The speakers during the Doing it Right London programme have dedicated their time to assist programme participants to stand out from the crowd, allowing entrepreneurs to enhance their company's ability to attract funding and cultivate invaluable relationships.

Speakers:

Will Ashby, Chief Financial Officer & Commercial Director, Stingray Geophysical Limited
Gil Avery, Co-Founder, Consulting People Ltd.
Catherine Beech, Senior Director, The Sage Group
Karen Berry, RSM Tenon
Chris Blake
David Bloom, Managing Director, fd unlimited
Cedriane de Boucard, Director, Curzon Park Capital
Simone Brummelhuis,Founder and CEO, The Next Women
Sherry Coutu, Angel Investor, Cambridge Angels
Ray Coyle, Solicitor, Osborne Clark
Natalie Diep, Partner, Morrison & Foerster
Maria Dramalioti-Taylor, Founder & Managing Partner, Protos Capital
Matthew Edwards, Associate, Morrison & Foerster
Isabel Fox, Founder, IF Communications
David Gee, Chief Executive Officer, TTP Ventures
Sally Goodsell, Chief Executive Officer, Finance South East
James Gubbins, Partner, Morrison & Foerster
Elaine Haines, FCIM, Consulting Women
James Halstead, Partner, Morrison & Foerster
Iain Henderson, Partner, BDO
Alex Hoye, Chief Executive Officer, Latitude Group
Marilyn Huckerby, Surrey Enterprise Hub Director, SEEDA
Paul Kane, Head of Innovation, BSkyB
Bindi Karia, VC/Emerging Business Lead, Microsoft
Paul Kelly, Interim Finance Director
David Leftley, Head of Venture Capital and Start-ups Europe, Vodafone’s Venture Capital
Emma Loisel
David McMeekin, Chairman, London Technology Fund
Trevor James, Managing Partner, Morrison & Foerster
Gita Patel, Co-Founder, Stargate Capital Management
Melanie Perkins, Lead Manager, The Aspire Fund
Trevor Power, one80
Sarah Ryan, Investor
Mike Sables, Director, RSM Tenon
Tracy Scribner, Investment Manager, MMC Ventures
Anna Sofat, Founder, Addidi
Brad Theobald, Corporate Solicitor, Morrison & Foerster
Andy Tsao, Senior Vice President, SVB Financial Group UK Limited
Dominique Vanlentiny
Jon Vollemaere, Founder and CEO, Vollume
Sharon Vosmek, CEO, Astia
Irene Bejenke Walsh, Managing Director. MessageLab

Bios:

Will Ashby, Chief Financial Officer & Commercial Director, Stingray Geophysical Limited

Will Ashby has 12 years’ experience in the offshore oil industry working for BP, Trade-Ranger and QinetiQ, including asset commercial management, commercial aspects of bringing new oilfield technologies to market, contract strategy, contract negotiation and raising finance.

He has an MA in Geography from Oxford University, UK and ACCA F1 qualification.

Gill Avery, Co-Founder, Consulting People Ltd.

Gill Avery, is co-founder of Consulting People Ltd. (CPL) a niche consultancy which supports organisations in achieving sustainable culture change through implementing strategic projects. CPL’s clients have included PricewaterhouseCoopers, BT, Comet, FTSE, C&W, and Unipart. Together with her husband, she has evolved CPL’s core methodology, the Business Transformation Cycle which facilitates deep change in individuals, teams (Team Dynamics), organisation culture (Double Loop Learning) and business process. She coaches and consults to people leading organisational change and seeking new paths in their lives. Gill has also lectured on transformational change.

Previously, Gill worked for 13 years in BT in many roles including investment appraisal, procurement, marketing and internal consultancy. She was the first woman appointed to the BT Training Board. While at BT she gained her MBA from the London Business School.

Additionally, Gill has studied and taught different forms of movement. She has developed her own movement-based way of helping people transform the patterns that no longer seem to serve them. She draws on this work, experience and methodologies in the Next Level programme.

The essence of Gill’s approach is that she enables people to become more aware of what they do – usually in a work context. Armed with this awareness, she helps people transform what they currently do, in order to achieve new levels of outer success and inner satisfaction. This is a creative process which helps each of us grow into true leadership – leadership which is needed to navigate the many complex new realities we are facing.

She has worked in this way with many women through the Next Level and in other contexts, and has helped them make the transition between different roles and discover and enjoy little known aspects of themselves as they move through their lives.

Gill is married, with two grown-up step children and is the mother of two daughters aged 8 and 11. She knows from experience the issues arising from combining an entrepreneurial life and motherhood.

