AI Strategy and Product Planning he led the productization of the first four generations of the Qualcomm AI Engine across the company’s Snapdragon SoC platforms for Mobile, Automotive and IoT.
Chris Bruce
An international business executive with over 30 years experience of leading growth businesses in wireless, internet and cloud sectors. Chris has spent 15 years in the Wi-Fi Service Provider business: CEO BT Openzone Wi-Fi; Chair of the Wireless Broadband Alliance (Board Director for 10 years); MD and Board Director, GlobalReach Technology (Wi-Fi roaming and authentication specialists).
Chris is now a strategic consultant to wireless vendors and operators offering advice and delivering projects to enhance Go To Market results. Chris is NED Chairman of Handshakr SAAS platform company, bringing together large corporates and smaller innovators to collaborate.
Chris’s career includes: Sales and Marketing Director Business mobile, Telfort (Dutch Mobile Operator); CEO BT Openzone Wi-Fi; VP Advise for Communications providing advisory and wholesale services to Telcos in Middle East, Africa, Asia, LatAm; VP Europe Channels BT Internet Hosting and NED at Inet Spa, Italian Internet Hosting market leader. Chris held leadership roles in BT Global, launching services to Enterprise and Wholesale customers. Previously, Chris had Marketing and Product management positions at Ericsson, Ascom and CASE Communications.
Chris has a passion for innovation and growth and has supported start-ups and scale-ups as a mentor in accelerator programmes focused on Smart Cities, Blockchain and Authentication. Chris has a deep interest in Industrial IoT and Smart Cities.
Public sector experience includes a 12 month secondment to the Department of Trade & Industry, managing the UK Broadband Britain delivery programme and representing on BT’s East of England Regional Board.
Daniel Clarke
Dan leads the Smart Cambridge Programme which was set up to explore how data, innovative technology and better connectivity can be used to transform the way people live, work and travel in the Greater Cambridge area and beyond. Local councils, technology businesses, university researchers and partner organisations are working together to find smart ways to tackle city challenges, such as transport and air quality.
David Cleevely CBE FREng
David Cleevely is an entrepreneur who has founded a series of companies including Abcam, Analysys and the award winning restaurant Bocca di Lupo. He was Chairman of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, founding Chairman of the Cambridge Science Centre, Founding Director of the Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge. He also co-founded Cambridge Network, Cambridge Wireless, Cambridge Angels and Cambridge Ahead.
He was Vice-Chair of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Independent Economic Review, Chair of the Cambridge Autonomous Metro (CAM) Technical Advisory Committee and is currently Chair of the enquiry into policy after Covid, the ‘New Era for the Cambridge Economy’.
He also chairs the Royal Academy of Engineering Policy Fellowships Working Group. For 8 years until March 2009 he was a member of the Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board and from 2001 to 2008 he was a member of the Ministry of Defence DES-ISS (DCSA) Board. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in Education by Bath University in 2022 and an honorary doctorate in Technology by Anglia Ruskin University in July 2023.
Dr Anne Dobrée
Anne joined Parkwalk in 2024 and has been supporting University spin-outs and start-ups since 2001, working in various technology commercialisation roles at Imperial College and the University of Cambridge. Anne formerly led the growth of the University of Cambridge’s Seed Funds team for 15 years, including establishing the first University EIS fund with Parkwalk and spinning out Cambridge Innovation Capital. Anne has served on multiple early stage boards, across all technology sectors. Most recently Anne established the accelerator Founders at the University of Cambridge, to support founders at seed stage. Anne holds a BSc in Medical Microbiology and a PhD in Immunology.
Dr Ramsey Faragher
Dr Ramsey Faragher is the Founder, and former President and CTO of Focal Point Positioning, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation, and a Fellow of Queens' College, at the University of Cambridge. He is the inventor of the Supercorrelation digital signal processing technique, which has redefined the state of the art in GPS positioning. He is the author of dozens of patents, and has been the recipient of numerous awards within the positioning and navigation ecosystem. His company is pioneering improvements to smartphone and automotive navigation systems, and in the past during his time in the Defence sector he has developed technologies that have been to the bottom of the ocean and all the way to Mars. He also helped to improve the bluetooth tracking capabilities of various globally-deployed contact tracing technologies during the Covid pandemic. He regularly contributes to technology podcasts, writes for Forbes, and has provided science advice for two television production companies. Ramsey lives with his family in Cambridge and is currently navigating the challenging landscape of having three small and adventurous children.
Pam Garside
Pam Garside has had a career in health care systems and digital health in the UK and internationally and is an angel investor in early-stage health tech companies. She is a Fellow of the Judge Business School of the University of Cambridge and a member of the Investment Committee of Cambridge Enterprise. Pam is Chairman of Cambridge Angels,and sits on the board of Crown Place Venture Capital Trust. She founded and co-chairs The Cambridge Health Network, a membership group of senior players in the UK health sector. Pam advises a number of life science companies, health technology accelerators and start-ups in the UK and Europe.
