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2026 Speakers & Chairs
Alice Delahunty
Alice Delahunty is the first President of our Electricity Transmission business, a role in which she is responsible for the safe and efficient operation of the electricity transmission network for England and Wales.
Alice was previously Head of Network Optimisation on the NGET executive team, where she was responsible for asset management outcomes for the £12 Bn portfolio of assets, engineering and development of all capital investment schemes, as well as real time access to and control of the GB Electricity Transmission system.
She brings to her new role a “passion for the power industry, its performance, evolution and the safety and well-being of all who contribute to it” and more than 15 years of experience across all parts of the energy value chain, from generation, transmission, and distribution to the consumer experience.
Before joining National Grid, she held a variety of roles in E.ON culminating in Head of Offshore UK Wind Operations.
Her work in renewable energy has left Alice with an understanding of how the overall landscape for generation of energy in the UK is changing, having been “involved in that change from coal and gas-fired generation to offshore wind and distributed energy,” she says.
Alice holds a BEng in electrical and electronics engineering and a master’s in management science from University College Dublin. Early in her career, she was an electrical test engineer before moving into R&D, focusing on low-carbon technologies. She spent four years in Slovakia and Germany where she used her expertise in maintenance strategy and change management to implement major local change projects.
She is a former board member of the G+ Global Offshore Wind Health and Safety Organisation, an industry body supported by the Energy Institute which promotes world-class safety performance across the sector and throughout the life cycle of offshore wind farms.
She is a chartered engineer, a former trustee of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and previously won its Young Woman Engineer of the Year award. She recently became a fellow of the royal academy of engineering.
Chengxi Taylor
Chengxi Taylor is Co-founder and President of General Reasoning, a London-based AI R&D company building infrastructure for long-horizon agents that plan, adapt, and execute in complex environments. An Oxford MBA, she has been CEO/founder of five frontier tech companies over the past decade, developing a strong perspective on how advanced systems translate into real-world impact. Alongside her work in AI, she serves as Co-chair of the Oxford Saïd Alumnae Leaders Group and is the founder of SEEN, a community connecting technology, culture, and human perspective.
- Website:
- www.chengxitaylor.com
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/chengxi-taylor/
Dr Mike Short CBE FREng
Dr Mike Short CBE is Chairman UK Telecomms Labs, UK Telecomms Innovation Network and AWTG (a UK based Technology solutions provider). He is a member of the National Quantum Technology Programme (NQTP) and advisor to 2 Quantum hubs (PNT at Glasgow; Health at UCL). He had a 40 year career in Electronics and Telecommunications (BT / O2 / Telefonica) before appointment by DIT (now DBT) in 2017 as the Department’s first Chief Scientific Adviser. He is now pursuing a portfolio career around innovation and research largely in satellite and telecommunications, including as Chief Architect at the Satellite Applications Catapult and Distinguished Visitor at NPL.
He has chaired the Mobile Data Association, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the global GSM Association , and been a Board member of ETSI and Innovate UK. He is a Visiting Professor at UCL and Surrey Universities, and an advisor for the UK - India Future Networks initiative.
Faye Holland
Faye began her career in global technology firms including PIPEX and IBM, progressing through senior marketing and portfolio leadership roles across Europe and international markets.
In 2014, Faye founded cofinitive, an award-winning innovation communications consultancy supporting research-led and high-growth technology businesses. Over more than a decade, she built the firm into a recognised industry leader before its acquisition in 2025. She also established the #21toWatch Awards, one of the East of England’s most prominent platforms celebrating emerging innovation talent.
A recognised contributor to the Cambridge innovation cluster, Faye mentors founders through university entrepreneurship programmes including impulse, serves as Entrepreneur in Residence at Anglia Ruskin University, and co-hosts the Cambridge Tech Podcast. She is regularly named among the UK’s most influential women in technology and is driven by a belief in visibility, collaboration, and turning strategy into action.
Faye leads the delivery The Cambridge x Manchester Partnership - a flagship cross-city collaboration designed to strengthen the UK’s innovation economy. Faye also serves as Chair of the Cambridgeshire Chamber of Commerce, where she provides strategic leadership to support regional competitiveness, skills development, and technology-led growth.
Cambridge is one of the world’s most important science and technology ecosystems, and this year’s Cambridge Tech Week theme places a vital question at the centre of the conversation: how deep tech is reshaping industries, economies and society. It is exactly the kind of discussion that matters to technology companies, governments, and communities alike. I’m delighted to be an ambassador for CamTechWeek and look forward to joining what promises to be an outstanding programme of ideas, insights and connections. I hope to see many of the world’s leading technology thinkers and innovators in Cambridge this September.
- Website:
- www.cambridge-manchester.com
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/fayeholland/
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.
Karen Silverman
Karen Silverman is Founder and CEO of Cantellus Group, advising boards and leadership at Fortune 50 companies and the public sector on strategies, risk management and readiness for deploying AI and cutting-edge technologies successfully.
Kateryna Bezsudna
Kateryna Bezsudna is a Ukrainian defence tech specialist, Director of TEKEVER Ukraine, ex-co-founder of Buntar Aerospace and Defence Builder, and one of the active contributors to the development of Ukraine’s defence ecosystem since the beginning of the full-scale war.
Lord Kulveer Ranger of Northwood
Lord Ranger of Northwood is a member of the House of Lords and a senior figure at the intersection of public policy, business, and frontier technology. Over a twenty-five-year career, he has played a significant role in shaping digital transformation across government and industry, with particular expertise in transport, urban innovation, and emerging technologies.
Lord Ranger was a key member of the team that delivered the London Oyster card, pioneering large-scale e-money adoption and transforming urban mobility. Working alongside Boris Johnson during his tenure as Mayor of London, he was responsible for transport and environmental policy and established the first Digital Office for London. He led and supported major initiatives including the iconic cycle hire scheme, the development of Tech City, the introduction of electric vehicles, contributed to London’s Olympic preparations, the England 2018 World Cup bid, and advocacy for the £18bn Crossrail (Elizabeth Line) project.
In the private sector, he was a senior executive at Atos, leading strategy and corporate communications across Northern Europe, Asia-Pacific, and India. He has served on influential boards including techUK, Transport for London, and the international steering group for C40 Cities. He currently serves as a non-executive director and adviser to several technology businesses and is Chair of the British Serbian Chamber of Commerce.
A recognised thought leader on emerging technologies, he is a frequent international speaker on artificial intelligence, digital assets, and governance innovation. He serves on the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, is Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Digital Money and Digital Markets, and Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for AI. He has been recognised in the Digital Leaders UK AI 100 and ranked 67th in the 2026 CCN Global Digital Assets Leaders list, and is co-founder of the Business AI Alliance, promoting responsible and practical AI adoption.
Lucy Yu
Lucy Yu is an award-winning technologist, venture builder and policymaker. She has more than twenty years’ experience building, scaling and leading venture-backed global consumer-facing and deep tech ventures in AI, mobile, energy, and mobility; and developing technology policy and regulation for the UK government, European Commission, and the UN.
Lucy is CEO at Centre for Net Zero, Octopus Energy Group’s non-profit energy and AI open research institute spearheading the transition to a citizen-centric, fossil-free global energy system. She is the UK Government’s AI Champion for Clean Energy, a member of the AI Energy Council, and the Smart Data Council.
Lucy holds several non-executive and advisory roles including chair of the board of trustees at Wikimedia UK, and non-executive director at E3G and Connected Places Catapult. She is a co-founder of the Institute for Ethical AI & Machine Learning, a global membership community of over 70,000 machine learning professionals. She sits on the Russell Group’s Industrial Strategy Expert Advisory Group, and she is an adviser to Form Ventures, a UK-based fund investing in start-ups building in highly regulated markets.
She studied computational and physical chemistry at Imperial College, public leadership at Harvard Kennedy School, and venture finance at Said Business School.
Shane Mason
Shane Mason is Founder of Strategical, the UK's specialist defence business winning advisory and professional development firm. Strategical works with international entrants, UK primes, and scale-ups competing for UK defence contracts — from market entry strategy through to bid execution — and has facilitated client contract wins exceeding £1 billion across UK defence. Shane founded Strategical after senior roles at BAE Systems and Babcock International, where he led major programme wins and served as Head of Strategy. He holds an MOD-sponsored MBA, an MSt in International Relations from Selwyn College (Cambridge), and recently wrote Strategical's CMI level 5 Business Winning Training programme — the UK’s only Regulated Qualifications Framework course dedicated to UK defence business winning.
Suranga Chandratillake OBE
Suranga joined Balderton as a General Partner in 2014.
He was previously an entrepreneur and engineer. Suranga founded blinkx, the intelligent search engine for video and audio content in Cambridge in 2004. He then led the company for eight years as CEO through its journey of moving to San Francisco, building a profitable business and going public in London where it achieved a peak market capitalisation in excess of $1Bn.
Before founding blinkx, Suranga was an early employee at Autonomy Corporation – joining as an engineer in the Cambridge R&D team and ultimately serving as the company’s US CTO in San Francisco. Suranga has a MA in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge.
He holds patents in the area of video discovery and online video advertising, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2012 and was chosen as one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders in 2009. Suranga was a member of the UK Government’s Council for Science and Technology from 2017 to 2024 and currently serves on the Investment Board of the University of Cambridge.
Suranga was granted an OBE for services to technology and engineering in the 2018 UK New Year’s Honours.
- Website:
- www.balderton.com
Teemu Turunen
Mr. Teemu Turunen has been the Ambassador of Finland in the UK since September 2025.
Ambassador Turunen was previously Deputy Director of the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service SUPO 2021-2025 as well as interim Director in 01-04/2024.
Prior to that position, he was Director of the Peace Mediation Centre at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland (2019-2021) and Ambassador of Finland to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay (2016-2019).
From 2009 to 2016 he served in consular affairs, first as Deputy Director (2009-2012) and then Director of the Consular Affairs of MFA Finland (2012-2016), leading cross-government teams in dozens of crisis situations, including evacuations, terrorist attacks, kidnappings and natural disasters.
His previous postings include Finnish Embassies in Beijing, Madrid and Damascus. Ambassador Turunen joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland in 2000.
Ambassador Turunen was born in Turku, Finland in 1973. He is Master of Laws from the University of Turku, Finland, and Master of Sociology of Law from the Universidad del Pais Vasco, Spain.
Ambassador Turunen is married to Lotta Mäki-Turunen. They have three children.
Tom Adeyoola
Tom is the Executive Chair of Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. He also sits on the board of Channel 4 and leading independent school St. Paul's. A Cambridge alumnus, experienced entrepreneur, and board director with over 25 years in the startup ecosystem, he previously grew his fashion technology startup Metail (based in Cambridge and London) to exit raising £25m, and as a NED took women’s personal wellness scale-up Elvie from inception to Series B and Net Zero strategy consultancy Verco through 3x revenue to acquisition. He has also been actively involved in investing and policy, co-authoring the "Start-Up, Scale-Up" review for Rt Hon Rachel Reeves MP in opposition, co-founding Extend Ventures and sitting on the Creative Industries Taskforce and Startup Coalition board.
Tom Wilson
Tom is Partner at Seedcamp, the leading European seed fund launched in 2007 with a belief that European entrepreneurs have the power to compete on a global scale. Seedcamp has invested in over 500 companies including publicly listed Romanian-founded, UiPath, Wise (formerly TransferWise) and unicorns Revolut, wefox, Pleo, Sorare, Grover, viz.ai, and Synthesia.
Tom joined in 2014 following an early career in law at SJ Berwin in London where he specialised in investment funds and corporate M&A in the private equity and venture capital sector. Tom graduated with a first-class honours in Economics from the University of York before attending law school in London.
Tom has worked with companies across a broad spectrum of sectors during his almost 10 years at Seedcamp and is passionate about finding relentlessly driven founders solving hard problems and supporting them on their journey to product-market fit. He has a particular interest in working in sectors that touch regulated areas and this has led to him regularly partnering with founders across Healthcare, Fintech and Legaltech. Additionally, Tom has more recently been building out our investment thesis around TechBio and sees huge opportunities at the intersection of technology and life science.
He currently sits on the Advisory Board for the Oxford University Seed Fund, a student-led, venture capital fund, and is a mentor for the Founders at the University of Cambridge programme.
2025 Speakers & Chairs
Madame la Ministre Amal Al Fallah Seghrouchni
Madame la Ministre Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni, appointed Delegate Minister to the Head of Government in charge of Digital Transition and Administrative Reform in the Moroccan Government on Wednesday, October 23, 2024. She is the former Executive President and current Honorary President of the Moroccan International Centre for Artificial Intelligence (AI Movement) - a strategic initiative within Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P).
She also held the position of Distinguished Professor at Sorbonne University in Paris, where she taught at the Faculty of Science and Engineering. As a researcher at LIP6 – UMR CNRS 7606, one of the largest computer science laboratories in France, she has been at the forefront of innovation in artificial intelligence. Holding a Ph.D. in Computer Science and an Accreditation to Supervise Research (HDR), Madame la Ministre Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni is recognized as one of the leading specialists in Distributed Artificial Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems. Her influence in the field was cemented by her election as General Chair of the AAMAS 2020 international conference in Auckland, New Zealand.