Catherine Beech, Senior Director, The Sage Group

Dr Catherine Beech M.B., Ch.B. OBE is medically qualified, with degrees from University of Birmingham (UK) Medical School. She has a strong background in early stage venture capital, with multinational pharmaceutical industry experience both in Europe and the USA. She has expertise in founding, growing and exiting biotechnology and life science businesses. Catherine was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s Birthday HonoursHonors in June 2008 for services to innovation and technology. She is a Member of the UK Society of Investment Professionals. Catherine has previously worked as Director for Medical Affairs UK for Farmitalia Carlo Erba and Senior Director Medical Affairs, Europe, for DuPont Pharmaceuticals. Subsequent to this, she was a Founder of the Cambridge Gateway Fund, a UK-based venture capital fund where she led the healthcare team in a number of investments and was an investment adviser approved by the UK Financial Services Authority. She has sat on numerous Boards of early stage healthcare companies. More recently, she was Chief Executive of Aitua, a private investment company specialisingspecializing in the commercialisationcommercialization of intellectual property in the life science sector. She has also served as a Member of the UK Department of Trade and Industry’s Technology Strategy Board.

Karen Berry, RSM Tenon

 

Chris Blake

Christopher Blake graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in Natural Sciences embarked on a career in the publishing industry. He managed educational and professional publishing businesses for Wolters Kluwer, and Thomson and in 1997 he was appointed Managing Director of Elsevier Science Limited.

In 1999 he launched babyworld.co.uk, an internet site for new and expecting parents and quickly became established as the leading UK parenting site. He was a founding Director of Inflexion plc, a new technology investment company, which was floated on AIM in April of that year. Since 2004 Chris has worked with a number of companies in the publishing and internet industries – as investor, fund-raiser, and or non-executive director. Chris also a lecturer and author on management decision making.

Chris is a deep commitment to environmental issues and social enterprise. He is a Director of the award winning environmental publisher Earthscan. He is closely involved in a number social enterprise ventures including Director of The Green Valleys (Wales) cic, Director of Crickhowell Resource and Information Centre, and a Trustee of the Felin Talgarth Mill Project.

David Bloom, Managing Director, fd unlimited

David is the Managing Director of fd unlimited the providers of outsourced financial director services for SMEs. He is an experienced commercial international CFO in media and technology. He has over 20 years experience working with fast growth public and private companies including Getty Images (NYSE: GTY), Glu Mobile (NASDAQ:GLUU), Keystone Software PLC (AiM) and KPMG.

Simone Brummelhuis, Founder and CEO, The Next Women

Simone Brummelhuis worked as a successful lawyer before becoming an entrepreneur by setting up her own B2B publishing company Brummsbooks. Thereafter, as co-owner and managing director IENS, she developed this start-up into the no. 1 user generated content database publisher of restaurant guides in The Netherlands. With the Europeanmuseumguide.com, she intends to do the same. She is in the jury of the Accenture Media Innovation Awards 2008, she presents the internet program SHE (interviews with business women) on Blueshotstv, she is on the UK Advisory Board of Astia.org, supporting women led high-growth companies. She sits on the NCL Committee, and is a frequent speaker through Women.Inc and TheNextSpeaker. She created TheNextWomen after a series she wrote about Female Internet Heroes at thenextweb.org, proved successful.

Cedriane de Boucard, Director, Curzon Park Capital

Cédriane has over 14 years experience in venture capital and corporate finance working in the US, Europe, Russia and Asia working to fund and build businesses with a focus on energy and infrastructure. She has been involved in funding and growth for more than 20 technology companies. Cédriane has been part of the Sustainable Technology Fund from the beginning and assisted with the raising and closing of the fund and was part of the team that spun out into Curzon Park Capital.

Cédriane is on the board of two portfolio companies: Aquapharm and Pyropure

Sherry Coutu, Cambridge Angels

Sherry Coutu invests in early stage companies and serves on the boards of companies, charities and universities. As an entrepreneur, Sherry established and successfully exited two web-services businesses. The first (acquired by Euromoney plc) now has operations in more than 70 countries. The second was floated before being acquired (by AMP plc). Sherry has more than 20 early stage investments in her portfolio and she likes the consumer internet, financial services and clean energy industries. Current company affiliations and investments include Linkedin, Lovefilm, New Energy Finance, CUP, Alertme, Covester, Reevoo, I2O, RM plc, Zoopla, and Summit plc.