Raj Gawera
Raj has over 20 years of experience in short range and wireless communications technology R&D, business development and marketing. Raj was part of initial IEEE 802.11 team to define first WLAN standard in 1996 – a technology which has now shipped in 10s of billions of units. Raj also helped pioneer the first 3G data transmissions working with Motorola and others to demonstrate one of the first video calls at the 3GSM show in 1998 – many years before 3G licences were awarded. He has also been awarded a number of patents including short range wireless technologies. Raj was a founder member of startup UbiNetics (1999), which successfully exited in 2005 for over $120m USD. As part of that deal, Raj joined CSR and ultimately took the role of VP Marketing where he was part of the team that acquired SiRF Technologies for $136m (2009) to add GPS technology to CSR portfolio. More recently in 2012, he helped sell CSR’s handset business to Samsung in a deal worth $310m for 310 staff to form the SCSC division. As part of that deal, Raj took up the role of VP Marketing responsible for defining future wireless products. In 2014, Raj was promoted to head up the SCSC division leading the silicon and software development for Samsung’s connectivity solutions. Since 2021, Raj has been a Non-Executive Director of the Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult and now heads up the Customers and Markets committee within the board.
Dr Hermann Hauser CBE
Hermann co-founded Amadeus Capital Partners in 1997 with Anne Glover. He has founded and invested in many technology companies including Acorn, ARM, Solexa which was bought by Ilumina, CSR, Graphcore and Photonic.
Hermann holds an MA in Physics from Vienna University and a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and was awarded an honorary KBE in 2015.
Dr Julian Huppert
Dr Julian Huppert is the Director of the Intellectual Forum at Jesus College, Cambridge, He is both an academic and a former Member of Parliament for Cambridge. He was Chair of the Independent Panel of Reviewers for DeepMind Health, and was ISPA’s ‘Internet Hero of the Year 2012’. He continues to work and advise on tech policy, particularly healthtech and edtech.
Dr Parminder Lally
Parminder is a patent attorney based in Appleyard Lees’ Cambridge office, and helps companies to protect their technological innovations. She has built a substantial reputation working with high-growth start-ups, spin-outs and SMEs in Cambridge, and has in-house experience. She specialises in writing and prosecuting patent applications for computer-implemented inventions. Her work includes patenting AI-based technologies, including new machine learning frameworks and applications of machine learning in image classification, human-computer interactions and text-to-speech. Parminder also writes her own AI blog on LinkedIn, and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys’ Computer Technology Committee.
Zygmunt Lozinski
Zygmunt is the Principal Architect for Telecom in IBM. He led the creation of the GSMA Post Quantum Telco Network Task Force and was the Editor of “Post Quantum Telco Network Impact Assessment” Whitepaper (Feb 2023). He works with leading telco clients in US and Europe on Quantum Computing and Post-Quantum Cryptography programs.
He is also responsible for IBM’s Telco Network Cloud (NFV), Network Edge and 5G security solutions. He co-lead the design of the first telco edge platform in the world, and co-lead delivery of one of the first telco clouds in Europe. He was a ontributor to the ETSI NFV Security and Linux Foundation ONAP Security work groups; he has advised western governments on the security aspects of 5G.
Zygmunt has filed over 30 patents, and lives outside Cambridge
Dr Christine Martin
The Cambridge Enterprise Ventures team are responsible for venture investing University of Cambridge funds into University of Cambridge spin-outs. The team invest in opportunities across the breadth of University research including quantum, silicon, sustainability, AI, med tech and drug discovery.
Christine’s background is in Life Science investment with a focus on drug discovery. She has supported numerous University of Cambridge spin-outs, including Carrick, Pretzel, Transition Bio, Z-factor, PhoreMost, Qkine, Spirea and Pharmenable.
With a degree and D. Phil in Chemistry from the University of Oxford, prior to becoming an investor, Christine had roles managing licensing of University intellectual property and before that working for a biotechnology spin-out from the University of Cambridge.
Olu Orugboh
Olu is the CEO and Founder of Synergy Solutions, a specialist management consultancy practice, focussed on helping companies stay at the forefront of evolving technology and the ever-changing world of customer expectations, whilst remaining resilient and futureproofing their business.
As a senior leader and seasoned professional with over 20 years’ experience, leading businesses through change, transformation and migration into digital environments, Olu has assisted a range of companies from start-ups, through to high growth scale ups to FTSE listed companies both in the UK and Internationally to embrace digital technology, safely, whilst remaining resilient and responsive to the rapidly changing environment. Olu has deep international experience, assisting enterprises to turnaround their failing operations through to putting in place infrastructures to support growth initiatives and introduce digital innovation. She has extensive business experience having had the opportunity, through both her own business and other executive level positions to shape the strategy for a wide array of businesses and introduce digital technology, providing a range of companies with the opportunity to speed up response and enhance the quality of that response, which she believes to be vital in the delivery of an agile business.
Olu is highly committed to assisting organisations to become resilient and future proofed. In addition to running a business, Olu is a mother to two wonderful children and is passionate about growing the impact of digital technology in underserved communities.
- Twitter:
- @oasikhia
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/olu-orugboh-7a9ba9/
James Parton
James supports the local start-up ecosystem in his role as the Managing Director of The Bradfield Centre, and as co-host of Cambridge Tech Podcast.
He has operated at leadership level in both start-up and corporate organisations, most recently at Twilio, where he built and ran their EMEA operation until IPO.
James co-authored ‘Developer Relations’, published by Apress in 2021, and he advises companies on how to build and nuture successful technical communities.