She has also initiated numerous international collaborations with prestigious institutions such as the National Institute of Informatics (NII) in Tokyo, as well as universities in Mexico, Brazil, Romania, and other European countries.
Since 2022, the Minister has also served as a member of the Higher Council for Education, Training, and Scientific Research.
Jonathan Legh-Smith
Jonathan Legh-Smith is Executive Director for UKQuantum, the association for the UK’s quantum industry. Jonathan represents the interests of UKQuantum members nationally and internationally. Jonathan is also a member of the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme Strategic Advisory Board, the National Quantum Computing Centre Strategic Advisory Committee, UK coordinator for the NATO Transatlantic Quantum Community Industry Network, NPL’s Quantum Strategy Board and co-chair of the UK’s Responsible Quantum Industry Forum. Jonathan was awarded an MBE for services to science & technology in 2024.
Lucy Adams
Lucy Adams is a technology writer at tech.eu - specialising in deeptech and materials innovation, and tracking the rise and rise of Venture Capital across Europe She was previously at Sky News and has been a contributor to the FT’s tech spinout, sifted.
Matthew Anderson
Matthew focuses on the photonic modelling aspects of Wave Photonics’ technology and on component design. He completed his PhD working in Toshiba’s Quantum Information Group at Cambridge University where he explored entangled photon sources at telecoms wavelengths for secure communication. He also holds a master’s degree in Physics from St. Andrews University.
Oli Barrett MBE
Oli Barrett loves connecting people and ideas. He is a co-founder of The Superscalers, supporting underrepresented founders to scale their work globally. He co-founded WebMission and Clean and Cool, connecting hundreds of founders with partners and clients around the world. He is a shareholder in several companies including mental health business Calm.com and Troubadour Theatres, which creates new theatres and film studios. Oli co-founded the UK's largest schools enterprise competition, Tenner, which is now run by charity Young Enterprise. He also co-founded StartUp Britain with support from the British Prime Minister, and global literacy campaign Turn On The Subtitles (TOTS), encouraging broadcasters and tech companies to improve children's reading. He is a co-founder of Volunteer It Yourself (VIY), supporting young people to fix their own youth clubs and community buildings, gaining skills and qualifications. Oli is a regular event host and presenter for gatherings spanning technology, health, entrepreneurship, and education. He sits on the advisory boards of the Global Entrepreneurship Network, Global Tech Advocates, One Million Mentors and Founders4Schools.
Amelia Armour
Amelia joined Amadeus Capital Partners in 2009 and is a Partner in the Early Stage Fund. Her current investment focus is on AI, Photonics, and Novel Materials.
She is a Director on several boards including Xampla, who have developed novel plant-based materials to replace single-use plastics; iPronics who are building lossless optical switches for AI networking at the speed of light ; Riverlane a developer of the operating system for error corrected quantum computers; sprout.ai a provider of fast and accurate insurance claims automation and SLAMcore, a spin-out from Imperial College, developing spatial intelligence for autonomous robotics and drones.
Mark Avery
Mark’s role spans both Health Innovation East and Cambridge University Health Partners (CUHP). His role includes leadership of a portfolio of projects to develop capacity and capability in the region to integrate data to gain insights that inform health and care delivery and clinical research. He is Director of the East of England Sub-National Secure Data Environment (SN-SDE) programme and sits on the East of England NHS Digital Portfolio Programme Board.
Starting out as an information analyst, Mark has over 20 years’ experience working in the NHS across a range of operational, information, contracting and performance management roles. He is experienced in leading complex projects and programmes within and across hospitals, commissioning, third sector, and research organisations.
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/averymark/
Peter Bachmann
Peter is Managing Director of Gresham House’s Sustainable Infrastructure division and Co-Fund Manager for the firm’s British Sustainable Infrastructure Fund (BSIF) strategy. BSIF invests in real asset-based solutions for the key environmental and social challenges we face. He is also a member of the Gresham House Asset Management Board.
Prior to Gresham House, Peter led the investment and exit of the Sustainable Infrastructure-focused Environmental Capital Fund (ECF) for SEP, one of Europe’s most successful VC firms. With over 24 years of public and private equity investment, development and fund management experience, including two top-decile infrastructure fund exits, he has invested into and exited over 200 infrastructure and technology companies across all sectors with an equity value of over £2bn and capital value of c.£6bn.
Peter has had board member roles on over 90 investee companies and is a Senior Associate of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). Peter is also an active investor in early-stage sustainability companies and has planted his own Miyawaki Forest at home.
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.
Dr Timothy Ballance
Dr Timothy Ballance is a Senior Advisor at Infleqtion. Formerly UK President of Infleqtion until mid 2025, Dr Ballance established Infleqtion's UK team in Oxford in 2017 and has grown the 40-person strong group to be an important part of the UK and global quantum community.
Infleqtion is a global quantum technology company, delivering high-value quantum solutions precisely where they are needed. By operating at the Edge, our software-configured, quantum-enabled products deliver unmatched levels of precision and power, generating streams of high-value information for commercial organisations, the United States, and allied governments. With 18 years of pioneering quantum research as our foundation, our hardware products and AI-powered solutions address critical market needs in accelerated quantum computing, global communication security and efficiency, resilient energy distribution, and position navigation and timing (PNT). We currently have offices in Austin, TX; Boulder, CO; Chicago, IL; Louisville, CO; Madison, WI; Melbourne, Aus; and Oxford, UK.
Dr Ballance is an experienced quantum technologist and a seasoned leader. He is an expert in practical quantum systems, holding a PhD from Cambridge on quantum networking.
Dr Giovanni Bandi
Giovanni is an accomplished executive with more than 18 years of combined academic and professional experience driving operations across regulators, financial risk advisory, assets management and international business platforms. He developed expertise in FinTech and SupTech applications with a focus on AI and Machine Readable projects. He offers a strong list of successes elevating data analytics, digital compliance schemes and risk assessments to impact financial regulations in alignment with legalities.
Max Beverton-Palmer
Max Beverton-Palmer is Head of Public Policy, UK at NVIDIA, where he leads the company's government affairs and public policy initiatives across the United Kingdom. In this role, he’s responsible for NVIDIA's engagement with the UK government and the wider UK policy making community on critical AI policy matters, including the development of sovereign AI infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, and strategic partnerships that position the UK as a global leader in artificial intelligence. With a fifteen plus year career spanning senior roles at Meta, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, Sky, and Ofcom, Max has shaped digital policy and strategy at the intersection of government, industry, and civil society. He is also a Continuing Policy Fellow at the Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy.
Gatleen Bhambra
Gatleen Bhambra is the Co-Founder and COO of Mater-AI, a deep-tech company developing AI-driven thermoelectric materials to convert waste heat into clean energy and advanced cooling. She leads operations, strategy, and commercial development, drawing on her background in consulting and AI product design. Mater-AI has secured venture funding, partnered with leading research institutes, and was recognised at Conception X’s Deep Tech Demo Day.
Roz Bird
Roz joined Norwich Research Park as CEO of Anglia Innovation Partnership in May 2022. With a successful background in urban regeneration and science parks, she previously worked at MEPC Ltd and the UK Science Park Association. In November 2023, she joined the UKSPA Board and became Co-ordinator for Women in IASP in June 2024.
Mark Bjornsgaard
Mark is CEO of System Two. He has grown numerous businesses from scratch to scale - most recently Deep Green (Green Data Centres - sold to Octopus Energy Generation). His current focus is Juicy Energy (a battery JV with a range of energy suppliers). Other investments include Lifted (Senior care - JV British Gas), Altogether (US healthcare, JV GSK) and Secret Source (augmented tech teams). Mark was a founding investor in Elmo (EV subscriptions sold to BCA group) and is an investor in Caldera (Heat Batteries), Ctrl Alt (Asset tokenisation) and NewChange FX (FX data) amongst others. He holds a number of board positions and consults to a range of FTSE 100s on M&A strategy and innovation. His 1st Book “The Manual - How to Define a Value Hypothesis” is out next year.
Professor Julian Blow FRSE FMedSci
Julian is Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation and joined UEA in 2024 from the University of Dundee, where he had been Dean of the School of Life Sciences. Under his leadership Dundee was ranked the top university for biological sciences research in both REF2014 and REF2021 and was recognised for a range of successful enterprise initiatives in the biosciences.
As Professor of Chromosome Maintenance, Julian is also an active researcher in molecular biology. His research interests span the areas of cell division, chromosome replication and the maintenance of genome integrity. In recognition of his research achievements, he has been elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization. He has served on many national and international scientific committees, including for the BBSRC, CRUK, ERC and NIH. He is currently Chair of the Scientific Committee of the Lister Institute.
William Booth-Clibborn
William Booth-Clibborn is a Senior Research Engineer at Luminance, where he leverages his expertise in Agentic AI, LLMs, Reinforcement Learning (RL), Diffusion Models, and AI Safety to drive novel research and create new legal technologies. Based in Cambridge, he heads the Lumi team, responsible for key initiatives including Deep Insights and Agent Lumi.
William holds an MPhil in Data Intensive Science from the University of Cambridge, studying Machine Learning for Physics, and a BSc in Physics from the University of Exeter, focusing on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for planetary formation.
Outside of work, William is an active open-source contributor and hackathon enthusiast. Recently, William’s team captured first place at the 2025 Meta Llama Hackathon in Oslo.
Paul Bristow
Paul Bristow was elected as Mayor of Cambridgeshire & Peterborough in May 2025. Paul moved to Peterborough aged five when his parents began working in the NHS. He grew up in Whittlesey and attended Sir Harry Smith Community College before studying at Lancaster University. Paul was first elected as a councillor in 2006 and represented Peterborough in Parliament from 2019 to 2024. As Mayor, he has pledged to 'get Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Moving' by dualling A roads, improving rail links between our cities and building light rail for Cambridge. He is ambitious to ensure growth in our region works for everyone, making Cambridgeshire and Peterborough the best place to live and work in the UK.
Dr Paul Calleja
Dr Calleja obtained his PhD in computational bio-physics at the University of Bath. After obtaining a post-doctoral research position at Birbeck, Univerisity of London, he moved into private industry, where he spearheaded the early commercialisation of High Performance Computing cluster solutions in the UK.
In 2006 Dr Calleja joined the University of Cambridge to direct a major reorganisation of research computing services. This has resulted in University-wide HPC capabilities using a novel pay-per-use cloud computing model. The University of Cambridge is now home to the fastest academic supercomputer in the UK.
Dr Calleja sits on numerous national and international HPC committees and advisory boards, as well as being a founding member of the UK HPC Special Interest Group.
Euan Cameron
Euan is PwC’s AI and emerging technology leader.
He works closely with colleagues across PwC to identify opportunities to enhance value through the development and deployment of AI and other emerging technologies. This includes client facing solutions, enhancing our existing product suite and creating material efficiency in back office processes.
A key part of his role is to help bridge the gap between business problems and technical solutions, spending time with clients and colleagues across all parts of the firm to help them demystify AI and data science, understand the technological ‘art of the possible’ and recognise the use cases to which it can be applied.
He is also part of the leadership team responsible for developing PwC’s strategy and approach to generative and agentic AI. This includes both harnessing the significant business opportunities these technologies present as well as designing the appropriate governance and controls to ensure safe use.
Prior to his current role, Euan worked as a strategy consultant for 20 years at Strategy& with a specific focus on the application of advanced analytics to complex business problems.
Euan holds an MEng from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from INSEAD.
Kathryn Chapman
A molecular bioscientist, Kathryn has had a distinguished career in diverse leadership and strategic roles across the public and private sectors.
Following a successful research career at the University of Manchester, Harvard Medical School, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and GlaxoSmithKline, Kathryn has played a pivotal role in shaping inclusive innovation landscapes, building cross-disciplinary virtual and physical communities and creating novel models to remove barriers to success.
This includes a decade building and leading the innovation strategy for NC3Rs, a UKRI Research Council where Kathryn founded and directed a new challenge-led open innovation platform, CRACK IT which increases cross-discipline and cross-sector industry/academic partnerships in applied research. Kathryn also co-established the Milner Therapeutics Institute at the University of Cambridge, providing a physical hub for translational science and collaboration between industry and academia. The Institute is a centre of excellence for target validation through artificial intelligence, machine-learning, functional genomics and tool compound analyses. Most recently, prior to joining Innovate Cambridge, Kathryn directed the innovation strategy at the Babraham Research Campus, launching LiveLabs incubator space and leading the Campus accelerator, entrepreneurship and innovation activities.
Throughout these roles. Chapman’s focus has been on spearheading initiatives that propel startups, entrepreneurs and businesses towards success and driving meaningful change at a national and international level.
Kathryn has 50+ research publications and has been on a wide-range of national and international review panels (Innovate UK, Innovative Medicines Initiative and BBSRC). She holds an honorary professorship at the University of Coventry where she sits on the Vice Chancellor’s advisory group.
Priscila Chaves
Priscila Chaves brings over 18 years of experience in corporate, startup, and public-sector roles, working across all seven continents. She has held leadership positions at IBM and Cargill across Europe, LATAM and APAC; has advised governments and multilateral organizations in the Global South on AI governance and ecosystem collaboration across global supply chain system; and has led cross-sector innovation initiatives worldwide, including her recent research during an Antarctic expedition focused on the impact of global warming on sea-level rise. She holds a Master’s in AI Ethics & Society from the University of Cambridge, and a Technology MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.