Ray Coyle, Solicitor, Osborne Clark

Ray is a solicitor in Osborne Clarke's corporate department and specialises in private equity and venture capital investments, acting both for investors and investee companies.  Ray advises on transactions varying from business angel investments into family run companies to large private equity backed management buyouts.  As part of Osborne Clarke's Energy and Natural Resources team, Ray specialises in advising on investments in clean technology and renewable energy.  Prior to joining Osborne Clarke, Ray was a director of a VC backed Software Company in Rotterdam and subsequently set up and ran a promotional software company in the UK.  Ray is currently seconded to Novusmodus LLP, a Cleantech VC fund, as acting general counsel.

Natalie Diep, Partner, Morrison & Foerester

Natalie Diep is a partner in the London office of Morrison and Foerster and is a member of the Corporate Group.

Ms. Diep advises on a wide range of corporate issues including equity offerings, private placements, IPO's and mergers and acquisitions. Ms. Diep’s practice covers a range of industries although she has a particular expertise in the Life Sciences area.

Ms. Diep’s representative transactions include:

• Acambis plc. Advising Acambis on the £276 million recommended takeover offer by Sanofi-Aventis, implemented by a court approved Scheme of Arrangement.
• Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics. Advising AMT on its IPO on Euronext and related fundraising of €50 million.
• Songbird Estates plc. Advising Songbird Estates (the acquisition vehicle of Morgan Stanley) on its successful £1.6 billion public takeover offer for Canary Wharf Group plc.

Ms. Diep spent a year as Legal Counsel for the Equity Capital Markets department of Lehman Brothers before joining Morrison & Foerster.

Ms. Diep qualified as a solicitor in 1998.

Maria Dramalioti-Taylor, Founder & Managing Partner, Protos Capital

Maria has worked closely with early stage companies through her business angel investments, mentoring work and advisory role with PoCKeT fund. She invested as a business angel in two early stage technology businesses, acting as interim CEO in one and Board Observer in the other. She has mentored five start-ups (two of which were since sold) and served on the steering committee of PoCkeT, a pioneering fund with a portfolio of 50 investments at proof of concept stage. Maria started her career in the family construction business in Greece and continued in Britain with the award of a CBI scholarship in 1995 as an engineer with Thames Water. After her MBA (1996-97) she joined the Ernst & Young Management Consulting practice (now Cap Gemini) and in 2001 joined Andersen (now Deloitte) specialising in business e-enablement. Maria has presented in various conferences & training courses on angel investing & entrepreneurship. Maria has completed the Private Equity & Venture Capital executive course at Harvard Business School.

Matthew Edwards, Morrison & Foerester

Matthew Edwards is an associate in the Corporate Group of the London office of Morrison & Foerster. Mr. Edwards advises on a wide range of matters, including private financings, public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and restructurings. He has particular expertise in advising on deals in the pharmaceutical and life science industries.

Isabel Fox, Founder, IF Communications, IF Communications

Isabel has ten years of experience in financial and corporate communications. In May 2008, she set up IF Communications, an agency purely focused on the venture capital eco-system. Its approach is to know the space and contacts to truly make a difference.

IF Communications is a small PR firm made up of full-time and freelance directors with experience in the technology, mobile and venture capital space. By focusing on a specific area, means the team are experts in the field, attend the global conferences, know all the key people and are on top of the trends. It's simply not possible when supporting clients across many sectors. IF Communications is based in London but with outreach in San Francisco.

Prior to IF Communications, Isabel was a partner at Ballard Associates, where her clients included DFJ Esprit, Atlas Venture, Kreos Capital, Caliburn Capital, Video Island, Index Ventures, Library House, SMART, NESTA, G2i, TLCom, Seatwave, Trutap and Reddington Partners.

Before Ballard Associates, Isabel worked for Cubitt Consulting supporting the corporate communications requirements of professional services firms across Europe. She managed the European PR campaign for Ashurst (Ashurst Morris Crisp), a leading European law firm, across five countries as well as ongoing work for Capco, international financial services company; Marsh Europe, top three insurance company; Liberata, insurance outsourcers and McLeod Phillips, specialist M&A boutique.

Isabel started her career at an investment bank before moving into financial PR, advising clients on IPOs/M&A and investor relations as well as working in the private equity space for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Legal & General Ventures and Barclays Private Equity.

David Gee, Chief  Executive Officer, TTP Ventures

David is CEO of TTP Ventures and manages our investments in Argenta, Azuro, Cambridge Semiconductor and TeraView. David was also a director of Oxford Diffraction, which was acquired by Varian Inc in April 2008 for $37m.

David has over 15 years experience in business development, technology exploitation and venture capital. He began his industrial career at International Automotive Design and subsequently worked at Scientific Generics and ADL.

He has a degree in Physics, a PhD in Theoretical Physics and did three years research in high performance computing.

Sally Goodsell, Chief Executive Officer Finance South East

Sally comes from a background in investment banking, having spent a number of years in corporate and structured lending with major financial institutions in the City. She joined Finance South East in November 2002 and has led the organisation through a period of rapid growth.

James Gubbins, Partner, Morrison & Foerester

James Gubbins is a UK-qualified partner in the London office of Morrison & Foerster.

Mr. Gubbins has more than 18 years of experience in the provision of advice on IPOs and other securities issues, private equity transactions and mergers & acquisitions. His clients include corporates, private equity funds and investment banks. Mr. Gubbins’ practice covers a range of industries.

Mr. Gubbins’ recent transactions include:

• Arrow Therapeutics Ltd. Advising the shareholders of Arrow, a privately owned UK biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of anti-viral therapies, in its $150 million acquisition by AstraZeneca;
• Domantis Ltd. Advising the selling shareholders of Domantis on the $450 million acquisition of Domantis by GlaxoSmithKline plc;
• Hunter Fleming Ltd. Advising the selling management and shareholders of UK biotech company, Hunter Fleming Ltd, in relation to their disposal of the entire issued share capital of Hunter Fleming to Newron Pharmaceuticals SpA;

Mr. Gubbins spent a number of years with Clifford Chance and joined Morrison & Foerster in 2005 from the London office of Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

Elaine Haines, Executive Director, Consulting Women

Elaine Haines, is an experienced executive director having held a range of business development and commercial roles with both global corporate and start-up technology businesses in the UK. She provides mentoring and consultancy to business founders and MBA students drawing on 22 years working in business development positions.

James Halstead, Partner, Morrison & Foerester

James Halstead advises on a range of corporate transactions including mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, private financings and restructurings, and has extensive transactional experience including in relation to technology transfer arrangements, intellectual property pipeline arrangements, joint ventures and other commercial transactions.

Mr. Halstead acts for companies at all stages of development, investors and management teams.

Iain Henderson, Partner, BDO

 

Alex Hoye, Chief Executive Officer, Latitude Group

neurial background as founder, executive, NED and investor, matching institutional global experience with bootstrap grit.

Since 2006 Alex has been encouraged by and encouraging the wave of entrepreneurial inspiration capturing Europe and is an angel investor and mentor in technology, retail and internet-based projects.

In addition to Seedcamp, where he is on the board, other investments include: Skimlinks (chairman), MyBuilder, RentMineOnline, Faction (chairman), UserVoice and GoMix, and Brave New Talent (chairman).  He also acts as an advisor to private equity firm Vitruvian Partners, a €0.9B private equity fund focused on technology, media and telecommunications and is a member of Cambridge Angels. 

As CEO of private equity-backed Latitude, one of Europe’s largest digital marketing agencies, he is driving industry change in marketing focused on customer conversion.  Latitude runs campaigns in 57 countries using search, display and affiliate marketing and is on the leading edge of the cross channel advertising.

In 1999, Alex co-founded online industrial auction company GoIndustry plc in Europe, which he and his partners built from the proverbial napkin into a 17-country global leader in online industrial auctions.  He and the team took it public in London where it was valued at over $100M. 

Alex learned the media and finance ropes at Disney where he was the project lead for the launch of a division and learned the tools of finance and M&A as applied to traditional media business models including terrestrial and satellite broadcasting, and film.  Alex perceived the power of online models for media while at Harvard Business School in 1994 and thereafter as a management consultant for McKinsey & Co. working with newspaper, television and music companies migrating to the digital medium. 

Alex has worked and lived in the UK, Germany, the US and Latin America and speaks the respective languages to varying degrees.   Ever the entrepreneur, after participating with the Oxford Wine Team during a stint there, he co-founded the wine clubs while obtaining his BA from Stanford and MBA from Harvard.

Outside of his hectic schedule, Alex enjoys skiing, kite surfing and running.

Marilyn Huckerby, Surrey Enterprise Hub Director, SEEDA

The South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), is the Regional Development Agency responsible for the sustainable economic development of the South East of England - the driving force of the UK's economy. The SEEDA region includes Kent, Sussex, Surrey, the Isle of Wight, Hampshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire & Milton Keynes.