Belinda Clarke OBE
Belinda is the Director of Agri-TechE, the UK’s longest-established and largest 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 and won Corporate Livewire’s Agricultural Initiative of the Year 2024.
Belinda was also a Non-Executive Director of Agrimetrics, formerly 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” and she was among the “Women of the Year 2022” cohort.
She has a first degree from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in plant biochemistry from the John Innes Centre. She is a Nuffield Scholar, a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Councils, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, a Chartered Biologist, and a qualified business coach.
In 2024 she was awarded an OBE for services to agri-technologies and farming in the Kings Birthday Honours List.
David Cleevely CBE FREng FIET
Dr David Cleevely CBE FREng FIET is a serial technology entrepreneur, international telecoms expert, and one of the founding fathers of the world-renowned Cambridge Cluster.
A super-angel investor, self-confessed technophile and significant Government adviser, David has been central to the innovative Cambridge ecosystem for several decades, contributing significantly to the city being crowned the UK’s centre of Science, Innovation and Technology.
As founder of Cambridge Angels, Chair of the Enterprise Committee for the Royal Academy of Engineering and through his involvement with Cambridge University’s impulse Programme for high-potential tech entrepreneurs, David has helped new generations of startups, in both academia and industry, gain global traction.
As an entrepreneur, he has founded a series of companies including Abcam, Analysys, and the award-winning restaurant Bocca di Lupo. He also co-founded Cambridge Network, Cambridge Science Centre, Cambridge Wireless, Cambridge Angels and Cambridge Ahead - and is additionally Chair of Chemify (a Glasgow University spin out founded with Professor Lee Cronin), Focal Point Positioning, and the Royal Academy of Engineering Policy Fellowships Working Group.
His previous positions include Chair of the Raspberry Pi Foundation; Founding Director of the Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge; Vice-Chair of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Independent Economic Review; Chair of the Cambridge Autonomous Metro (CAM) Technical Advisory Committee; and Chair of the enquiry into policy after Covid, the ‘New Era for the Cambridge Economy’.
For eight years until March 2009, he was a member of the Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board, and 2001- 2008, 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.
In 2013, David was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE, for his services to technology and innovation.
Sir Nick Clegg
Sir Nick Clegg is the former UK Deputy Prime Minister (2010-2015) and former President, Global Affairs at Meta (2018-2025). Prior to being elected to the UK Parliament in 2005, he worked in the European Commission and served for five years as a member of the European Parliament. He became leader of the Liberal Democrat party in 2007 and served as Deputy Prime Minister in the UK’s first coalition government since the war, from 2010 to 2015. He joined Meta, then called Facebook, in 2018 and became the company’s chief policy decision-maker and its principal interlocutor with world leaders, governments and policymakers around the globe. He has written two best-selling books, Politics: Between the Extremes and How To Stop Brexit (And Make Britain Great Again).
Vanessa Colomar
In September 2025, Vanessa co-founded Dalloway Partners with Helen James to challenge the notion that the UK’s leadership in foundational science can’t produce super scaled companies. We work with academic and scientific founders who have innovative ideas and want to build a company at scale, and at speed, navigating some of the inherent challenges in the system. Operating at the intersection of science and academia, entrepreneurship, finance, media and government, we provide strategic advice for companies at inflection points in their growth trajectory, taking equity positions so our incentives align with founders and their investors.
Dalloway Partners is different. Our advice is not constrained to any one aspect of business growth. Having developed companies from back-of-an-envelope idea to exit ourselves, we help other entrepreneurs do the same, defining their go-to-market strategy, overseas expansion, fundraising and M&A. In short, our advice spans the non-technical aspects of scaling businesses, allowing the scientific founders to focus on what they do best: world-changing breakthroughs that will have a positive impact.
Vanessa has decades of experience helping founders create and grow technology companies. Throughout her career she has sat at the intersection of ideas and their development in a variety of roles spanning media, politics, technology, business, academia and the law. Vanessa was a co-founder of Invoke Capital which created some of the UK’s highest-growth businesses such as Darktrace and Luminance, among others. She is interested in new initiatives in health tech, particularly women’s health. She holds a number of board positions and is a Fellow of the Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy and on the Innovation Board of Innovate Cambridge and supports a number of arts organisations.
Elizabeth Diaferia
After a distinguished and extensive career in international financial markets, the creative industries and tech, Elizabeth has her own creative industries and tech consultancy, and leads CITIB, the Creative Industries Trade and Investment Board, working with industry and government since 2019. Through her work in government Elizabeth has been Head of Creative Trade Engagement in the Department for Business and Trade, as well as leading on creative industries investment, advanced manufacturing, robotics, and AI.
Elizabeth has worked extensively in the fashion sector, heading government relations for the British Fashion Council and the Institute for Positive Fashion, as well as an advisor to fashion brands and fashion tech.
She has held senior roles in Westminster since 2010 covering policy, public affairs, communications, and advocacy. Elizabeth is a regular contributor, moderator, and speaker at key events.
Elizabeth is a Mentor for Commonwealth First, a programme developed by the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. She also sits on the Advisory Board for Deeptech Labs, Cambridge, Finito Education, and a sustainable fashion tech company. She is a former advisor to Cambridge University Fashion Accelerator.
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.
Barrie Diffin
With over 20 years of experience leading operations and projects across the web, construction, logistics, security, FinTech, and renewable energy sectors, Barrie has built a career on delivering complex initiatives in demanding environments. His work has taken him from managing large-scale infrastructure projects to driving operational excellence in fast-moving technology businesses.
Barrie has a track record of building teams, introducing effective systems and processes, and guiding organisations through periods of change and growth. He enjoys tackling complex challenges, developing practical solutions, and ensuring that people at all levels have the tools and support to succeed.
Alongside his operational focus, he has always been passionate about developing talent, helping individuals grow in confidence and capability while keeping organisational goals firmly in sight.
Daniel Doll-Steinberg
Daniel is Co-Founder and General Partner at EdenBase. He has built disruptive tech startups, managed large-scale corporate change and advised governments and supranational organisations on policy and regulation. Daniel invests in the convergence of AI, Quantum Computing, Blockchain and Immersive Tech that are rapidly becoming general purpose. In 2021,he built the financial model for Quantum Computing Inc’s Nasdaq listing (QUBT).
His book, Unsupervised (Wiley, September 2023), a Bloomberg Book of the Year focusses on how AI, Quantum Computing and other frontier technologies are impacting our lives and society, how we all need to seize the opportunity and what could happen if they are left unchecked.
Daniel started his career in the global derivatives technology industry in the early 90’s, the first true disruption that technology brought to the financial industry. He led change management at a major global bank in New York between 1995 - 1997. After which he founded a company that created one of the first global standards for Digital Rights Management (DRM). He was trusted by the world’s biggest software and games companies to secure and deliver activation keys and content direct to resellers and customers, an innovation which helped transform both the software and computer gaming industries. In 2017, he founded the Atari Token Project to build a metaverse-based new economy platform with Atari, an Ethereum founder and several gaming leaders.
Daniel was appointed by the European Commission as an expert advisor specialising in education, disruption, and future of work. He was also advisor to the UK Government where he co-wrote the 2012 Innovation Report.
Helen Duncan
Helen Duncan is Chief Executive Officer of Blueshift Memory, a semiconductor IP startup. Following an early career as a microwave design engineer, she was marketing manager for two global semiconductor manufacturers, then editor of a leading European technical magazine for 12 years. Before joining Blueshift Memory she worked as a marketing consultant and a freelance technology writer.
A Chartered Engineer, Helen is a member of the UKTIN Semiconductor Experts Working Group and has advised on UK semiconductor and telecoms policy. She is passionate about promoting the role of women in deep tech, and has served on the IEEE UKI Women in Engineering Committee.
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenduncan
Ray Eitel-Porter
Ray is an expert in Responsible AI and AI Governance, and the author of Governing the Machine – How to navigate the risks of AI and unlock its true potential (forthcoming, Bloomsbury October 2025). He is Senior Adviser for Responsible AI to Accenture and, through Lumyz Advisory, provides independent consulting. Ray is 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. He advises on principles and policy, governance, areas of risk (such as bias, explainability, reliability and sustainability), controls, capabilities and supporting platforms and technologies.
Tim Ensor
Tim Ensor is EVP and General Manager for Cambridge Consultant’s Intelligent Services Business Unit. He is responsible globally for CC’s business and client relationships in AI and Digital Services
Tim works with senior clients across many sectors to help them achieve business growth by identifying, developing and deploying world-changing innovation based on deep tech. Prior to CC, Tim has had a string of commercial leadership roles in high-growth technology and consulting businesses working in fields including AI, robotics, telecoms, energy, consumer goods and logistics.
He’s a frequent public speaker and event chair focusing on the latest developments at the intersection of technology and business. He has a Master of Engineering from University of Bath and MBA from University of Cambridge.
Sofia Esteves
Sofia combines a background in science and engineering with nearly 15 years of experience in innovation and technology transfer, at academia and industry. In her role as the Head of Market Insights at Net Zero Insights, she is focused on enhancing the impact created by Climate Tech innovation stakeholders.
Jonno Evans
Jonno is a Principal at IQ Capital, investing across a broad-range of sectors including AI, robotics, energy, climate, computing and cybersecurity.
As a result of his background in diplomacy, Jonno is drawn to founders developing products that address critical global challenges such as decarbonisation, global resilience, and reindustrialisation.
Jonno’s interests have led him to work with portfolio companies including Imandra, Mytos, RevEng, Flink, Molyon, Opteran and Secretarium.
Prior to joining IQ Capital, Jonno was a senior advisor at Epsilon Advisory Partners, where he advised CEOs and founders at fast growth tech companies, and at CyLon Ventures, an investor in early-stage security-related startups.
Earlier in his career, Jonno was a diplomat, policy official and private secretary to two prime ministers at 10 Downing Street. He was awarded an OBE for services to British foreign policy in 2021.
Alongside his role at IQ Capital, Jonno is a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center.
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonnoevans/
David Ferguson
David is Head of Innovation at EDF UK. His mission is to lead innovations that accelerate the world’s journey towards net zero. His career has covered climate strategy, digital R&D and innovation in the UK, France and China. He is also co-founder of several climate tech startups, a Non-Executive Director of Exeter Science Park and a member of the Tech Southwest Advisory Board.
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 Andrew Fitzgibbon
Andrew Fitzgibbon has been closely involved in the delivery of three groundbreaking computer vision and machine learning systems over two decades. In 2000, he was computer vision lead on the Emmy-award-winning 3D camera tracker “Boujou”; in 2009 he introduced large-scale synthetic training data to Kinect for Xbox 360, and in 2019 was science lead on the team that shipped fully articulated hand tracking on HoloLens 2. His passion is bringing the power of mathematics to the crucible of real-world engineering. He has numerous research awards, including ten “best paper” prizes at leading conferences, and is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and of the Royal Society.
Emma Fletcher
Emma is the Low Carbon Housing Director at Octopus Energy. Her career has centred on leading high impact, high innovation projects in real estate, with a particular focus on housing, energy performance and green energy production. Her practical experience includes starting her career in rural surveying and estate management moving into award-winning housing and regeneration developments.
Emma is a passionate advocate for change, community resilience and sustainability solutions for all. She established and led the UK’s first fossil fuel-free district heating scheme in her village, Swaffham Prior. Her work regularly features in trade, national and international press & media.
James Frankland
James acts for farmers and landowners on a full range of agricultural and rural property matters. He also advises private, institutional and charity landowners on nature conservation and Natural Capital including Biodiversity Net Gain, Carbon Capture and Environmental Schemes.
Arash Ghazanfari
A seasoned technology executive and former CTO of Dell Technologies’ UK division, Arash focuses on driving business growth and shaping strategic client engagements. As a CxO Advisor across the UK and Europe, he works with Dell Technologies’ EMEA leadership to engage senior executives and line of business leaders from the company’s customers, helping them accelerate innovation, achieve growth and deliver measurable outcomes beyond traditional IT boundaries.
Marco Ghibaudi
Marco is an expert in delivering deep-tech prototypes and products. He holds a joint CERN/SSSUP PhD in Innovative Technologies and he specialises on highly constrained systems. Marco innovation track-record comprises the first smart-city testbed in Europe, a key component in large-scale optical networks, the CERN largest electronics upgrade and the first commercial wireless VR Headset.
From small scale software solutions to multi-million units per year hardware chips, Marco has always focused on quality, reliability and time to market. Marco brings Industry best-practices into Research and ingenuity into Development.
Dr Abigail Gilbert
Dr Gilbert is Co-Executive Director of the Institute for the Future of Work. In her role Abby ensures that IFOW has a strategic research agenda. Within this, she works to advise businesses and regulators, through IFOW's Responsible AI Sandbox, and government departments, such as the AI Safety Institute, to think through the impacts of algorithmic systems on work at the individual, firm and system level. Abby is a Policy Board Member of the University of Manchester Work and Equalities Institute, and a founding member of the Global Partnership on AI's Enterprise AI Steering Committee.