As Head of Innovation and Business Finance at SEEDA Marilyn and her team are currently responsible for:
• The development of the South East Business Innovation and Growth Teams - a business support network for high growth potential businesses in the region. The network comprises of eight Innovation and Growth Teams that are located in places across the region where high growth business are clustered and the drivers of innovation are present.  
• The delivery of Knowledge Transfer and Collaborative R&D programmes which are aimed at connecting businesses to the world class knowledge base in the region in order to commercialise new ideas.
• The development of a funding escalator to provide access to appropriate forms of grants and finance for businesses with innovative ideas and significant growth potential.

Trevor James, Managing Partner, Morrison & Foerester

Trevor James is managing partner of the London office where he provides corporate and international tax advice. His clients include international banks, public and private companies, venture capital houses and high-net-worth individuals and he has sector-focused experience in advising technology, healthcare, media and communication companies.

Mr. James has particular expertise advising on the tax aspects of private equity and M&A transactions. He has advised private equity houses on the design and implementation of tax-efficient private equity fund structure and the tax-efficient investment in MBOs, MBIs, secondary buyouts and venture capital financing (from early stage to pre-IPO funding). He also has advised a number of public and private companies on the planning and implementation of domestic and cross-border acquisitions and disposals.

Mr. James has acted for a number of "IP rich" companies on the structuring and international exploitation of their IP assets, with the key objective of reducing the group's worldwide tax rate. He also advises a number of multinational companies on domestic and international tax issues, ranging from UK corporation tax planning, transfer pricing and controlled foreign companies matters.

Mr. James has advised both banks and corporates in connection with the design and implementation of financial and structured products, including mortgage, royalty and receivable securitizations transactions and covered bonds transactions. He has also advised on a number of tax-based structured products and on medium-term note programmes and other cross-border debt securities offerings.

Mr. James advises companies in connection with employee equity participation issues, including advising on HM Revenue & Customs approved share option schemes, unapproved option schemes, long term incentive plans and direct issue of shares to employers and directors.

Paul Kane, Head of Innovation, BSkyB

Paul Kane is Head of Innovation at BSkyB where he leads a team delivering innovative new products and services for Sky. Working closely with the business development team, product managers and content owners; the Innovations team build prototypes and proof of concepts showcasing new and innovative products, tools and services for our customers.

Paul is passionate about emerging technologies and how they can be used to deliver compelling, engaging and exciting entertainment experiences to consumers. Previously Paul has held lead technical positions at AOL UK, Orange SA and Chello Media and has broad technical experience in web, mobile and STB technologies.

Bindi Karia, VC/Emerging Business Lead, Microsoft

Bindi is the VC/Emerging Business lead for Microsoft UK and is the UK-based member of the Emerging Business Team. She is responsible for managing the BizSpark and BizSpark One Programmes in the UK, where she focuses on how Microsoft can drive success for leading edge and early-stage technology companies. She is also responsible for managing the relationships with the UK Investor Community, including Venture Capitalist, Angels and other Investor Organisations. Her previous role at Microsoft was as a Business Productivity Advisor, where she was responsible for managing relationships with the most influential business decision-makers in the UK Financial Services Sector. She worked closely with this audience to ignite enthusiasm and to deliver on the benefits and business value of investing in the latest Information Worker related technologies by highlighting the importance of ‘worker productivity’, from the CEO to the call centre, as critical to ongoing business success. Prior to Microsoft, Bindi worked as an Associate Director in Interregnum, a UK-based Technology Merchant Bank; as Business Development Manager at Trayport Ltd, a highly successful commodities trading technology start-up; as a Strategy Management Consultant at PwC Consulting; and as a Senior Business Analyst at Datamonitor.  Bindi has recently been named to the Wired UK 2010 Top 100 Digital Power Broker list (Position #42), and had also been shortlisted for the Asian Business Woman of the Year in the 2010 Asian Women of Achievement Awards (winner tba May 2010)   Having grown up in Western Canada , Bindi now lives in London, and her hobbies include competing in Adventure Races such as the Microsoft UK Challenge, running marathons/duathlons, and skiing. She also enjoys the vibrant life of a Londoner, and can be seen checking out the latest restaurants or live gigs which make this city a great place to live.

Paul Kelly, Interim Finance Director

Paul trained as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Young, where he gained experience of a wide range of businesses, with a bias towards the technology sector. He also gained experience of what happens when the cash runs out, with the insolvency department. Since leaving Ernst & Young he has spent over fifteen years in interim management roles, typically lasting three to nine months, but in some cases for over two years. These roles are usually as Finance Director, or in some cases as Chief Executive, and are often part time. He has worked in such diverse industries as technology (hardware and software), publishing, online marketing, textile recycling and a hospice.