Jim Glasheen
Jim is Chief Executive of Cambridge Enterprise. He has over 25 years of experience across industry and university environments in both Silicon Valley and the Cambridge Massachusetts innovation ecosystem.
Prior to joining Cambridge Enterprise in 2024 Jim was Co-founder and President of two biotech companies, Atalanta Therapeutics and Clade Therapeutics. He also served as Executive Vice Chancellor – Innovation and Business Development at UMASS Medical School. Prior to these roles, Jim was a venture capitalist for ~20 years, as General Partner and Life-Science Co-Lead at Palo Alto based firm Technology Partners Venture Capital.
Jim completed a post-doctoral fellowship at University of California, Berkeley and holds a PhD in Biology from Harvard University, a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Fellowship at Universität des Saarlandes and a BS from Duke University.
Dr. Walter Goodwin
Walter Goodwin is the founder of Fractile, a company building chips, systems and software to radically improve the speed and cost of running the world’s largest AI models. Prior to Fractile, Walter got his PhD at Oxford University working with frontier AI models.
Tabitha Goldstaub MBE
​​​​​​​Tabitha is the Co Founder of Lichen AI, enhancing and automating requirements capture to increase the chance that companies build things people really want! Also an advisor to business, government, academia, and philanthropy on the impact of AI. Author of How To Talk To Robots - A Girl's Guide to a World Dominated by AI, a book which she is transforming into a reality TV show. Working internationally on the Board of Luminate, ensuring Big Tech, social platforms, and AI companies respect human rights and social justice. Helping locally on the Board of Innovate Cambridge and The Cambridge Pledge working to support the innovation ecosystem and ensure the general public feel the benefits. Former Chair of the UK government's AI Council and member of the Digital Economy Council for which Tabitha was awarded and MBE for services to Artificial Intelligence. Serial entrepreneur, Tabitha was the co-founder and Festival Director of CogX, a leadership summit for emerging technology and co-founder of video distribution company Rightster (IPO 2011.) Tabitha and her family started Phoenix Project in order to raise money for interventions that support parents and clinicians who are caring for children in hospital.
Chris Goodall
Chris Goodall is a business person working on the energy transition. He has written several books on the routes to decarbonisation, including last year’s Possible. Two of these books were among the Financial Times Books of the Year. Chris is also an investor in climate tech companies, including Net Zero Insights, a presenter at this conference.
Sam Goodall
Sam Goodall is the CEO of Cambridge Cleantech, the UK's first cleantech innovation network and co-founder of the Climate Tech SuperCluster. With over 20 years’ experience in project management, regeneration, and economic development, Sam builds and connects national and international innovation ecosystems for climate-positive technology. Achievements include managing international accelerator partnerships, implementing a European energy efficiency programme, and leading policy development for OFGEM. Sam's strengths lie in facilitating connections between members, impact investors, strategic partners, and R&D experts.
Samantha Graham
Sam joined AIP in 2024, bringing 20 years of experience in marketing and product management. She focuses on supporting entrepreneurs and startups at Norwich Research Park by enhancing peer-to-peer collaboration and building partnerships with service providers, business advisors, and investors, while addressing skill gaps to achieve early-stage funding success.
Elliott Grant
Elliott Grant works at the intersection of technology and agriculture, and has led the development and commercialization of breakthrough technologies throughout the global food system.
In 2017 Dr. Grant joined Google[X] to lead the development of foundational AI for agriculture, and in 2023 became CEO of Mineral - one of Alphabet’s “Other Bets”. He serves on the boards of Sun World International and the International Fresh Produce Association, and is a Scientific Advisor to Driscoll’s. Prior to joining Google, he was the CEO of ShopWell Labs, a pioneer of personalized nutrition; the founding CEO of HarvestMark, a world leader in food traceability; and a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.
He has been awarded over fifty US Patents and invented (then open-sourced) the VoiceCode - a traceability standard on every case of fresh produce in N. America. Elliott earned a PhD in Engineering from Cambridge University. In addition to advising startups, he is currently a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge Institute for Manufacturing and at Trinity Hall, where he researches the future of agriculture in the coming era of AI.
He lives in Cambridge with his wife, and writes about the future of agriculture here.
Kyle Gray
Kyle Gray is the Senior Sustainability Manager for Net Zero at The Crown Estate, where he leads the development of decarbonisation strategies across its diverse portfolio, including urban real estate, rural and coastal assets, and the seabed across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and supports The Crown Estate’s role in advancing the UK’s transition to a low-carbon economy. In addition to driving net zero initiatives, Kyle is actively exploring the role that nature-based solutions play in carbon dioxide removal, as well as in climate resilience and adaptation. With a background in engineering and sustainability consulting, Kyle brings deep expertise in net zero strategy, carbon performance, climate resilience and adaptation, and renewable energy. He holds degrees in engineering and sustainable development and is passionate about delivering impactful, system-wide change across complex organisations.
Alisdair Gunn
Alisdair is recognised by his peers as one of Scotland’s prominent professional advisers amongst Scotland’s technology, digital, creative and engineering sectors. Alisdair leads the development of Glasgow City Innovation District, Scotland’s first Innovation District and was the founder of Framewire, Scotland’s first advisory practice focused on developing Scotland’s Digital and Tech Ecosystem. Alisdair dedicates his time to supporting founders create, develop, invest, and scale their tech, digital, engineering or deep tech business and through Glasgow City Innovation District is securing investment into Glasgow’s Tech Sector and developing Glasgow as Scotland’s leading Innovation Hub. Alisdair led the creation of the first tech week for a Scottish City - Glasgow Tech Week, the first industry led Venture Studio aligned to creating deep tech ventures and is the co-founder of the internationally acclaimed Turing Festival (now Turing Fest). At the inaugural Scottish Tech Startup Awards, Alisdair was awarded Scotland’s first Tech Ecosystem award where his peers independently recognised his expertise and commitment to developing Scotland's Tech Ecosystem. Alisdair has also been awarded the Principal's Special Award for his outstanding contribution to the success of the University of Strathclyde and was a Barclays Entrepreneur of the Year finalist for Scotland. Alisdair was previously an Independent board advisor to Barclays Eagle Labs and is currently a strategic advisor to Amiqus and VeryConnect and member of Johnston Carmichael’s Tech Advisory Board.
Anthony Hall
Anthony Hall is a cofounder of TraitSeq and Head of Plant Genomics at the Earlham Institute. He has led the science behind TraitSeq’s biomarker-discovery platform, applying multi-omics and machine learning to crop-protection R&D (agrochemicals and biologicals) and gene-editing workflow, from mode-of-action identification to screening and quality-control. His Earlham research focuses on wheat genetics and genomics as a complex crop system. His recent work involves the use of large language/foundation models for sequencing data, delivering new capabilities to extract biological meaning from large-scale DNA/RNA datasets.
Dr Raoul Haschke
Raoul is an RTTP certified innovation and project manager with over 12 years of experience. He leads a team of 15+ people within hei_INNOVATION to transform university knowledge into societal benefit. His team supports university members from start-up creation to industry collaboration and policy advice.
As head of the INSPIRE BW Hubs, he is the responsible coordinator for the cooperation of all university incubators in Baden-Württemberg. He is responsible for the interaction of the universities with the NXTGN startup factory, the lighthouse for startup support in Baden-Württemberg.
As a facilitator, he enables talents to become the leaders of tomorrow. He teaches entrepreneurship at Heidelberg University and supports various institutions in developing their entrepreneurial strategies. He builds strong networks within and outside the university to create a supportive environment for young innovators and entrepreneurs.
Raoul is also the CEO of Heidelberg Startup Partners e.V. and supports the startup ecosystem in Heidelberg - the number 1 ecosystem in Germany.
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
Faye Holland
Faye began her career in global technology firms including PIPEX and IBM, progressing through senior marketing and portfolio leadership roles across Europe and international markets.
In 2014, Faye founded cofinitive, an award-winning innovation communications consultancy supporting research-led and high-growth technology businesses. Over more than a decade, she built the firm into a recognised industry leader before its acquisition in 2025. She also established the #21toWatch Awards, one of the East of England’s most prominent platforms celebrating emerging innovation talent.
A recognised contributor to the Cambridge innovation cluster, Faye mentors founders through university entrepreneurship programmes including impulse, serves as Entrepreneur in Residence at Anglia Ruskin University, and co-hosts the Cambridge Tech Podcast. She is regularly named among the UK’s most influential women in technology and is driven by a belief in visibility, collaboration, and turning strategy into action.
Faye leads the delivery The Cambridge x Manchester Partnership - a flagship cross-city collaboration designed to strengthen the UK’s innovation economy. Faye also serves as Chair of the Cambridgeshire Chamber of Commerce, where she provides strategic leadership to support regional competitiveness, skills development, and technology-led growth.
Cambridge is one of the world’s most important science and technology ecosystems, and this year’s Cambridge Tech Week theme places a vital question at the centre of the conversation: how deep tech is reshaping industries, economies and society. It is exactly the kind of discussion that matters to technology companies, governments, and communities alike. I’m delighted to be an ambassador for CamTechWeek and look forward to joining what promises to be an outstanding programme of ideas, insights and connections. I hope to see many of the world’s leading technology thinkers and innovators in Cambridge this September.
- Website:
- www.cambridge-manchester.com
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/fayeholland/
Daniel Hulme
With over 25 years of AI experience, Daniel is a globally recognised expert, is Chief AI Officer at WPP regarded as one of the world's top 10 Chief AI Officers. He’s UCL's Entrepreneur-in-Residence and faculty member of Singularity University. Daniel is one of the most prolific AI speakers, contributes to numerous books and articles, and has many advisory positions. Daniel recently started Conscium to solve machine consciousness, and actively promotes purposeful technology innovation across the globe.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielhulme/
Kauser Hussain
Kauser is the Global Head of Partnerships and Market Expansion at Flow Neuroscience, a pioneering health tech company transforming the treatment of depression through innovative brain stimulation technology. With over 15 years of experience across biotechnology, digital health, and healthcare innovation, Kauser brings a strategic and global perspective to building impactful partnerships and scaling breakthrough technologies.
Prior to Flow, she spent 10 years in the stem cell field, holding senior leadership roles that drove growth across the NHS, private sector, and international markets.
Kauser is deeply passionate about health innovation and is a committed advocate for increasing access to effective care. As a vocal champion for women’s health, she is dedicated to addressing disparities, driving awareness, and advancing more inclusive, patient-centred healthcare solutions.
Caroline Hyde
Caroline is Head of Partnerships & Outreach for Cambridge Enterprise, supporting the University of Cambridge to create impact from its research through academic consultancy, IP management and technology licensing, and new venture creation and investment. Cambridge Enterprise currently has 125 companies in the portfolio and recent spin-outs include some of the most exciting new Cambridge companies such as Riverlane, Xampla and Cambridge GaN Devices.
Leveraging a career spent working with the dynamic ecosystem in and around Cambridge, Caroline is also connected to national and international entrepreneurship, innovation and tech transfer networks. As Managing Director and then CEO for Allia Future Business Centres, Caroline established an innovation and incubation centre for early-stage tech for good ventures in Cambridge, and built this out into a network of four centres operating across Cambridge, East London and Peterborough. Through a number of accelerator and incubator programmes the Centres supported over 1300 ventures over 6 years.
Passionate about building a world where profit and purpose are aligned in order to address the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges in a truly sustainable way.
Usman Ikhlaq
Usman joined techUK in January 2024 as Programme Manager for Artificial Intelligence.
He leads techUK’s AI Adoption programme, supporting members of all sizes and sectors in adopting AI at scale. His work involves identifying barriers to adoption, exploring solutions, and helping to unlock AI’s transformative potential, particularly its benefits for people, the economy, society, and the planet. He is also committed to advancing the UK’s AI sector and ensuring the UK remains a global leader in AI by working closely with techUK members, the UK Government, regulators, and devolved and local authorities.
Since joining techUK, Usman has delivered a regular drumbeat of activity to engage members and advance techUK's AI programme. This has included two campaign weeks, the creation of the AI Adoption Hub (now the AI Hub), the AI Leader's Event Series, the Putting AI into Action webinar series and the Industrial AI sprint campaign.
Before joining techUK, Usman worked as a policy, regulatory and government/public affairs professional in the advertising sector. He has also worked in sales, marketing, and FinTech.
Usman holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), a GDL and LLB from BPP Law School, and a BA from Queen Mary University of London.
When he isn’t working, Usman enjoys spending time with his family and friends. He also has a keen interest in running, reading and travelling.
Dr Maryam Imani
I am an Associate Professor in Water Systems Engineering at Anglia Ruskin University (Chelmsford), within the School of Engineering and the Built Environment (EBE). I am a Chartered Civil Engineer and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. My academic and research expertise focuses on sustainable and resilient water infrastructure, particularly Blue-Green-Grey Infrastructure, Nature-Based Solutions, Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS), system interdependencies, operational optimisation, and the integration of emerging technologies.
From 2023 to 2025, I led ARU’s Sustainable & Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (SURIC) research group and served as the Faculty of Science & Engineering representative on ARU’s Sustainable Futures research theme leadership team. I am also a member of the Centre for Engineering and Architectural Sustainability (CEAS) within EBE.
I am the Chair of the International Water Association (IWA) Working Group ‘Alliance for Water-Sensitive Design and Planning’ and as a steering committee member of the IWA Cluster 'Nature-Based Solutions'. I am also involved in several national and European research projects such as 'Nene Water Management Strategy', and 'Nature Demo' and 'AI4MultiGIS'.
I serve on the editorial boards of academic journals and have published in leading peer-reviewed outlets.
Sara Jones
Sara was Carbon13's first hire, responsible for building out the talent magnet for Carbon13 and establishing the Venture Builder as a world class programme for climatetech. She now focuses on Carbon13's accelerator the Venture Launchpad, alongside platform activities for the portfolio, investor relations, growth, and hosting the Carbon13 podcast. She specialises in the 0-1 stage of startups, and has worked in the London startup ecosystem since 2012.
- LinkedIn:
- https://uk.linkedin.com/in/sarajones2015
Dr Nina M. Jörden
Dr Nina Jörden is an Assistant Professor at the Bennett School of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. Her research explores how productivity is understood and shaped within public and private organisations, with a particular focus on how structures, processes, and practices influence productivity, and the role new technologies do or could play. She has worked extensively on the UK’s productivity puzzle, advising organisations on digital transformation, AI adoption, and the organisational conditions required to realise the benefits of innovation. Nina is an Academic Fellow at the Centre for Science and Policy, a member of The Productivity Institute, and a member of Cambridge Ahead.
Dr Dimitrios Kalogeropoulos
Dr. Dimitrios Kalogeropoulos is a pioneer in digital health and agentic AI, and a committed advocate for the ethical, inclusive, and responsible use of AI in healthcare. He is CEO of the Global Health & Digital Innovation Foundation and serves as Health Executive in Residence at UCL’s Global Business School for Health, where he also sits on the MBA/EMBA Health External Advisory Board. With over three decades of experience in global health and innovation, Dr. Kalogeropoulos has advised leading organisations including the World Health Organization, the European Commission, and the World Bank. He has played a key role in shaping international policy frameworks that strengthen healthcare accessibility and system resilience, and that drive sustainable, patient-centred innovation. He is the incoming Chair of the IEEE European Public Policy Committee and leads several global initiatives at the intersection of health, technology, and equity.
Raheela Khan-Fitzgerald
Raheela Khan-FitzGerald is an architect and sustainability expert with extensive experience at the intersection of architectural design, digital tool development, and industry guidance for whole life carbon. Her career spans professional practice, web-tool creation, and leadership in industry whole life carbon working groups, with a strong record of advancing low-carbon design approaches and net zero strategies. At Preoptima, she contributes her combined expertise in architecture, whole life carbon methodologies, digitisation, and stakeholder engagement to ensure that carbon-conscious design is embedded into practical, scalable digital solutions.
Professor Sana Khareghani
Holding a BSc in Computer Science and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sana Khareghani has over 20 years’ experience in technology and business across the private and public sectors. She has worked as a software engineer in big corporations and start-ups, as a management consultant advising senior officials throughout North America, Europe and the Middle East, and in HMG, as the inaugural Head of the UK Government Office for AI leading the team to publish the UK's National AI Strategy. Most recently, Sana is Professor of Practice in AI at King's College London and AI Policy lead for Responsible AI UK, an international ecosystem for responsible AI research and innovation.
Sajan Khosla
Sajan Khosla is the Head of Clinical Data Science and Real World Evidence (RWE) within Oncology R&D at AstraZeneca. In this role he is responsible for the development of a unique and innovative Data Science and RWE unit that focuses the spectrum of RWE capabilities upon the pressing challenges of R&D; supporting investment in Real World Data, Machine Learning & AI, technologies and platforms that accelerate the analysis of these data and the build out of RWE capability and enabling the innovative use of these data. Ultimately to support decision making within the pipeline and advance innovative medicines with evidence for regulators.
Sajan has over 18 years of experience in life-sciences starting his career in Molecular Biology focusing his attention on discovering new molecular targets for cancer. Sajan then left discovery science into the National Health Service at the University Hospitals Birmingham where he led a team of Clinical Informatics specialists and developed an advanced analytics platform, Healthcare Evaluation Data (HED), that is currently used to synthesize hospital level metrics on clinical quality/patient safety and hospital performance and benchmarks hospitals within the system.
Sajan holds a Genetics degree from Birmingham University, an MSc in Bioinformatics from Leicester University, and holds a visiting lectureship role at Kings College London educating the next generation of RWE Specialists for the industry.
Ian Lane
Ian is a DeepTech Partner at CIC, focussing on AI, Semiconductors and Quantum. Ian manages CIC’s investments into Seldon, Cambridge GaN Devices, Salience, Unlikely AI and Secondmind. Before joining CIC Ian was a Director at Unilever Ventures and Consultant at L.E.K. Consulting. Ian has PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Cambridge and Msci in Chemistry from Bristol University.
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilane/
Richard Lewis
Richard has spent the last 20 years in the venture capital market, investing in Europe, US and Israel.
Zickie Lim
Zickie Lim heads up Mills and Reeve’s Venture Capital and Investments team. Her clients range from institutional VC funds managers, corporate venture funds, family offices and business angels and angel groups. She and her team also advise a range of entrepreneurial and fast growth start-ups, spin-outs and scale ups on their set ups, investment readiness and fundraisings from pre-seed and seed through to late-stage Series A, B, C and beyond. Her practice has a strong sector focus on Technology (IT/telecoms/software, deep tech, cleantech and agritech) and Life Sciences.
Zickie is passionate about working with entrepreneurial technology and life science businesses with disruptive technology and business models. Her team is one of the UK's leading advisers in the university spin-out sector having worked with more than 250 spin outs from universities advising all the various key stakeholders.
Zickie is a member of UKBAA, EIS Association and co-founder of Women4Technology.
Tim Loake
Tim Loake is Vice president and General Manager for the Infrastructure Solutions Group for Dell
Technologies UK. Responsible for Server, Storage and Networking product lines across all types of
organisation in the UK, Tim’s team works closely with customers to understand the needs of their
business and position Dell Technologies’ datacentre portfolio of products to enable their
transformation.
Tim has been in the technology industry since 1998, and has spent time on customer, consultant and
vendor side of the desk; with experiences across technical, operational, service delivery and sales,
including leading teams and organisations for the last 17 years. Much of his career at Dell was spent
in the services business with leadership roles spanning various delivery and consulting organisations
as well as 5 years leading the Services Sales division, before moving to lead the ISG business in
2017.
Since graduating from Loughborough University with a BSc in Computing and Management, Tim has
been a keen cyclist, training daily and regularly travelling to various countries to race and explore
new locations by bike. An enthusiastic Rugby fan, Tim also leads the coaching team for the U12s at
his local Rugby club. Tim lives in Surrey with his wife, Stacey, and two sons, Adam and George.
Graham Lovelace
Graham Lovelace is an award-winning journalist and senior editor whose career has been spent in the intersection of media and technology. Today he’s a leading strategist and writer on the impacts of generative AI on human-made media, the ethics and behaviour of the AI companies, the future of copyright in the AI era, and the evolving AI policy landscape.
In a career spanning five decades, Graham has been a journalist, editor, consultant, producer and entrepreneur with a keen interest in the future of media. He was a member of the team that launched Teletext Limited in the UK, becoming editor-in-chief of the biggest and commercially most successful information service of its kind in the world. He was a founding director of Associated New Media that went on to launch Mail Online, and the founder of media intelligence provider Lovelacemedia, sold to the Press Association in 2004.
He’s worked as a journalist at the BBC, Visnews, BSB News, ITN, Channel 4 and PA, and is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.
A pioneer of new ways of engaging with the information that guides our lives and an advisor to numerous start-ups, Graham is now applying his extensive media experience to explaining the opportunities and risks present in the highly disruptive age of generative AI.
He shares his research in Charting Gen AI, a highly acclaimed and must-read global newsletter that keeps subscribers – senior executives across major media companies, law firms and consulting groups, plus lawmakers and their policy advisors, as well as creator groups, trade bodies and individuals representing every facet of the creative industries – in over 100 countries informed on developments. In guest columns and media interviews, plus highly engaging keynote presentations on stages around the world, he busts myths, exposes hype and calls out bad behaviour.
Lawrence Lundy-Bryan
Lawrence is a deep tech investor. He is a Partner at Lunar Ventures, an early-stage deep tech venture fund where he focuses on semiconductors and energy. He writes a popular tech and investing newsletter State of the Future with 3000+ subscribers. He has advised the UK Government, EU Commission, and World Economic Forum on a broad set of emerging technologies.
Anil Madhavapeddy
Anil Madhavapeddy is the Professor of Planetary Computing at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. He co-leads the Energy and Environment Group at Cambridge, and also co-directs the Centre for Earth Observation and the Cambridge Centre for Carbon Credits (4C), which aims to increase the integrity of natural climate solutions that contribute towards ending deforestation and improving biodiversity globally, via the application of modern remote sensing and statistical techniques to reduce the overheads of verifying interventions. He has decades of experience with constructing Internet-scale systems and has contributed to open-source projects such as OCaml, Docker, Xen, and OpenBSD, with users ranging from all the major cloud computing providers to governments worldwide.
Karina Malhotra
Karina Malhotra is a former NHS Director and Senior Leader, with extensive experience and subject matter expertise in all aspects of healthcare management and technology. She has provided expert advisory support to executive teams at some of the UK’s largest NHS organisations utilising her extensive knowledge and passion for improving patient care.
Karina is a data-driven problem solver, with a recognised talent for understanding the people, operations, data and system elements equally and ensuring they are appropriately managed to deliver sustainable change. Karina founded Acumentice with the philosophy of adding sustainable value to the NHS and improving data quality and the use of technology to improve patient care at every level.
Adam Mandel
​​​​​​Adam Mandel is an entrepreneur and product leader with 15 years of experience in applied AI, energy, and mobility, having held senior roles at Rivian, General Motors' Cruise, and EVgo. Most recently, he co-founded EnergizedAI, a predictive maintenance software company for EV chargers that was successfully acquired by Seven Generation Capital Corp. Adam holds seven patents in self-driving and EV technology. He currently serves as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Carbon13, as well as advising multiple startups. In his free time, Adam can usually be found outdoors, cycling or hiking with his family. Originally from Los Angeles, he now lives in London.
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjmandel/
Tanyaradzwa Mangoma
Tanya is the CEO and founder of HyperCIM, a chip startup spun out of Deep Science Ventures in 2024 to address the data pipeline bottleneck beyond training and inference. She holds a PhD in AI Hardware from the University of Cambridge, specialising in neuromorphic computing, emerging memory materials, and digital manufacturing. She also holds Master’s degrees in Materials Science and Ultra-precision Engineering.
Having founded two previous semiconductor startups, Tanya knows what works - and, more importantly, what does not. An alumna of ChipStart UK and Innovate UK’s Global Business Innovation Programme in Semiconductors, she has gained insight across the international semiconductor value chain, grounding her belief that breakthrough technologies must be built with customer and market fit at the core.
Jason Mashinchi
Jason Mashinchi is the founder of Cambridge Kinetics, the company behind Kinabase — a platform that streamlines operations and unifies data for organisations in the UK and beyond. He holds a first-class degree in Computer Science and a Distinction in Industrial Systems, Manufacturing & Management from the University of Cambridge, and was named Young Business Person of the Year at the SME National Business Awards (2024). As a Board Director of the Cambridgeshire Chambers of Commerce, Jason champions practical, technology-led solutions that help local businesses start, grow, and trade with confidence. His focus is on responsible AI, smart systems design, and turning complex processes into simple, scalable tools.
Karen McLuskie
Karen McLuskie is at the forefront of technology policy in Government. She pioneered digital diplomacy and counter-disinformation threat strategy before becoming the first diplomat with a fronter tech portfolio. Later she led tech policy at the Department of Business and Trade before taking on this year the Tech Adoption Review for the National Tech Advisor as part of the Government’s newly published Industrial Strategy. Outside of government, she is the chair of UK Responsible AI’s business advisory board and pursues her passion for convening wide conversations on AI, bridging everything from music and law, history and geopolitics.
Kosten Metreweli
Principal at AWS, working with the worlds best investors and startups across the EMEA ecosystem. An entrepreneurial technology leader with a track record of scaling venture-backed startups. Co-Founder at Sunlight.io and OneCrew, and leadership team at Orchestream, Zeus Technology and OnApp, raising over $100M in venture funding, leading to one IPO and 3 acquisitions. Kosten brings deep expertise in strategy, product, and go-to-market execution across Europe, US, and Asia.
Philip Milton
Philip Milton is the Head of Economic Public Policy for the UK at Meta where he covers issues including AI, Ads and Fraud. As well as representing Meta with policy makers including government Ministers, Regulators and Officials he leads Meta’s collaborative work with other industries on these issues. Previously Philip worked for Channel 4, and at the departments for Business and Culture, Media and Sport.
Jakob Mökander
Jakob is the Director of Science & Technology Policy at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) and an International Fellow at the Digital Ethics Center (DEC), Yale University.
At TBI, Jakob leads a global team of policy researchers to develop actionable recommendations on science and tech policy to political leaders in 35+ countries across the globe. His academic research focuses on how organizations can design and use AI systems in ways that are ethical, legal, and safe.