He specialises in smaller companies, and has worked with a number of start-ups and early stage businesses, including being part of the initial team. He therefore has hands on experience of the strains such businesses go through.

 

David Leftley, Head of Venture Capital and Start-ups Europe, Vodafone’s Venture Capital

David is responsible for leading Vodafone’s Venture Capital activities in Europe. He was recently named in Wired’s top 100 Influencers list for 2010. David joined Vodafone in 1998 to lead the evaluation and introduction of 3G and has since influenced a multitude of key strategic initiatives and investments ranging from fixed mobile convergence to mobile health. Over his career, David has held a multitude of technical and commercial positions from design engineer to GM and CTO, in start-ups and PLCs in the Communications, TV Film and Defense electronics sectors, in both the UK and the US.  David holds an Honours degree in Electrical Engineering.

Emma Loisel

Emma is an experienced Non-Executive Director and Investor in high growth ventures. Her management expertise spans business leadership and strategy, risk management and security, marketing (particularly online) and sales, plus general business operations and efficiency management. Emma’s investment experience includes deal due diligence, risk analysis, deal structuring, exit strategy and completion. She has a broad range on industry experience spanning technology sectors (online media and medical imaging markets), online retailing and content generation, product development in the baby market, plus the consulting services sector.

Emma began her career as a Criminologist before moving to the City as the Business Manager of KPMG Consulting UK, followed by Chief Operations Officer of Metrius, a Creative Consulting agency start-up under the KPMG umbrella. In 2003 Emma became the Chief Operations Officer and General Manager of two internet based businesses, Atlas Europe and Mediabrokers which she scaled and prepared for sale to aQuantive LLC. Under her management and a two year earn-out, the businesses achieved maximum value (£28 million) at exit.

David McMeekin, London Technology Fund

David is Chairman of Company Guides Venture Partners, which manages the London Technology Fund (LTF), London’s specialist investor in new technology companies. LTF has to date made 20 investments in eight companies, acting as a key investor to help secure over £23m of equity funding for London-based high technology companies. He was also founder Chairman of the largest of the government's Regional Venture Capital Funds, The Capital Fund, from which he retired after six years following the acquisition of the fund management company in 2008. The Capital Fund has made over 100 investments in more than 70 companies and has now ceased making new investments. David was previously head of corporate finance at the stockbroker Greenwell Montagu before joining its parent, Midland Bank (subsequently HSBC), as head of corporate finance. At HSBC he established and chaired an in-house venture capital fund and helped to establish 11 regional venture capital funds on behalf of the Finance for Enterprise initiative by the Prince of Wales. He has over 30 years experience in corporate finance and investment, encompassing stockbroking, banking and venture capital. He has led an enquiry for the DTI and served as a member of the Financial Services Panel of the OST’s Foresight Programme and on the Membership & Authorisation Committee of the Insolvency Practitioners Association.

Gita Patel, Co-Founder, Stargate Capital Management

An active business angel, Gita has held senior positions at NatWest, Arthur Andersen and Gulf Oil before co-founding StarGate. She created the Trapezia funds to invest in women focused businesses and is a fund manager of the Trapezia funds. Gita was identified among the most influential Asians in the 2005 Power 100, and her selection as a finalist for the 2007 Credit Suisse Award for the Outstanding Woman in Business (National Business Awards) further underscored her contribution to the entrepreneurial community. Gita serves on the London Chamber of Commerce ABA Board, the Institute of Chartered Accountants' "Narrowing the Gap" Steering Committee, the board of the British Association of Women Entrepreneurs (BAWE), as a governor of the University of Bedfordshire, and as a director of a number of private companies. Gita has employed her City background to help create a business environment in which entrepreneurship can flourish. Indeed, she is seen as an expert leading change in the women’s market and is frequently approached by various decision-makers for her insights.

Melanie Perkins, Senior Investment Manager, The Aspire Fund

Melanie joined Capital for Enterprise in 2009 to assist the Equity Team with the setup and management of The Aspire Fund.

Melanie originally trained with 3i where she was responsible for investing in a wide range of business situations including management buyouts, start ups and growth capital and managing a portfolio of significant investments. As part 3i’s initiative to move away from investment in smaller companies, Melanie led a specialist portfolio team, based in the Midlands, to actively manage the ‘legacy’ investments and negotiate exits.

Melanie also has experience as a non executive director, on corporate finance work, and as a consultant working with other venture capital organisations, including running a business angel scheme in the North West.