Jakob holds a PhD from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII). Prior to joining TBI, Jakob worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company in their Risk and Resilience practice. He has also been a visiting scholar at Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP), and a research fellow at the Centre for the Governance of AI (GovAI).
Jessica Montgomery
Jessica Montgomery is currently Director of ai@cam, a new University of Cambridge strategic mission to develop AI technologies that serve science, citizens, and society. Alongside this role, she leads a variety of research and policy programmes tackling the real-world challenges associated with developing and deploying AI for societal benefit. These include: Accelerate Science, an initiative developing AI tools and collaborations in support of research and innovation; the Data Trusts Initiative, an incubator programme for pilot projects creating trustworthy data governance frameworks; and strategic research agenda development for the ELISE/ELLIS network of European AI research. Her interests in AI and its consequences for science and society stem from her policy career, in which she worked with parliamentarians, leading researchers and civil society organisations to bring scientific evidence to bear on major policy issues.
- Website:
- ai.cam.ac.uk
Niall Mottram
Niall is VP of Energy & CDR at Cambridge Consultants. A chartered chemical engineer, Niall has led breakthrough innovation projects in multiple industry sectors for over 20 years, involving novel optical sensing, wireless communication, and heat management technologies. He is particularly interested in the potential for novel technologies to reduce the costs associated with balancing energy supply and demand and help accelerate the energy transition in the process.
Hanna Naima McCloskey
Hanna (she/her) is of Algerian-British heritage and the Founder & CEO of Fearless Futures. She has worked for the UN, NGOs and the Royal Bank of Scotland, across communications, research and finance roles; and has lived, studied and worked in Israel-Palestine, Italy, USA, Sudan, Syria and the UK. She has a BA in English from the University of Cambridge and an MA in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, with a specialism in Conflict Management. Hanna is a passionate, compassionate and challenging educator, who brings nuanced and complex ideas in engaging and animating ways to participants, with a commitment, whether in the classroom or Fearless Futures consultancy for robust action.
Pete Nisbet
Pete is a Managing Partner and leads edenseven, the sustainability sister-company of Cambridge Management Consulting. He started his career over 26 years ago working for Southern Gas in their operations team. Since then, he has built up a deep understanding of the energy and carbon sector through senior roles in operations, commodity trading, and portfolio management. Prior to leading edenseven, Pete was Managing Director for Mitie Energy where he built an award-winning and market-leading business which provided integrated energy and carbon services. Pete believes the coming years are pivotal in tackling the climate change crisis, which will be achieved through effective use of data collection and analysis, the deployment of new technology, and collaborative thinking.
edenseven recently launched cero.earth, a carbon accounting and management platform that creates insights & actions across your business and supply chain (Scope 3) — the key to accelerating any decarbonisation strategy.
Pete Nisbet started his distinguished career as an Energy Trader at Scottish and Southern Energy in September 1997, where he served for nearly a decade. As a senior team member, he was responsible for managing a portfolio that was exposed to multiple commodity markets, exhibiting composure under pressure and adaptability.
In May 2006, Pete joined Utilyx, a leading energy adviser, where he significantly elevated his career. Hired as a Senior Risk Manager, he oversaw the client portfolio daily. The role demanded an in-depth comprehension of both physical and financial instruments and how they could be adapted to the UK and European energy markets.
Three years later, in June 2009, his expertise and leadership led to promotion to the Head of Risk Management Services. This put Pete in charge of a team specialising in risk management and portfolio optimisation and contributed to solidifying Utilyx's market position.
By May 2013, Pete was appointed Director of Risk Management Services. He led teams working in contract procurement, risk management/portfolio optimisation, reporting, and market research across UK and European energy markets.
Two years ensuing his journey as a Director, Pete was promoted to Operations Director in June 2015, a role he filled for a year. He presided over operational teams, including areas like contract procurement, risk management/trading, research, and pricing/volume reporting. Under his management, the energy portfolio flourished, reaching a tremendous £1.6bn.
In June 2016, Pete Nisbet took the helm of Mitie Energy as Managing Director, demonstrating his adept leadership skills over the course of four years and four months. Pete became the driving force behind Mitie's award-winning UK-based Energy, Utilities, and Sustainability solutions business, fostering significant growth in both revenue and profit. He steered the development of fully integrated end-to-end outsourced models that catered to all sectors. A trailblazer in the industry, he pioneered Mitie's zero-carbon strategy 'Plan Zero'.
Pete also served as the Statutory Director of Mitie Energy and SMF3 Executive Director for Mitie Energy's FCA regulated Risk Management Business. In 2020, these manifold successes led directly to Pete being approached to become a Managing Partner and Director of the newly founded sustainability and data consultancy edenseven, part of the Cambridge Management Consulting group of companies.
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/p-nisbet/
Isabelle O'Keefe
Isabelle O’Keeffe is an early-stage investor with expertise in AI/ML, B2B SaaS, cybersecurity, immersive tech, and gaming across Europe. She is currently a Venture Partner at Mercuri and supports The Tech Bros, the world’s first all-female, all-technical accelerator. Formerly a Partner at Sure Valley Ventures (SVV), Isabelle has a strong track record of sourcing and backing high-growth tech startups, fundraising and launching funds across Ireland and the UK and leading investment teams and operations. She has held roles at Techstars, Schibsted, NBC Universal, and Telefonica, and is an active advisor and angel investor
Meredith O'Shaughnessy
Meredith O’Shaughnessy is a cultural strategist and experiential architect with an engineering foundation, known for translating big ideas into story-led, tech-enabled experiences that move audiences and deliver commercial impact.
Her work spans luxury, entertainment, sport and the public sector, including Formula 1 and government bodies on projects such as Expo 2025 Osaka, for brands such as Aston Martin, Microsoft, Rolls-Royce, The Savoy and The Macallan. Named to Walpole’s 2025 Power List and winner of Dezeen × Bentley’s “Luxury Retail Store of the Future,” Meredith assembles artists, technologists and designers to re-imagine how people connect with culture. She has served as a Creative Ambassador for the UK’s GREAT campaign and is a founding member of the World Experience Organisation. Her work has featured on the BBC, ITV, CNN, the Evening Standard and Vogue.
Prof Gerard Parr MBE
Gerard is a Full Professor in Telecommunications Engineering and has been Head of School of Computing Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA) from 2016-2023 which involved a range of senior management roles and responsibilities covering Teaching, Research, Innovation and Outreach. He holds a PhD in Self-Stabilising Protocols from Ulster University, aspects of which were completed with Prof Jon Crowcroft at University College London (UCL) and one of the Founding Architects of the Internet (Professor Jon Postel) as a Visiting Research Scientist at the DARPA/University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute in Marina Del Rey, Los Angeles. His PhD External Examiner was Prof Peter Kirstein from UCL. Within his academic career, areas of research include Self-stabilising Networks, Wireless Sensor Clouds, UAVs for Disaster Response Communications, ICT for the Rural Economy, Converged Network Management & Control Protocols for Terrestrial and Non-Terrestrial Networks, delay-sensitive QoSLAs, energy-aware autonomic networking and IoT-edge computing. Gerard has attracted several £millions of external research and commercial funding and has advised government agencies around the world on the allocation of funding to large-scale projects valued in total at approximately £4 billion. His industrial collaborations have included companies such as BT, Intel, ARM, Vodafone, IBM, Aviva, Ericsson, Siemens, InfoSys, Wipro, Tejas Networks, TCS and SAP. From 1997-2007, Professor Parr was a Founding Executive Technical Director of Causeway Data Communications Ltd which eventually sold its main GIS product “Spatialist” to Schneider Geospatial. Gerard is an invited member of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Peer Review College. His academic research collaborations include institutions MIT, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Arizona, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, USC-ISI Los Angeles, University of Florida, University College London, Southampton, Surrey, QMUL, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, University of Oxford, St Andrews, Exeter, Lincoln, Lancaster and Cambridge, Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunications (BUPT), Tsinghua University, Peking University and Indian Institutes of Technology in Mumbai, Madras, Kanpur, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mandi and IISc Bangalore. He was previously appointed as a Visiting Professor to the Science Foundation Ireland/CTVR at Trinity College Dublin and to the Emirates-BT Innovation Centre (EBTIC) at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi- UAE. He was International Scientific Advisor to the UK EPSRC National Centre for Doctoral Training in Communications Engineering at the University of Bristol. He was appointed as Senior Guest Editor for prestigious IEEE Journal on Selected Areas of Communications (JSAC) for a Special Issue on Communications Challenges and Dynamics in UAVs. He has extensive experience of working with developing economies, in particular, India, where he was the UK Academic co-ordinator for the major EPSRC-DST India-UK Advanced Technology Centre in Next Generation Networks Systems and Services which was the largest collaboration of its kind between UK and India in the ICT sector attracting total investment of over £20 million and also helped establish a Virtual Graduate Research School for 67 PhD students under the UK-India Education & Research Initiative (UKIERI Programme. Under UKIERI he also led another project in Kalimpong to explore use of wireless sensors to predict landslides in West Bengal. Gerard was awarded an MBE in Queens New Year Honours for 2018 for contributions to Telecommunications Infrastructure in Northern Ireland.
He was previously the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK and Irish Governments on the provision of a Tran-Atlantic Undersea Telecoms Interconnector to North America. During January 2020 Prof Parr was elected to the Strategic Advisory Committee for the UK Government UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) – Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) ICT Programme to assist with strategic developments, funding panels and identification of funding priorities. Most recently Gerard has been successful in attracting Co-I funding for a 5-year EPSRC Next Stage Digital Economy Hub called DIGIT (Digital-Innovation-Growth-Impact-Transformation) valued over £12 million which will explore methodologies and business impact of Digital Transformation in Large Organisations.
During 2021 Gerard was also successful as PI to attract £1.4 million funding for the “UK-India Future Networks Initiative” with IISc Bangalore, IIT Delhi, UCL, Surrey, Southampton and BT. Most recently in December 2022 he was successful as a Co-PI on a bid to UKRI-ESRC concerning Digital Technology in Teacher Agency. The £5.3 million fund will support a total of nine projects. He is also an invited Member of the UKRI-EPSRC Digital Security & Resilience Advisory Group and is currently engaging with Innovate-UK and the Department of Telecoms Govt of India.
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.
Tim Passingham
Tim is the Founder and Chairman of Cambridge Management Consulting. He is also the Chairman of alternative network provider Lightning Fibre, Chairman of the IoT pollution reduction technology business Iknaia, Co-Founder and Non-Executive Director of sustainability consultancy edenseven, and a Non-Executive Director of The Carrier Club. Tim also 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. 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.
Tim also supports the charity Telecoms Sans Frontieres (TSF), providing first-in communications for disaster relief, where he is a Global Ambassador, and he is a Patron and Trustee of the British Exploring Society (BES).
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).
Elizabeth Patterson
Elizabeth Patterson is a Senior Program and Policy Manager at Seagate Technology, with a strategic focus on photonics innovation and commercialisation. Elizabeth plays a pivotal role in shaping Seagate’s engagement with UK and EU photonics ecosystems, driving initiatives that bridge research and industry across quantum, AI, and semiconductor applications.
Barnaby Perks
Barnaby is an engineer and entrepreneur. He focuses on building high-performing teams around an effective and inclusive business culture. He has specific expertise in digital health and assistive technology.
After research in biomedical engineering at the University of Dundee in the early 1990s, Barnaby went on to design award-winning assistive technology products for people with complex disabilities with QED, Cambridge Adaptive Communication and GEWA (UK).
In 2001, Barnaby took a global product role with GE Energy, working on geospatial asset management software solutions for utilities, telecom and oil and gas.
In 2010 he moved into mental health technology as Founding CEO of Cambridge-based ieso. In 2018 he led Oxford University spin out Oxford VR as Founding CEO. From mid-2020, Barnaby began to focus on consulting and non-executive roles, providing support and mentorship to digital health businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.
In April 2024, Barnaby became CEO of St John’s Innovation Centre (SJIC) in a part-time capacity. He now divides his time between SJIC and consulting and NED work in digital health.
Dr Uday Phadke
Dr Uday Phadke is a distinguished figure in the fields of science, technology, and innovation. He is the co-founder and CEO of Triple Chasm, a company focused on translating science and technology-enabled innovation into commercial impact. Over the past three decades, Dr. Phadke has been instrumental in bridging the gap between academic research and commercial application. His work spans commercial firms, academic research, and the design of national and international innovation initiatives, making him a pivotal figure in the innovation ecosystem.
He holds an MA in Engineering from Trinity College, Cambridge, and a PhD from the University of Sussex. He has founded several technology businesses, including Cartezia, which has helped build over 100 companies in the last 20 years. He was an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Judge Business School, Cambridge University and is the lead author of “Camels, Tigers & Unicorns: Rethinking Science and Technology-enabled Innovation”
He is a Director of The Research & Development Society working on Industrial Strategy and the economics of growth. He is also a non-Executive Director of the Stevenage Bio-Catalyst. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) in 2018.
- Website:
- www.triplechasm.com/
Yogesh Prasad
Yogesh Prasad is the founder of Biosecure ID, a mission-driven, for-profit startup focused on advancing ethical DNA technologies and AI-powered solutions for decentralised testing in the applied genomics verticals, such as forensic DNA, biosecurity, and healthcare. He is also the founder of Science for Social Good CIC, supporting community-led science to drive innovation and standardisation of data analysis and method validation in applied genomics segments.
Yogesh brings over 27 years of experience in applied genomics, having held senior leadership roles at Thermo Fisher Scientific and Cepheid (a Danaher company). Now a serial founder, he blends deep technical expertise with commercial strategy to build impactful solutions at the intersection of science and society.
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/prasadyr/
Daniel Quirke
Daniel Quirke is Senior Public Policy Manager at Wayve, a London-based company pioneering AI to solve self-driving. Wayve is building the Embodied AI software that gives vehicles the safe driving intelligence to drive anywhere. Daniel works with policy partners around the world on the future regulatory framework for automated vehicles. Prior to joining Wayve, Daniel has worked across a range of technology, innovation and economic policy roles for the UK government, the Catapult network and London local and regional government.
Margaret Rice-Jones
Margaret grew up in Cambridge and following a desire to find a practical application for her leaning towards maths and science she studied Engineering at Durham University. She started her career as a Design Engineer.
Over the last 30 years she defined winning strategies in high growth tech markets leading companies ranging from £50 million sales to over $1 billion. This included the development a number of “world first products”.
Over the last 15 years she has pursued a “plural” career helping technology driven businesses to grow in a variety of markets and mentoring entrepreneurs. She has Chaired several companies to successful exits, including Skyscanner, the travel comparison site and Confused.com the insurance comparison site. Currently she is NED at AIM listed Calnex PLC and at privately held Holiday Extras Ltd. She additionally sits on the advisory Board of the Engineering Department at Durham University.
She is also Chair of the ScaleUp Institute a not-for-profit focused on making the UK the best place in the world to scale a business. Work here involves data led policy advice to government and support for leaders of scaling companies.
Stuart Rimmer
As Deputy Chief Executive, Stuart provides strategic oversight to the business side of the freeports operations, including all its business services and performance. Stuart deputises for our CEO, as required, to support operations, strategic development and enhance stakeholder relations. Stuart provides the key lead on Skills and Employment including strategy and work with partners to develop and take to market a compelling skills and employment proposition which supports delivery of the Freeport’s overall business development and inward investment goals.
Joerg Roskowetz
Driving the company's AI/ML and Web3 initiatives by partnering with key strategic partners and ISVs to deliver innovative proof of concepts and customized compute accelerator features. Leading global Web3 consortium activities with a focus on setting industry standards and fostering collaboration across ecosystems. In my role as co-chair of the Client and Server IT Public Tenders and Blockchain working group at Bitkom, I work to shape policy and best practices for the future of decentralized technologies and digital infrastructure in Germany.
With deep expertise in AI, HPC, and cloud infrastructures, I am passionate about leveraging cutting-edge technology to push the boundaries of what's possible in both enterprise and public sector environments. My goal is to drive transformational change through technology, delivering scalable solutions that address real-world challenges.
Anna Rule
Anna is Director of Private Markets and Real Assets at Railpen, one of the UK’s largest and longest established pension funds, supporting 350,000 members from the UK rail sector and an additional 150,000 members from energy and infrastructure companies. Anna is responsible for implementing Railpen’s long-term growth strategies across illiquid assets. She developed Railpen’s long-term property strategy and property investment capabilities, enabling the internalisation of the property portfolio during 2017. Since then, Anna’s role has expanded to incorporate responsibility for all of Railpen’s private market investments totalling £10bn.
She joined Railpen in January 2017 and has over 25 years’ investment experience. Before joining, Anna held a position as a senior director and fund manager at Aviva Investors where she was responsible for a range of direct and indirect property portfolios. Anna has a first class BSc degree in Land Management, holds the Investment Management Certificate (IMC) and is a FCA approved person.
Mark Rushworth
Mark Rushworth is the CEO and co-founder of photonics startup, Finchetto. Mark holds certificates in integrated photonics chip design and is a member of the UK Government’s Optical Communications and Photonics Expert Working Group.
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.
What makes Cambridge so special is its collaborative spirit and its ability to turn breakthrough ideas into global impact. Cambridge Tech Week brings that community together, and I’m delighted to support it as an ambassador
Omid Saghafifar
Omid Saghafifar is the Co-founder and CEO of Remedium Energy, a UK-based climate tech startup developing novel carbon capture and thermal energy storage technologies. He holds a PhD in Engineering from the University of Cambridge, where his research focused on thermochemical energy storage. Omid has over a decade of experience in carbon capture, hydrogen systems, and deep-tech commercialisation.
Hugo Saleh
​​​​​​Hugo joined Quantum Motion in January 2025 to co-lead the company’s expansion and drive commercial business. Hugo’s career has spanned across semiconductor, hardware, software, and cloud, most recently serving as the Head of HPC and Director of Product at Google. Prior to that, Hugo led the commercial operations and international expansion at Ayar Labs and had an extensive career at Intel Corporation, spanning nearly two decades in various leadership roles in the data center and silicon design organisations.
Laura Sartori
Laura's 20-year career has progressed from a technical expert to a strategic product leader in the semiconductor IP industry. As a Senior Product Manager at Codasip, she drives the product vision and automotive strategy for RISC-V CPU.
Her journey began at Fermilab, the premier U.S. particle physics and accelerator laboratory, where she was a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow. In this role, she led the design of custom chips for high-speed particle detection, a project that built her skills in technical leadership and project management.
She then joined Imagination Technologies, first as a Senior GPU Design Engineer and later on a global application engineering team. There, she guided the successful RTL-to-silicon integration of GPU IP into systems for consumer and automotive companies.
Laura’s move to product management leverages her technical knowledge and focus on customer needs to lead product roadmaps and customer engagement.
Her Ph.D. and M.S. in Physics gave her the strong problem-solving and analytical skills she uses to navigate the complexities of the industry.
Kristian Segerstrale
Kristian has spent two decades at the edge of what’s next between the UK and California — founding, scaling, and investing in ventures that reshape industries. He co-founded Glu Mobile in 2001 and helped take it public 2007, he then co-founded and led Playfish into a leader in social games (sold to EA for $400M) in 2009, and guided EA’s shift to digital as Executive Vice President. As a founding partner at Initial Capital, he backed Supercell at seed stage, leading to one of the industry’s biggest exits at $10Bn in 2016. He later co-founded Primary Health in response to the pandemic, now a leading health tech player in California. Kristian led multi-award winning cross-platform game studio Super Evil Megacorp as CEO between 2018 and 2024. Today, as Chair and seed investor, he supports founders building what comes next. Kristian holds an MA, Economics from Cambridge and an MSc Economics from London School of Economics.
Dr Andy Sellars
Andy is Director of Strategy for CORNERSTONE, the world-leading photonics foundry at the University of Southampton. He serves on the UK Government’s Semiconductor Advisory Panel and chairs the UK Semiconductor Expert Working Group. He has given expert advice to the UK Parliament on five occasions, including the National Security and Investment Act, the Telecom Security Act and the select committee on semiconductors. He has also advised the OECD Semiconductor Informal Exchange Network, and is an Advisor to Silicon Catalyst UK.
Andy was the Founder of the Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult, securing a £54m investment from UK Government. He built a high-performance organisation of over 100 professionals; he represented the Catapult during roundtable discussions with the Prime Minister and high-level delegations to Hong Kong, India, Taiwan and the US White House.
Andy holds an Executive MBA from Glasgow University, a research doctorate from Strathclyde University and is a Fellow of the IET.
- Website:
- www.cornerstone.sotonfab.co.uk
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygsellars/
Dr. Elvira Shishenina
Elvira Shishenina is the Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives at Quantinuum, where she leads global efforts to explore industrial pathways to quantum advantage. She brings a wealth of experience from her pioneering work at BMW Group, where she spearheaded quantum computing research for material simulation, and at TotalEnergies, where she contributed to innovations for sustainable energy. Elvira holds a PhD in Mathematics from French Inria and is an alumna of the prestigious École Polytechnique in Paris.
Professor Emily Shuckburgh OBE
Professor Emily Shuckburgh CBE 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.
Shuckburgh is a mathematician and Professor of Environmental Data Science at Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology (CST). She 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 (CLR).
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.
Honorary Fellow of the Energy Institute, and Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey, of the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS), and of Darwin College, Cambridge, Emily has also undertaken research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and École Normale Supérieure (ENS). She advises on climate to the UK Government and is 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 in 2016 and a CBE in 2025, for services to science and the public communication of science.
- Website:
- www.cst.cam.ac.uk/people/efs20
Ilse Sienaert
Ilse Sienaert holds MSc degrees in Industrial Sciences (Biochemistry) and Engineering (Cell & Gene Biotechnology), as well as a PhD in Applied Biological Sciences from KU Leuven. She brings over 20 years of experience in biotech start-ups and SMEs, having started her career at 4AZA Biosciences, a KU Leuven spin-off.
Since 2008, Ilse has advised CEOs on innovation strategy and funding. She joined KU Leuven Research & Development in 2011, where she supports the creation and growth of spin-offs in life sciences, biotech, medtech, healthtech, and agtech. She has been involved in launching 20+ spin-offs, conducting due diligence for KU Leuven’s seed fund, the Gemma-Frisius Fund, and supporting exit deals. Ilse also serves on the boards of several spin-offs.
Dr Josh Silverstone
Josh is founder and CEO of Hartley Ultrafast. Hartley is building the fastest decision making machines on the planet, to make human-like snap decisions with nanosecond latency, using proprietary photonics. Josh, a British-Canadian dual national, is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, a former Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, and a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellow. His PhD work, with Jeremy O’Brien at Bristol, on quantum photonic computing architecture and technology underpins the world’s biggest photonic computing company. He has published, patented, and spoken widely.
Dr. Rebecca Simmons
Rebecca Simmons is an experienced scale-up operator who is passionate about using science and technology to solve the world’s biggest problems. With a background in medical research, she has successfully scaled a venture-backed quantum computing company (Riverlane) and a healthcare innovation institute (THIS Institute). Rebecca currently works as COO for 52North, a medical technology company on a mission to make urgent care pathways safer and more effective. She is a long-term ambassador for Women in STEM.
Iain Simpson
Iain is Director in the Global Pharma Segment Team at Phillips-Medisize, and part of a global team developing and manufacturing industry leading solutions and platforms for drug delivery, digital medicine and connected health.
He has more than 35-years’ experience in multi-disciplinary technology and product development; the last 25 years have in healthcare and increasingly focused on the use of devices and digital technologies to support better therapeutic delivery, create product differentiation, improve patient engagement and better measure clinical outcomes in the real world.
Iain is also currently chair of the R&D Society, where he is working as part of a team focussing on transformation of the UK research and development sector to support regional and national economic growth, working in collaboration with several key partners.
He has a degree and PhD in Physics, both from University College London and an MBA in Technology Management from the Open University. He has published and presented at conferences on drug delivery, digital biomarkers, healthcare technology and technology strategy. He is an associate lecturer in drug delivery at the University of Cambridge.
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.
Annelise Soulier
Annelise Soulier, co-founder CSO, is a microbiologist and molecular biologist with 15 years' experience in both academic and industry settings. Formerly at Prokarium, with over 7 years’ experience in the engineering and development of bacterial therapeutic products for different disease indications, she’s co-inventor of an oral vaccine against enteric fever tested in clinical trial. In 2021, she co-founded Neobe Therapeutics with Dr Pedro Correa de Sampaio and she designed a synthetic biology platform to engineer first in class live microbial therapeutics to produce extracellular matrix remodelling enzymes only within the solid tumour microenvironment to enable immunotherapies efficacy in non-responders patients.
Kate Spencer
Kate is a communications and marketing professional with a background in financial services and technology. She has been with Northern Gritstone, the investment company and pro-growth experts, for two years, building the communications strategy to support the ‘Northern Arc’ innovation ecosystem in the North of England.
At BNP Paribas’ Corporate and Institutional Bank, she led the division’s marketing communications for sustainable finance. Kate previously worked for the Silicon-Valley headquartered tech start-up Turntide Technologies, where she led communications for the transport electrification division, and for JP Morgan in strategy roles in London and New York.
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/katespencer/
Petrina Anne Steele
Petrina is responsible for shaping Equinix’s Emerging Tech (AI, Quantum & Edge) and Emerging Ecosystems program globally. She spent the last 4 years curating Equinix's global connected, autonomous vehicles and smart transport strategy, including integrating emerging technologies that include IoT, cloud technologies, 5G, AI and complex data sharing. Her global role is focused on new ecosystem discovery and curation, pursuit strategy & customer engagement & on-boarding, which covers research into the application of emerging technologies within industry segments and technology partner alignment.
Bill Thompson
Bill Thompson is the Head of Future Value Research in BBC Research & Development and a member of the advisory team that provides evidence-based assessments of emerging technologies to guide BBC product and technology strategy. He has worked in and around the internet since 1984 and was head of new media for Guardian Newspapers in the mid 1990's. He joined the BBC in 2009 to work as head of partnerships in te archive development team, and was head of partnerships for the Make it Digital initiative before joining R&D. A well-known technology journalist and commentator he appeared on Digital Planet on the BBC World Service from 2001-2023 and writes for a range of newspapers and websites.