Melanie holds an MA in physics.

Trevor Power

Trevor Power served as Programme Manager for the TX1 London Taxi. Following the TX1 launch in 1997, Mr. Power took on a business development brief within the Manganese Bronze Holdings Group, which led to him create Zingo as a new business within the group. Following the launch of Zingo, he moved to Federated Trust Corporation, where he applied his interest in new ventures and mobile phone technology to the creation of a small early stage technology fund. Mr. Power currently holds a number of non-executive roles in low emission vehicle and mobile data related companies. He has an engineering degree from Imperial College and an MBA from Warwick Business School.

Sarah Ryan, Investor

Sarah Ryan is a private equity investor focused on micro-enterprises in the UK. She was formerly a Director of Strategy and Business Development at LexisNexis International and Thomson Financial, where she focused on market expansion and acquisition opportunities in Europe and Asia. Prior that, she was an M&A investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Sarah holds an MBA with honours from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Economics from Duke University

Mike Sables, Director, RSM Tenon

Mike heads the Outsourcing division at Windsor, with over 40 people delivering to predominantly internationally owned / venture-finance backed companies, many of them publicly listed.

Mike qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1997 and was part of the second firm acquired by RSM Tenon in 2000. Previously in Audit, Mike has been in Outsourcing since 1999 and has extensive experience in taking over accounting functions from internal/external providers and introducing procedures to improve reporting functions. Services range from payroll to a full back-office function where all processing and payments are taken on and result in the production of regular management accounts.

Tracy Scribner, Investment Manager, MMC Ventures

Tracy joined MMC in 2008 as an Investment Manager. Prior to this, she worked in Equity Capital Markets at Rothschild. Tracy has a degree in Maths from Balliol College, Oxford.

Anna Sofat, Founder, Addidi

Anna has a wealth of experience in the independent financial advice arena. In 2006, she founded Addidi to provide financial planning and lifestyle wealth management for women and to ensure that wealth is utilised as a tool of inspiration in the lives of its clients. In keeping with its meaning (Addidi means to inspire in Latin), Addidi has set up an investment club, Addidi Angels, to provides access to business angel investing and Kitaz, its fun angel. Anna graduated from Hull University and has a Masters Degree from London School of Economics. She is also an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, gained her Advanced Financial Planning Certificate in 2005 and Certified Financial Planning certification in 2007. As well as advising private clients on their wealth, Anna contributes to national press and TV. As Anna says “Wealth and its role in our lives has never been so relevant and I am proud of the work we do within Addidi to ensure we add value to our clients lives”.

Brad Theobald, Corporate Solicitor, Morrison & Foerester

Bradley Theobald is a corporate solicitor with particular expertise in the field of mergers and acquisitions and corporate fundraising (both debt and equity) for a wide range of clients, both public and private. This practice has involved acting for clients from a wide variety of commercial sectors (from heavy industry to retail); he has placed a particular emphasis upon clients from the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and life sciences sector from 2000 onward.

In this regard, Mr. Theobald has built a significant reputation for being able to successfully conclude deals on behalf of clients in a pragmatic and amicable manner, securing both the transaction in question and the relationship between the parties moving forward.

The significant number of transactions within the life sciences sector upon which Mr. Theobald has acted have provided him with a well-developed and regarded knowledge of market practices and client needs within the sector, particularly in terms of acting for venture-backed research companies from their earliest stages and formation through their complete lifecycle.

In addition, Mr. Theobald serves as the pro bono coordinator for the London office of Morrison & Foerster, coordinating the firm's efforts and contribution to pro bono work within the United Kingdom.

Andy Tsao, Senior Vice President, SVB Financial Group UK Limited

Andy Tsao is a senior vice president with SVB Financial Group UK Limited, a subsidiary of SVB Financial Group that provides financial services, specifically debt financing, to U.K.-based high-growth technology companies and private equity firms. SVB FG UK is part of SVB Global, which provides business and consulting services to technology and private equity firms around the world from its offices in the U.K., India and China.

In this role, Tsao is responsible for building senior debt relationships with high growth technology companies in the United Kingdom. Tsao manages a portfolio of software and services companies from the seed stage through maturity. Tsao routinely speaks about technology and venture financing at conferences such as EVCA, Red Herring Venture Market and World Financial Symposium.

Prior to his role in the U.K., Tsao was a senior vice president in Silicon Valley Bank’s Boston office, where he served as a technology lender and senior relationship manager focusing on the technology industry since 1997.

While is Boston, Tsao was on the membership committee of the Massachusetts Software and Internet Council, and was awarded Best Banker by Boston Digital Industry in 2001. He chaired and moderated Silicon Valley Bank’s quarterly CEO Dinner Group in Boston, and was an organizer of the “Critical Success Factor” series.

Prior to joining the company, Tsao was a technology lender at BankBoston, and BayBank in Burlington, Mass. He began his banking career with USTrust in Boston in 1988

Tsao earned a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University and an MBA from Boston University.

Dominique Vanlentiny

Dominique Valentiny has 20 year of experience in the IT&T industry.

She began her career with France Telecom where she held various management positions in technical, commercial and marketing roles, her last position being VP Sales and Marketing for the international mobile division, Orange International. In 2001 she joined Aéroports de Paris Group to launch and manage an independent telecom service provider, Hub Télécom, serving the transport, freight and logistic sectors. She implemented a successful B to B business model with a strong expertise in mobility and grew the business to €80million in 2007

Since retiring as CEO of Hub Télécom early 2008, she has been an active Business Angel in the Technology industry.

Dominique Valentiny graduated from Ecole Polytechnique and Telecom ParisTech and holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School.

Jon Vollemaere, Founder and CEO, Vollume

Many new technology companies have a great new innovation but struggle to find a market for it or cannot afford the top quality Sales and Marketing resources they need to close those early deals. Alternatively, established firms would like to expand outside their home market, but cannot justify the cost of a foreign office without having the clients first.

Vollume fills that gap by providing outsourced business development. Through our vast experience, global contacts and advisors we help get those early adopter customers, with very little risk. New Technology can often solve the business problem in many countries, but you need a local presence.

Throughout his career, Jon has been successful in expanding new business Ideas into greenfield regions across the World. He has sold and managed a wide variety of technology solutions ranging from highly complex Enterprise Software to GUI design. From Online Content to serving the specific demands of on-line Financial Markets trading and Exchanges. Jon holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Auckland University, NZ is AFMA accredited, holds certificates in both Foreign Exchange and International Finance Markets and in Film Studies from New York University.

Sharon Vosmek, CEO, Astia

Sharon Vosmek became Astia’s CEO in 2007 after serving as its COO since 2004 and as a community member since 2002. Sharon has greatly increased the number of advisors, sponsors, thought-leaders, and entrepreneurs that make up the Astia community. She has also launched Astia’s programs in New York and Europe, making Astia an international organization.

Before joining Astia, Sharon was a management consultant, an executive at American Express and an aide to United States Senator Dennis DeConcini.

Sharon currently serves on the Board of Directors for the YMCA of San Francisco, on the Advisory Board of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs & Executives, and as co-chair of the Entrepreneurial Alliance for the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). In the recent past she has served on the boards of the Level Playing Field Institute, Food First: The Institute for Food & Development Policy, and Global Exchange.

Irene Bejenke Walsh, Managing Director, MessageLab

Irene Bejenke Walsh has worked in management training for well over a decade and founded MessageLab in the year 2000.Through her previous career as a business journalist for The Wall Street Journal and CNBC and subsequently in corporate communications with global PR agency Hill & Knowlton, she combines in-depth knowledge of corporate issues with extensive media and presentation experience.
Irene specialises in presentation and media training, investor communications as well as trust coaching and crisis communications. She has coached a vast number of senior executives in preparation for all types of communications challenges: from speaking at industry conferences to conducting IPO roadshows, analyst presentations, shareholder meetings, press conferences as well as sales presentations. One of Irene’s special areas of expertise is the “investor pitch”: preparing management teams in fundraising mode for both public offerings and raising private equity. Her strength lies in helping clients to create rapport and trust with their audiences.

Her clients include Fortune 500 companies such as British Telecom, Motorola, Oracle, Kodak, ABN AMRO, Astra Zeneca, PwC and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. Irene has also helped many early-stage businesses and SMEs across various sectors to raise finance. Over the last seven years, she has trained over 300 entrepreneurs pitching to London Business Angels (part of GLE) for funding and also worked extensively with Venture Capital Funds and early-stage investment organisations such as NESTA and The London Technology Fund. Irene also moderated the first two national Award Ceremonies for the British Business Angel Association (BBAA).

Her work has taken her to most Western European markets as well as the Emerging Markets of Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In 2006, she coached the management team of Russian steel giant Severstal prior to its successful £1.5 billion listing on the London Stock Exchange.
Irene still enjoys writing and has recently penned an article for Swiss HR Magazine “HR Today”. She is bilingual in English and German.