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.
Eric Van der Kleij
Eric is Co-Founder and General Partner at EdenBase, a venture investment platform and ecosystem. He is a disruptive tech investor, entrepreneur and one of London’s leading tech ecosystem builders, now leading the charge in quantum by launching QBase, London’s Quantum-AI Centre of Excellence.
Eric previously created and led some of the UK and Switzerland’s most prestigious technology ecosystems and hubs. This includes the world’s leading Fintech hub - Level39, the Fintech vertical of the Kickstart Accelerator for Digital Switzerland, as well as the UK’s groundbreaking Tech City/TechNation initiative, where he was appointed by the former UK Prime Minister to develop the UK tech economy. He was also instrumental in establishing the UK’s leading trade body for fintech - Innovate Finance.
Prior to this he pioneered the UK Governments highly successful Global Entrepreneur Inward Investment Programme, which has attracted over 1,500 startups and $2.5Bn of investment to the UK. Together these initiatives have supported the growth of one third of the UK’s tech unicorns as well as accelerating the UK and international technology ecosystems and economies.
As a Fintech entrepreneur - he previously co-founded and sold Adeptra, a fraud prevention Fintech company which was acquired by FICO in 2012. Eric is passionate about entrepreneurship and for many years served in a voluntary capacity as Honorary Chairman for the UK Government’s Global Entrepreneur Programme Advisory Group, and was a founding volunteer Advisory Board member of Tech London Advocates.
Pim van Baarsen
Award winning marketeer and business leader Pim van Baarsen has been the CEO of the Silverstone Technology Cluster (STC) since its inception in January 2017.
Pim started his career at the Motorsport Industry Association after completing a Masters degree in business studies. During his time there he was presented with the AIM Young Business Person of the Year award for his efforts in helping the organisation grow.
He subsequently joined transmission specialists Xtrac where he oversaw their sportscar activities. After two years there he was invited to join Haymarket as Group Marketing Manager.
In 2010, Pim co-founded CMA Marketing, a marketing agency specialising in technical B2B marketing.
In December 2016 Pim was asked to head up the Silverstone Technology Cluster. He is also part of the Industry Advisory Group set up in January 2021 and is chair of the STC board since 2022.
He sits on the Board for SEMLEP Growth Hub and is a member of the steering group for Central Arc Angels Investment Group, as well as being an advisory board member for Be the Business.
In his spare time, Pim is a keen film enthusiast and is executive producer of the indie production, Wild Bones.
Emilie van der Lande
With a background in law and cybersecurity, Emilie seeks to advance responsible and human-centered innovation. Her areas of focus include digital identity, data privacy, and cyber strategy.
Valentina Vitiello
I’m a research programmes and operations leader with over 15 years’ experience at top academic institutions, specialising in clinical translation, governance, and healthcare engineering. As Head of Clinical Translation and Governance at the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering (King’s College London), I work at the intersection of research, regulation, and real-world impact, driving the adoption of cutting-edge medical technologies into clinical practice.
With a PhD in Medical Robotics from Imperial College London, I bring deep expertise in surgical robotics, medical device regulation, and clinical study governance. I’ve led multi-million-pound research programmes funded by UKRI, NIHR, EPSRC, and the Wellcome Trust, and built strategic partnerships across the NHS, academia, and industry.
Passionate about innovation, inclusion, and mentorship, I actively champion equity in research, co-chair DDI initiatives, and support the next generation through educational outreach and governance roles. My mission is to translate world-class research into technologies that transform healthcare and improve lives.
Georgia Ware
Georgia is the CEO of HotGreen, an industrial heat pump start-up that is outcompeting steam boilers with a green heat solution. She became passionate about industrial heat, and it's enormous climate impact while in her previously role as the Head of Growth and Partnerships at Hexxcell, a hybrid-AI software company focussed on optimising the maintenance processes for industrial heat transfer equipment. She previously led a Healthtech startup as CEO in the early stages of its development in 2020 before it closed in 2021. She started her career in management consultancy, spending 5+ years at Oliver Wyman leaving as a Senior Manager. Georgia has a Masters in Manufacturing Engineering from the University of Cambridge.
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgiaware/
Amy Weatherup
A serial entrepreneur who has held senior sales, marketing and business development roles in both start-ups and multinational companies, Amy has a passion for bringing new technologies to market.
She was co-founder and marketing director of STNC Ltd., the first company in the world to put web browsers onto mobile phones, which was acquired by Microsoft. She was Non-Executive Director at Audio Analytic, the world leader in using AI to identify sounds, until its acquisition by Meta.
She now focuses on the commercialisation of university inventions, and in helping the next generation of entrepreneurs develop their skills through the i-Teams programme (www.iteamsonline.org). This has resulted in over 110 start-ups so far, which have raised over $450m in investment.
Amy is also a Trustee at the Eastern Learning Alliance and the Cambridge Science Centre, a Board member of the Cambridge Angels and an advisor to Martlet Capital, a tech-focused investment fund.
Dr Gwenhivir Wyatt-Moon
Dr Gwenhivir Wyatt-Moon is the CEO and co-founder of Prospectral. Prior to this she worked as a Researcher in Semiconductor Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge and was a fellow at Trinty Hall, Cambridge.
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/gwenhivir/
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.
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwooduk/
Steve Young
Steve Young is Senior Vice President and General Manager for Dell Technologies UK. He has over 20 years of experience guiding organisations through digital transformation. He has worked with Dell’s largest global customers across financial services, telecoms, manufacturing and life sciences. Before leading the UK, he was Global VP of Cloud Partnerships, helping shape Dell’s multi-cloud strategy. Steve is known for a collaborative leadership style and deep expertise in data and cloud innovation. He is also executive sponsor of Dell’s Pride ERG in EMEA. Outside work, he enjoys skiing, golf, Peloton workouts, and is a proud father of three.
Karen Yu
Karen Yu is the President of ITIC, a leading venture capital firm in Taiwan focusing on Deep Tech investments. A former Taiwan Legislator and Director of the Department of Information Technology for the Taoyuan City Government, she has dedicated her career to fostering "Symbiotic" partnerships between global innovation hubs. She is also a Director of TBMC and the founder of Taiwan's first social enterprise, which became the first coffee company in the Chinese-speaking world to achieve Fairtrade certification for its products.
Cambridge Tech Week creates a unique nexus where research meets real-world deployment. As we explore how Deep Tech changes the world, this platform empowers global leaders to bridge the gap between innovation and policy. I am honored to contribute to these vital conversations that will shape our collective future.
Hind Ziane
Hind Ziane is a political strategist, entrepreneur, TV analyst and international speaker from France. After working in American and French politics, she decided to create her own business, Génération Politique, a tech company dedicated to the public sector, in 2018. Hind started her career at the age of 18 when she joined the team of a Barack Obama appointee at the Department of Energy. She worked for more than 3 years with institutions such as the White House, the UNESCO or the House of Representatives and then went on to create her business.
Hind Ziane is an analyst on French and international TV. She speaks on TVabout French and American politics, as well as government and technology. Shewas featured on CNN, the BBC world service, LCI, France 24, France Info, FranceTV and many other national and international TV channels.
Hind has also been a professional speaker since 2020. She spoke about technology and government at the world’s biggest conferences.
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.
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.
Iain Anderson
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 AI, Photonics, and Novel Materials.
She is a Director on several boards including Xampla, who have developed novel plant-based materials to replace single-use plastics; iPronics who are building lossless optical switches for AI networking at the speed of light ; Riverlane a developer of the operating system for error corrected quantum computers; sprout.ai a provider of fast and accurate insurance claims automation and SLAMcore, a spin-out from Imperial College, developing spatial intelligence for autonomous robotics and drones.
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 PwC’s AI and emerging technology leader.
He works closely with colleagues across PwC to identify opportunities to enhance value through the development and deployment of AI and other emerging technologies. This includes client facing solutions, enhancing our existing product suite and creating material efficiency in back office processes.
A key part of his role is to help bridge the gap between business problems and technical solutions, spending time with clients and colleagues across all parts of the firm to help them demystify AI and data science, understand the technological ‘art of the possible’ and recognise the use cases to which it can be applied.
He is also part of the leadership team responsible for developing PwC’s strategy and approach to generative and agentic AI. This includes both harnessing the significant business opportunities these technologies present as well as designing the appropriate governance and controls to ensure safe use.
Prior to his current role, Euan worked as a strategy consultant for 20 years at Strategy& with a specific focus on the application of advanced analytics to complex business problems.
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 Responsible AI and AI Governance, and the author of Governing the Machine – How to navigate the risks of AI and unlock its true potential (forthcoming, Bloomsbury October 2025). He is Senior Adviser for Responsible AI to Accenture and, through Lumyz Advisory, provides independent consulting. Ray is 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. He 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 is a Managing Partner at Silicon Catalyst LLC, the only semiconductor-specific accelerator programme in the industry, based in Silicon Valley. He delivers ChipStart UK, an early-stage incubator for British semiconductor startups funded by the UK government. Prior to ChipStart, Russell had been involved with over 30 hardtech startups, primarily spanning the connectivity and compute sectors. ChipStart has so far added 45 more startup companies to his experience set. Over his 35 years in the sector, he has variously been a founder, investor, adviser, consultant and design engineer in the sector, including at UK startup successes Madge Networks and Element 14. He began this hugely enjoyable journey with a Computer Science degree at Cambridge University.
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 began her career in global technology firms including PIPEX and IBM, progressing through senior marketing and portfolio leadership roles across Europe and international markets.
In 2014, Faye founded cofinitive, an award-winning innovation communications consultancy supporting research-led and high-growth technology businesses. Over more than a decade, she built the firm into a recognised industry leader before its acquisition in 2025. She also established the #21toWatch Awards, one of the East of England’s most prominent platforms celebrating emerging innovation talent.
A recognised contributor to the Cambridge innovation cluster, Faye mentors founders through university entrepreneurship programmes including impulse, serves as Entrepreneur in Residence at Anglia Ruskin University, and co-hosts the Cambridge Tech Podcast. She is regularly named among the UK’s most influential women in technology and is driven by a belief in visibility, collaboration, and turning strategy into action.
Faye leads the delivery The Cambridge x Manchester Partnership - a flagship cross-city collaboration designed to strengthen the UK’s innovation economy. Faye also serves as Chair of the Cambridgeshire Chamber of Commerce, where she provides strategic leadership to support regional competitiveness, skills development, and technology-led growth.
Cambridge is one of the world’s most important science and technology ecosystems, and this year’s Cambridge Tech Week theme places a vital question at the centre of the conversation: how deep tech is reshaping industries, economies and society. It is exactly the kind of discussion that matters to technology companies, governments, and communities alike. I’m delighted to be an ambassador for CamTechWeek and look forward to joining what promises to be an outstanding programme of ideas, insights and connections. I hope to see many of the world’s leading technology thinkers and innovators in Cambridge this September.
- Website:
- www.cambridge-manchester.com
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/fayeholland/
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 is the Founder and Chairman of Cambridge Management Consulting. He is also the Chairman of alternative network provider Lightning Fibre, Chairman of the IoT pollution reduction technology business Iknaia, Co-Founder and Non-Executive Director of sustainability consultancy edenseven, and a Non-Executive Director of The Carrier Club. Tim also 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. 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.
Tim also supports the charity Telecoms Sans Frontieres (TSF), providing first-in communications for disaster relief, where he is a Global Ambassador, and he is a Patron and Trustee of the British Exploring Society (BES).
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 RodrÃguez 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.
What makes Cambridge so special is its collaborative spirit and its ability to turn breakthrough ideas into global impact. Cambridge Tech Week brings that community together, and I’m delighted to support it as an ambassador
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 is Director of Strategy for CORNERSTONE, the world-leading photonics foundry at the University of Southampton. He serves on the UK Government’s Semiconductor Advisory Panel and chairs the UK Semiconductor Expert Working Group. He has given expert advice to the UK Parliament on five occasions, including the National Security and Investment Act, the Telecom Security Act and the select committee on semiconductors. He has also advised the OECD Semiconductor Informal Exchange Network, and is an Advisor to Silicon Catalyst UK.
Andy was the Founder of the Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult, securing a £54m investment from UK Government. He built a high-performance organisation of over 100 professionals; he represented the Catapult during roundtable discussions with the Prime Minister and high-level delegations to Hong Kong, India, Taiwan and the US White House.
Andy holds an Executive MBA from Glasgow University, a research doctorate from Strathclyde University and is a Fellow of the IET.
- Website:
- www.cornerstone.sotonfab.co.uk
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygsellars/
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 CBE 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.
Shuckburgh is a mathematician and Professor of Environmental Data Science at Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology (CST). She 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 (CLR).
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.
Honorary Fellow of the Energy Institute, and Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey, of the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS), and of Darwin College, Cambridge, Emily has also undertaken research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and École Normale Supérieure (ENS). She advises on climate to the UK Government and is 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 in 2016 and a CBE in 2025, for services to science and the public communication of science.
- Website:
- www.cst.cam.ac.uk/people/efs20
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.
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwooduk/
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."